NoteShare
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Note & Share for iOS: Markdown, Dropbox, Evernote, and more
With the tide of plain text editors showing up in the app store, I'm getting a little soggy, and I know you might be, too. However, I have another one for your consideration: Note & Share (for both iPhone and iPad) adds some unique features to the standard mix, primarily from the "Share" half of the name. First, like the recently-covered iPad app Edito, Note & Share supports Markdown and can render it for some of its output options, which include syncing the rendered HTML output to Evernote or sending it by email. The Evernote sync is of interest to me as an Evernote fan, but so is the Dropbox sync that it provides. Dropbox -- which is quickly taking the lead as the preferred method for both syncing and sharing -- works superbly for text files because, among other reasons, they end up fully-indexed in Spotlight on your Mac. Note & Share can also send to Twitter or Plurk and save to its own database. Of interest to Japanese users is its support for ATOK, a fast Japanese input method, to which it can send files and then retrieve them after editing. It also has a bookmarklet for Mobile Safari that will send a shortened URL to your document for linking. The app lacks the super-handy, extra Markdown toolbar of Edito, but its developers tell me that they're exploring the possibilities there. Beyond that, the Markdown support is great. The sharing options only show buttons if you have them enabled, so your interface only contains what you need, not a bunch of grayed-out options. At US$1.99, it looks like a great option for handling your iPad (and iPhone) text editing, especially if your notes need to go to more than one place. Give it a shot if you haven't already nailed down your editor of choice.
AquaMinds NoteShare 1.0
AquaMinds, makers of the popular NoteTaker, has released NoteShare 1.0, a "powerful desktop application for creating, publishing and sharing media rich, multi-page notebooks." NoteShare allows you to "instantly" share a notebook for presentation or collaborative editing across a room, a network or even the web. Interestingly, their product page states that you don't even need hosting space in order to publish and share a notebook.While NoteShare sounds like an interesting product for its target users, AquaMinds is a little slim on details as to whether NoteShare represents a new level of note taking and rich media abilities above and beyond their NoteTaker product. However, since NoteTaker sells for $70 and NoteShare is priced at $150 for a 3-machine license, I'd bet the premium price is all about that collaborative ability, rather than some fancy new note taking features. If all this notebook sharing business has your interest piqued, AquaMinds offers a 30-day NoteShare trial; just follow the link on the right here.
