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Google Keep is finally adding version history
Google Keep is rolling out a long-overdue version history tool, which could save you having to manually retype text if you make a mistake.
Evernote’s completely redesigned iOS app arrives today
Evernote's rebuilt iOS app launches today.
Here's everything Samsung announced at its Unpacked 2020 event
Here are all of the highlights from today's Samsung Unpacked event.
Google Assistant will place Dunkin' Donuts orders, finally
Google just added a handful of voice control features to Google Assistant. You can now manage notes and lists in select third-party apps, ask Assistant to search your photos, search for podcasts by topic and set reminders for the whole family. You can also place Dunkin' Donuts orders -- just what everyone was hoping for.
Google Assistant may soon have a web app for lists and notes
Google Assistant might soon have its own list- and note-taking functions instead of leaning on third-party apps. The 9to5Google team has sifted through the Google search app's code to discover an unannounced "Lists and Notes" web app for Assistant that lets you jot down important information to sync across devices. It's extremely basic (you can't do much more than add titles), but there's a degree of polish that suggests it's not just an experiment.
Moleskine's smart notebook will work with Microsoft Office
Microsoft has long sold its Surface devices on the idea that they can double as digital notebooks; laptops one minute, journals the next thanks to their detachable displays and styli. (Heck, the Surface Book has a "Clipboard" mode.) With today's Moleskine partnership, however, the company seems ready to admit that some people still prefer paper and pen. The pair have announced a Windows 10 app for Moleskine's 'Smart Writing System,' a quill (based on the Kickstarter-funded Neo smartpen) with a tiny camera that tracks your scribbles on specially marked paper. A digital version of the note is then transferred over Bluetooth for easy reference and sharing.
Moleskine planner syncs your handwritten schedule with the cloud
As helpful as online calendars can be, it's hard to give up the satisfying feel of jotting down appointments in an old-school planner. Wouldn't it be nice if you could use a pen and paper while still having all the benefits of the internet era? Moleskine sure thinks so. The company is expanding its connected writing sets with the Smart Planner, which syncs your hand-written schedule entries with Google Calendar and services that tie into it, such as Apple's iCloud and Microsoft Outlook. It combines a Neo Smartpen with sensor-laden paper to send your meetings to the appropriate sections of the calendar -- so long as you scribble the time and subject, you can check it later on your phone or PC.
Dropbox Paper's newest features cater to designers
Dropbox Paper originally seemed like a Google Docs clone built for the big businesses that have been an increasingly large focus for the cloud sync-and-share company. But two years since its initial introduction, Paper's ability to embed and display a huge variety of content (including images, Google spreadsheets, data from Github YouTube videos, Spotify playlists and plain old code) has helped it carve out niches in a variety of businesses.
Popular iOS notes app Bear adds sketching (and stickers)
Bear, a fast, lightweight and lovely note-taking app for iOS and the Mac, has been building a following over the past year or so. The app's excellent design, small but essential feature set and steady stream of updates have made it worth its subscription cost ($14.99 per year or $1.49 per month, though you can get most of its features for free). Today, a pretty major update is rolling out to the iOS app: Bear now supports sketching. In keeping with Bear's focus on essentials, the sketching feature includes two different brushes, each with three different widths and a variety of colors.
Evernote defends access to your notes in its new privacy policy
Evernote raised hackles when it revealed a new privacy policy that would let it read your notes in certain circumstances, but it's not backing down. In a defense of the upcoming rules, Evernote's Chris O'Neill stresses that the company will anonymize any notes it reads when checking on its machine learning system. Human observers won't know who created the content, and the machine will automatically hide what personal info it recognizes. In other words, it's trusting that its scrubbing process will keep your data safe. And of course, you can decline to offer your data for this purpose in the first place.
Evernote fixes bug that could wreck your Mac's notes
If you use Evernote for Mac to organize your life, you'll want to update the app as soon as you can. The note-taking and sharing service is telling macOS users that it has fixed an app bug that would delete images and other attachments. In some cases, you could trigger it just by flicking through a large number of notes too quickly. Text itself should be fine, although that's not much help if the pictures were crucial to your notes.
Moleskine's latest pen and notebook instantly digitize scribbles
Moleskine's sketchbooks and pads have been a top choice for doodlers and notetakers for quite some time. The company also dabbled in the gadget world, including co-branded products with Adobe, Livescribe and Evernote that digitize physical drawings and notes with ease. That same idea is carried over in Moleskine's latest product: The Smart Writing Set. The setup is comprised of a paper notebook (or Paper Tablet as the company calls it), the aluminum Pen+ and a mobile app. All three of those pieces work together to instantly digitize any notes and illustrations made on paper so that they can be easily edited with software on a phone, tablet or computer.
Apple iOS 9.3 update available today with 'Night Shift'
During its "Loop You In" event, Apple announced that iOS 9.3 will be available to all starting today, following a preview for developers. The new version of the operating system adds the color-temperature-changing Night Shift, along with Touch ID and password support for the Notes app. The News application also got some love with trending topics. Lastly, CarPlay has been updated with better Maps and an easier way to select music.
Microsoft's OneNote tool imports all your Evernote content
With Evernote having a tough time of it lately, Microsoft is trying to swoop in with OneNote. It's just released the OneNote Importer tool that will make it easy for folks to transfer all their Evernote data to its own ecosystem. To use it, you'll need a PC with at least Windows 7 installed (and preferably Evernote for Windows), so it's not an option for mobile or Mac-only users, at least for now. If you have multiple devices, however, any notes you import will be synced on Mac, Android and iOS.
Dear Veronica: Smartphone life expectancy
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-970240{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-970240, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-970240{width:100%;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-970240").style.display="none";}catch(e){} If we weren't all obsessed with getting the "Next Big Thing" all the time, how long would that smartphone of yours actually last? To help answer this question, we turn to Engadget Senior Mobile Editor, Nicole Lee! Also, do you love taking notes? Are you a hand-written person, or more comfortable typing? One of these makes you smarter, but you'll have to watch to figure out which one! As always, keep sending those questions in using the hashtag #DearVeronica! Subscribe in iTunes, RSS or YouTube!
Paper is Dropbox's new vision for how teams can work together
Six months ago, Dropbox quietly announced a collaborative note-taking tool called Notes and launched it in an invite-only beta test. But starting today, the product is being officially branded as Dropbox Paper and the beta test is expanding significantly. You'll still need an invite, but the company gave us a preview of what's probably the biggest addition to Dropbox in years. It's far too early to tell if Paper will be able to keep up with entrenched tools from Google, Microsoft and many others -- but there are definitely some interesting features here that make it worth keeping an eye on.
Now anybody can be a blogger using Facebook Notes
Facebook announced a host of changes to its Notes feature on Friday. Notes originally appeared on the site as a means for users to write extended entries (not unlike Engadget's own Public Access) though it never really caught on with the user base. However, the update transforms Notes into a tiny CMS within the Facebook ecosystem. Changes include the ability to add cover art, caption images, resize inline photos and format text.
Paper's new iPhone app can replace your Moleskine
Even without an official iPad stylus (until yesterday, that is), FiftyThree's Paper for the iPad was one of the best apps out there for showing just how good Apple's tablet was for creating beautiful artwork, either with your finger or the company's Pencil accessory. The app has changed over the years, but its focus has remained on sketches and drawings collected together in different virtual notebooks, but today FiftyThree is shaking things up significantly with the launch of Paper 3.0. The update features both a change in focus and a change in platform. The latter is easy enough to explain: for the first time, Paper is a universal app that'll work with your iPhone as well as your iPad.
Microsoft Snip annotates screenshots with voice notes and scribbles
Screenshots come in handy when offering feedback and comments on any number of things. To lend a hand with that process, Microsoft has a new app for Windows that's up to the task. The software is called Snip, and in addition to capturing parts of your screen to share among your friends and colleagues, the app also lets you mark up the snaps. With both voice notes and stylus scribbles, Snip gives you two options for getting that point across. When you're done, you can paste the image into another app (they're copied to the clipboard by default), distribute it as a web link or save it to your device as a video (MP4). When you lend your voice to the captures, the app automatically turns them into videos. And yes, they can be embedded on the web should the need arise. If you're looking to give it a go, the app is available in beta form now from the source link below.
Facebook's redesigned Notes is easier on the eyes
Remember Facebook Notes? Yeah, I barely do. Well, it looks like the social network is planning to dust off the tool and give it a better looking layout. Some users are seeing a new version of Notes that not only employs better typography and a more readable design, but has space for a nice big image up top. The changes make Notes look more like an actual blog and less like a regular Facebook post that just contains a load of text. These tweaks that give it an up-to-date appearance similar to Medium and others. Speaking of Medium, Facebook hired the designers who helped create that platform earlier this year, so perhaps this is what Zuckerberg & Co. had in mind for that team. A few of us here at Engadget HQ are still rocking the old look, and there hasn't been official word as to when the latest will roll out to everyone. Revamped Notes could still be in the test phase, but we expect Menlo Park will make an announcement when it's ready for prime time.
