Evernote 4 iPhone / iPod touch app starts with a clean slate

With most of the iOS app updates that we see here at TUAW, UI changes are minor, and the feature changes are usually evolutionary in nature. That's why we were sort of surprised with the changes in the iPhone / iPod touch client for Evernote that were just announced.

Evernote 4 started with a clean slate and totally changes the way the program looks and operates. The original app was launched on the same day as the App Store itself, making Evernote one of the oldest iPhone apps around. According to a blog post on the Evernote site, which details the changes that were made to the app, the team learned over the years that users wanted several things: faster access, easier creation of notes, better browsing and more ways of finding what they've stored in Evernote.

The new app appears to fit all of these user requirements. To start with, Evernote 4 opens by displaying your notes list in Snippet View (at right); if a note is text-only, you just see the title and a bit of the text. If it contains an image, you'll get a slice of the image to view. Not surprisingly, if it contains a mix of text and images, you'll see the title, some text and a thumbnail image.

One of the huge changes is in how you can create a new note. When you tap the big plus button in the center of the Evernote 4 button bar (below),a split screen appears. The top is where you will enter text, while the bottom includes buttons for attaching images, recording up to 90 minutes of audio, assigning notebooks or tags and setting your location. Multiple items can be attached to one note, so if I were car shopping (for example), I could have notes about the features of the car, add snapshots of the interior, exterior and sales tag, and I could record my conversation with the car dealer, then tag it at the car dealer's location.

Adding an audio recording is now as simple as tapping once to start a recording, then tapping again to stop and attach it to the note. Tapping a third time starts another recording that is saved as a second attachment.

You can now browse by notebook or tag, and there are also Resource Views (below) that relate to images, attachments or maps and will help you remember what the heck you're looking for. The app, as usual, is free. An iPad version with many of the same UI improvements is in the works.