Description

At the moment there are a fair few different notepad applications on the Android Market, only a few of which actually stand out. While most apps can help users create checklists or store notes they have created locally on thier smartphone. However some of the more successful notepad apps take it a step further by providing a cloud service with their app. Thus allowing users to save their notepad app data externally via the Internet, making it possible to access their data from any smartphone, tablet or computer with the application. Two of the top notepad apps that do this is Evernote and Springpad. Today we will be taking a closer look at Springpad.

Functions & Design

To use Springpad you will first have to create an account, or, you can login through one of  an existing Facebook, Yahoo!, Twitter or Google account, if you have one fo course. Once registration is complete you can jump straight in and start creating notes. Once starting up the application you will come to the homescreen of the app. Here you will find four buttons which are My Stuff, Friends Stuff, My First Notebook and a button with a plus sign on it.

My stuff shows you all the notes you have created, which is sorted by when it was created by default. Users can though change the sort order by tapping the menu button. You can also tap the on the My Stuff title at the top of the screen and all of your bits and pieces will be sorted into different categories such as notes or movies etc.. Through the Friends Stuff button found on the homescreen of the app, users will find find a list of things other people find interesting and much like the My Stuff section, here users can select different sort orders and view the different categories.

The last two icons on the homescreen are the My First Notebook icon and the icon with the plus sign. As it suggests the My First Notebook is a default notebook that Springpad creates for you to get you started. Notebooks are used to organize all of your different notes you may take. For example you may have a notebook for work, one for University and another one for home. Being able to create notebooks makes organizing heaps of different notes all that much easier. The plus sign icon on the homescreen of the app allows users to create notebooks. When creating a new notebook users can choose its theme colour and give it a name.

After creating a notebook it’s time to start filling them up. Via the little plus sign inside a notebook users can create notes, add tasks they have to do, add scanned barcodes, take a picture and attach it to a note, or add an existing picture on your smartphone to a note, attach audio to a note or attach places that you may want to visit that are nearby into a note via GPS tracking.

Users can also change the theme of the homescreen of their app located by pressing the menu button. There is also a search function and a quick note function which is great for adding a note while on the go. Through the settings menu users can decide whether or not they want Springpad to automatically sync there data to the online servers. But of course they can choose to just manually sync their Springpad data at any time through the settings menu.

Conclusion

The battle between the two giant notepad apps Springpad and Evernote has been very close for some time. However we would have to see recently Springpad has probably overtaken Evernote with some of its newer features, such as being able to view all your notes through different categories. The ability to add different colour themes to notebooks as well as being able to change the theme on the apps homescreen, really adds some personalization to the app which is always great, making it feel like your own little workplace. The developers of Springpad have built a very strong foundation over the years, lets hope the can continue to improve upon this great app in the future. Springpad can be downloaded for free from the Android Market.