Neato lets you jot quick notes directly from Notification Center

Neato notes extension

Neato is a new application that mostly consists of a Notification Center extension that lets you quickly jot down quick notes from anywhere on iOS. After installing the free app from the App Store, simply add the Notification Center extension to start typing in notes from the Lock screen, Home screen, or directly from within an application.

Notes can be synced with Evernote or with Dropbox. Additionally, whatever you type can be easily shared to Twitter, or via email or text message.

Neato comes with its very own keyboard, as you can see in the screenshots above, which can be a little challenging at times. The keys are pretty small and the whole keyboard isn’t as wide as the stock keyboard or even third party alternatives. This keyboard is however a necessary evil as Apple wouldn’t allow the app to load the stock keyboard from Notification Center.

While you won’t use Neato to type long notes, the app can come in handy to quickly jot down some thoughts or paste pieces of information gathered online for example. As mentioned before, these notes can be pushed to Evernote or Dropbox. Unfortunately, and I believe it is a limitation of iOS, Neato won’t let you create iCloud notes, which is a big drawback to me since the stock Notes app is my go-to application for jotting down notes.

Neato is a free download in the App Store. If you’re not quite sure if the app would improve your workflow, still give it a try as you don’t have much to lose.