Following its Android debut nearly two and a half years ago, Google’s note-taking mobile software, called Keep, is now available to download from the App Store.
Featuring Google’s Material Design, the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad app offers a nicely rounded set of features commonly found in other note-taking apps but with less bloat and clutter. Needless to say, Keep benefits tremendously from seamless integration with other Google products and technologies.
Notes created in Keep can be accessed, edited and managed on iOS, Android and on the web, via a Keep web app. Google Keep is a free download so give it a try and let us know how you like it in comments.
Your notes, wherever you are
Keep lets your capture, edit, share and collaborate on your notes, organize them with labels and colors, receive time or location-based reminders about due notes and more.
I like it particularly that Keep lets me create bulleted and numbered lists and boxes that can be ticked off, meaning Keep can be not just a cool replacement for Apple’s Notes and Reminders stock apps but a shopping list organizer as well.
Rich media is supported, too, so you can enrich your notes by adding images from iOS’s Camera roll, or by snapping photos quickly with your iPhone’s camera. Audio is also supported, allowing you to embed a voice recording to add deeper context to your notes.
And guess what?
Keep will automatically transcribe your voice memos, which works surprisingly well. The app even offers basic optical character recognition features so you can snap a photo, add it to your note and Keep will automatically parse the text from the image so you can find that note later through search.
Keep is by no means an Evernote killer, but it’s a very capable and lightweight app that will increase your productivity so I wholeheartedly recommend taking it for a spin.
Feature highlights
Google Keep includes the following features:
- When and where you need it—Need to remember to pick up some groceries? Set a location-based reminder to pull up your grocery list right when you get to the store. Need to finish a to-do? Set a time-based reminder to make sure you never miss a thing.
- Share your thoughts with family and friends—Next time you go to the store, share your shopping list on Keep and watch as items get checked off in real time. No need for text messages back and forth. Get things done together, faster.
- Find what you need, fast—Quickly filter and search for notes by color and other attributes like lists with the label “To-dos”, audio notes with reminders or just see shared notes. Find what you’re looking for even faster, and let Keep do the remembering for you.
- Always within reach—Keep works on your phone, tablet and computer. Everything you add to Keep syncs across your devices so your important stuff is always with you.
Google Keep is also available as a Chrome app in the Chrome Web Store.
Availability
A 28-megabyte app, Keep requires an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad with iOS 8.0 or up.
The app is localized in English, Arabic, Bokmål, Norwegian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
Keep’s web interface can be accessed at google.com/keep.