Google Keep: A New Android Note Taker from Google

Following a leaked release of Google Keep a couple of days ago, Google has officially launched it on the Android Play Store. Google Keep is a new app that seeks to save whatever you’re currently thinking about so you don’t have to remember. Although not the first app to try and solve this problem, Google’s integrated Keep directly into Drive to make it easier to use.

It’s basically a notes taker and perhaps you could use it as a tasklist as well.
Create a checklist, enter a voice note or snap a photo and annotate it. Everything you add is instantly available on all your devices – desktop and mobile. The best part is definitely the Google Drive sync, allowing access to the notes from the Cloud. Is this an Evernote replacement? Perhaps not yet although if they could keep it free and continue to add features, I don’t see why not. I was annoyed with Evernote charging a premium for offline access and edits. A $5 monthly subscription is just too expensive for me.

With Google Keep you can:
• Keep track of your thoughts via notes, lists and photos
• Have voice notes transcribed automatically
• Use homescreen widgets to capture thoughts quickly
• Color-code your notes to help find them later
• Swipe to archive things you no longer need
• Turn a note into a checklist by adding checkboxes
• Use your notes from anywhere – they are safely stored in the cloud and available on the web at http://drive.google.com/keep

In Google Keep, while you can record audio notes, include pictures, and write text with your keyboard, and make lists. Pictures are so far limited to the camera only though directly through the app. You can still add gallery photos to Google Keep if you open gallery first, share & you will find Keep as an option.

Other than that I would love to see a way to add deadlines and alerts to notes, and some kind of drawing support. There’s currently no integration with Google Tasks and another series of fragmentation in the Google ecosystem, like Google Talk, Messenger, Hangouts. However, this is just the first version and hopefully Google will start integrating and rolling out more features soon.

Not available for iPhone users for now, but you could access and manage your notes via Google Drive. Android users also get to add the coloured notes like post-it notes to your homescreen.