Simplenote is an easy way to stay organized on the web, your desktop and mobile device. It’s free and easy to use. Your notes are also seamlessly synced across devices. You can use Simplenote to create things such as to do lists, grocery lists, class notes, drafts for blog posts, keeping a journal, and more; the possibilities are endless.
You can view the various apps they offer from their downloads page; their selection is quite impressive. They have apps for the iPhone/iPad, iPod Touch, Palm, Android, Windows and Mac OS X. There is even a Chrome extension as well as various scripts.
To add a new note you simply click the + (plus) button at the top of the left column. Then you can enter any text that you like. There is no editor for making your font fancy, adding html or anything else; it’s just simple text pretty much like Windows Notepad.
Each new note you ad is automatically synced between all devices that you are using (desktop, mobile, web). There currently aren’t any restrictions as far as how many notes you can create. They also suggest that you not create extremely long notes (over a couple thousand) in order to cut down on the processing time.
When it comes to the interface, there are a few features that come in handy. You can add tags to your notes; you’ll then be able to use the filter to view notes by tag. You can also search through your notes, delete notes and pin notes so that they remain at the top of the list.
Another neat feature is the ability to view notes by “version history”. You can use the slider to go back to 2 minutes ago, 15 minutes ago etc; anything you’ve created before that will then be gone. You can, of course, always go back to the present when desired.
As far as importing and exporting notes, you can do this using an unofficial utility called Simple Backup. You’ll need to enter your Simplenote email and password in order to use the tool. You can “export your Simplenote notes to plain text, CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, and Evernote archive formats”; this is done completely free.
They do offer a premium account for $12 (for 12 months). With premium you get unlimited use of 3rd party apps (listed on the downloads page) as well as the ability to create notes by email and an RSS feed. If you just want to remove the few ads on the site, you can pay a flat rate of $4.99 to do that.
So, if you’re looking for a painless, easy way to stay organized, Simplenote is definitely the tool for the job. Who has time to learn lots of features? Sometimes you just want to create a simple note, and that’s what this does.
