Battle of the note taking apps, part 1

Battle of the note taking apps

My initial premise:
Because there is no conversion to text and thus no search, Write Pad
is not as fast as ShapeWriter since ShapeWriter makes words from
shorter screen travel not full characters like WritePad.
Also sucky is that full text search is disabled in WritePad; you can
only search by title.
If the ultimate output is searchable notes
I had a real world test today of the speed and versatility of WritePad

Losers: ZeptoPad-despite the latest terrific upgrade, a Vector drawing
app is no fast note taker.
Resizing glyphs and rearranging word graphics is not speedy nor
productive

Shapewriter
Surprisingly despite having to write out words vs. shape writing them,
the familiarity and recognition of WritePad proved quicker. The lack
of a quick undo in ShapeWriter proved to be its failing.

Even for common words there is a lag from having to correct words or
registering new words when a lecturer never stops; it really decreased
the efficiency I found when composing at a slower pace.
While there is a lot of mileage with forming words by shape writing,
in practice with a lot of unknown words it can get tedious if you
don't remember the correct spelling of the word. Unknown words must be
typed out so on the average spelling out the word with letter
recognition proves more accurate when the content is unfamiliar to the
dictionary. Also cursor placement is too sensitive so that entering
unfamiliar words is further delayed.

ShapeWriter is more comfortable and less fatiguing but when speed is a
consideration, WritePad wins for me; and I really enjoy shapewriter
with it's unique method an all text search.

Digital ink
Ultimately Tankazu Pad is not as good as Write Pad.

Liqbase is promising but I don't want to spend for another device
albeit an orphaned one, like the current Nokia Internet tablets, maybe
when the. N900 shows up.

-- This message was composed with PhatWare WritePad and ShapeWriter Pro

Kraut - sweet magical match puzzle

Kraut is a unique sweet magical well crafted polished pattern matching game.

Rating: 5 out of 5
Controls: touch
Sound: excellent
Graphics: photo realistic
Playability: pick up casual to deep campaigns
Audience: all ages
Developer: Monsterkodi
Brain training: pattern recognition, creativity
Paid: $1.99

A floral theme pervades the game as you manipulate a set of flowers in matches of 4 or more.
Unlike other matching games like Bejeweled, where individual elements are moved on a grid, Kraut turns that concept around.
Instead you make your own grid of matches by putting triads of flowers together.

Like another game, Smiles, there is a jump area where the triad is available to rotate in for play. The triads can be rotated along the middle flower axis.
The help is extensive and some of the best tutorials I've seen for a match puzzle game - definitely great for kids and grandparents.

The flowers are photo realistically gorgeous and there are many types to choose from, further customizing play.

The floral theme continues with insect power-ups or helper units. They add more variety and depth to the game play and are generated by pollen points from matches.
The integration of incredible sound effects from the startup screen, menus and the game play is superb.
There are race the clock arcade and campaign challenge modes along with awards. High score signatures are hand drawn by the player.

Kraut is great for casual pick up and play with a family friendly theme, but has durability and depth with campaign and awards. The unique twist of building your own grid of matches paired with pattern recognition exercises creativity makes this game well worth the value and play.

The level of polish and detail from the slow movie motion of flowers in the menu backgrounds to the righty/lefty considerations really shows the care from the developers and should be rewarded.

If you are looking for a special game in the sea of matching games, Kraut is highly recommended to bring out that inner child and make you happy!

We love this game.

Similar matching apps we play: Trism, Frenzic, QuardrumColors, Bejeweled2, Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab, Gaia Lite, Collapse!Chaos, ScribBall, Pinch n' Pop!

Other apps to consider: Booty Blocks, Chain3, Smiles

Headspace - 3D dreamy mind mapping

Headspace is a mindmapping app from animation and software company, Flat Black Films

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars; on sale for 99 cents while it lasts...

Reading the Big Lebowski intro, made me a bit hesitant at buying this new app thinking it might be from a fly-by-night no updates dev. But cred was established after checking out the screenshots at their main site and the price can't be beat!

You can add items or nodes that are grouped in a virtual headspace.

Headspaces are files akin to mindmaps.

Item nodes can have colors, links and can be stacked in groups.

The usual multitouch pinch -zoom, resize all applies here.

Flicking around with 1,2, or 3 fingers have different effects. You can rearrange items up and down the group hierarchy. Double tapping a group, pulls the camera view focus to that group.

Innovation:
Brings to the table mindmapping unlike any other app tot he iPhone, not your usual Freemind-central-node. Think PersonalBrain on your iPhone; well the closest thing to it.

Usability:
There is a bit of a learning curve with all this power, but having the freedom to zoom in and out of groups of headbits is worth the price of admission.

Sucks: NO SEARCH, yes you heard that right, with a slew of headbits floating around in your headspace, don't even think of popping in a query. Like just scroll around, man.
NO EXPORT, yep, you and your emptied monkey brain guts are stuck in Headspace. There is not yet a way to get all those typed up nodes out to the desktop or web for backup. No email, webdav, saving to local dir for exchange via DiskAid.

Still Headspace is an awesome reach into the mindmapping appstore category that is often a re-tread of existing desktop ideas and for that 5 stars, baby.

ZeptoPad 2.0 - virtual whiteboard with real time display

ZeptoPad 2.0

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars; needs better speed for sketching, snap to grid, and a cleaner UI

What: A vector based drawing app for the iphone and iPod touch that allows you to create mindmaps, diagrams and just about replace your moleskine notepad for portable brainstorming.

Where: appstore link

Who: some smart folks in Japan with a crazy company name: UBIQUITOUS ENTERTAINMENT INC.

Why: I was looking for an all-in-one inbox that supports freeform input but with LARGER than screen saves. I use Sketches to create pictures or words then manipulate them using the excellent Photoboard to create a composite collage which can then be captured to the Saved Photos album. ZeptoPad 2.0 came out just in time

UPDATE: I just read a review of Zeptopad that compared it to other sketch apps. This is a fallacy like comparing apples to oranges.

The whole point of why ZeptoPad has an advantage over painting ink apps is that each vector path is an object that can be resized and manipulated, more importantly the canvas is HUGE (click the thumbnail below of a feedback map I made and how big the ZeptoPad export is).

There is currently NO app other than ZeptoPad that has these features. Mindmapping apps (BlueSky, iThoughts) while wonderful cannot add freeform lines, have photos as nodes, or rotate outside of fixed constraints.


Good:

• UPDATE: You can copy/move a selected object from one worksheet(drawing) to another! Very cool.
• Real-time interactive whiteboard - connect to your Mac and what you draw in ZeptoPad is what you see in real time on the desktop screen
• Supports Ad Hoc wifi (my router done be broke) so I can connect ZeptoPad to my Mac without a router.
  
• Saves your creations as jpg, PDF and backup file. The output pics are indeed larger than the iphone screen
  
• Bigger canvas to create! much larger than iphone/ipod touch screen
• Pinch and zoom to expand and shrink figure and whole drawings
  
• Cut, copy, move, rotate and paste figures. Let me say that again, with ZeptoPad you can CUT, COPY, MOVE, ROTATE, and PASTE your scribblings. Try doing that with other digital ink doodling or sketch apps.
  
• Type text using iphone keyboard as a figure and shrink and enlarge
• import and export of thumbs from Saved Photos album in camera roll
• Change color of lines and text selections; color code your mobile mindmaps
• UNDO and REDO of your actions.
  

Bad:

• costs $10 with no free lite preview version to try out. UPDATE: They now have a freeware version!
• poor to fair drawing speed with free form figures and lines; even the freeware scribbler is faster but to be fair, ZeptoPad is vector based which have more flexibility than doodling apps for editing. Need for speed!
  
• no basic shapes in toolset; just free form lines and text from keyboard
• User experience/workflow is clunky: 1 Draw or type, 2 reposition figure/text, 3 repeat as needed, 4 connect with lines; ZeptoPad needs a snap to grid feature
• No grouping of worksheets in Directory. All your creations (worksheets) are in 1 pot.

Ugly:

• Non-intuitive user interface sucks, 1980's menus and so un-Apple like as to make Steve Jobs grimace: please UEI take a look at Photoboard UI and see how clean and minimal that is with its local circular menu per figure.
• figures are automatically grouped so you have to select them individually in order to separate them. User is constantly needs to select menu to move any figure. It gets tiresome folks. Again look at use of proximity as with Photoboard.
  
• No landscape, so you must pinch and shrink for longer words or wider figures
  

Competition:

• Mindmapping apps: like iThoughts, BlueSky, MindMaker
• Drawing apps: doodler apps like Sketches, Scribbler, Zibbler
• Miscellaneous: ThinkDigits, Photoboard
  

Verdict: do the Japanesa!

Value is relative, but I'm satisfied with my purchase.
ZeptoPad brings to the Apple appstore something unique and has really no competition despite the listing above.
I'm free to pour ideas on a multitouch canvas larger than the physical screen and manipulate the various 'thoughts' or ideas represented as text and figures unlike any all-in-one application.
The workflow to create is slow and takes many steps but the freedom outweights that. I may consider a mindmapper like iThoughts for speed.
The realtime interactive whiteboard is cool but gimmicky and I can't currently see a use for it though it reminds me of the old Margi presentation system from Palm days.
If you have falling $10 USD to spare from starving yourself from lattes4apps and you're into that 43Folders/GtD/Moleskine crowd pick up zany ZeptoPad.