Microsoft OneNote Arrives on iPad

[jaimeastin]

Good app update. Been tired of using the iPhone version. I use this with my windows phone and on my desktop. The only way I know how to create new notebooks is on the desktop version.

I use this for client meetings and personally. Syncs perfectly across devices. Shoot, the iOS app work best outside of the desktop version.

Overall good app...

 

[aberrero]

I would have killed for this in college.

I think I might go back to school now just to use it.

 

[Jayomat]

And how many millions of free-form note-taking apps already exist for iPad? Just asking, mind you...

Mental Note, PaperDesk, Organizer HD, Notability, Penultimate, Awesome Note HD, etc. There are too many to mention. I own some of them.

I'm sure OneNote will be near the top of the heap with those features, but it will certainly not be without some stiff competition. However, I'm quite interested to see what it will bring to the table. It's already on the App Store, too. Nice to see it's a free download with the option to upgrade in-app.

Initially, I was responding to your question why OneNote is different than 2Do and OmniFocus, which implied that you didn't understand the fundamental difference between those two programs (Taskmanagers) and OneNote (Note-Taking). It seems you did some research and educated yourself. That's pretty much all I can ask for

 

[EricSch]

Not good

No formatting support?
All my formatting is lost on iPad. One of the main strengths of OneNote is that you can write anywhere on a page. Much like on a paper. Almost all of my notes are made in this manner. So, the layout of page is important.
What MS were thinking when released this app? Its good for iPhone for some usages, like shopping lists, but the same version for iPad......
I must tell that competitors did their job better.
Take a look at Aqrate Outline. This app is perfect as reader and promises to be a perfect OneNote client for iPad when they add sync and editing.

 

[NightFox]

Whenever a OneNote story comes up on here, everybody who's never used it can't understand what the difference is between OneNote and any of the other myriad notetaker apps out there, and if you just look at the descriptions that's understandable. However, ask anyone who uses OneNote to its full potential and they'll tell you nothing comes close.

You can use OneNote on OS X, there is an online version. However, it really is an inferior product to the Windows installed version; once again I hope that this is an indicator that we will one day see a true OS X version.

 

[farleysmaster]

First and foremost it's a free-form note-taking application, not a Task-Manager, which is a huge difference. This alone makes the comparison to OmniFocus invalid, as OmniFocus is a full-blown Task-Manager, not a Note-Taking-Tool. 2Do is basically an application to manage arrays of text input (a list with strings). Of course it adds functionality like marking things as done etc., but at it's core it's just a fancy list.

As I stated in the first sentence, OneNote is a free-form note-taking app. That means that the program logic does not force you to use predetermined spaces (Views) to input data. Consequently you can just click anywhere on your "page" and start typing stuff. But not only that, as you can also cut, copy and paste from nearly anywhere and put it into your page as well. You could, for example, enter some text and press a button inside OneNote which lets you cut and paste anything thats visible on the screen. It's kinda hard to explain without going further into details, but OneNote is basically the nearest you can get to a piece of paper which you can obviously use to write down anything you want, anywhere you want (which is huge in order to arrange text, pictures etc. the way YOU want).

Besides Excel, OneNote is the best application Microsoft has ever written, and that's not because it's very complex, but it works flawlessly and very straight forward. Especially if you have a tablet-Pc, you'll LOVE OneNote!

If they didn't implemented the "free-form" aspect of the desktop app, I don't see "any" benefits besides Windows support though

Evernote is not a task manager/to-do list, so I don't see how this answers the question.

 

[theSeb]

Hehe, wow! In my opinion, OneNote is probably one of the best Office Applications out there, particularly for students. I can see that being a pretty big hit if Microsoft have done a good job =]

Agreed. One Note is probably the best thing MS has created in recent years.

----------

Excellent. Now bring it to OS X please.

Couldn't agree more. I was hoping that Evernote would be a worthy replacement, but it's not.

 

[Fraaaa]

I started using Evernote which is free, so probably I won't be invest in OneNote unless there will be some feature that might be useful or necessary to be at some point.

Here's a video of OneNote on Windows Phone. Around 7 minutes he uses the iPad app.

Anyone can tell me the quote of changing tool when are outdone or something?

 

[morespce54]

Agreed. One Note (the desktop version for Windows) is probably the best thing MS has created in recent years.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Erlang]

I will give it a try, I loved OneNote on Windows and missed it like hell on OSX, but finally found Growly Notes which is an almost perfect subsitute for OneNote on OSX. Eventually MS might clue up to the market share they are missing.

 

[Jayomat]

Evernote is not a task manager/to-do list, so I don't see how this answers the question.

Do you mind reading his initial post? I responded to the following

What's the big advantage of something like this over, say, OmniFocus, 2Do, or any of the full-featured ToDo/Note-taking apps for iOS already that sync with the cloud? There are some substantial ones for iOS, especially for the iPad.

... I hope that you can put the rest together by, say, reading things in a chronological order ... give it a try mate, it's not that hard

 

[SiriusExcelsior]

No formatting support?
All my formatting is lost on iPad. One of the main strengths of OneNote is that you can write anywhere on a page. Much like on a paper. Almost all of my notes are made in this manner. So, the layout of page is important.
What MS were thinking when released this app?

When MS released OneNote Mobile for WinMo 6 I was so excited (I'd used it on Windows before).. then I tried it out.. and never used it since. It was basically Word Mobile with less formatting options, and Notes with no free-form writing. Worst of both programs.

The new OneNote for WinPhone 7 is slightly better (checklists yay!! ), but doesn't look much more promising: No free-form note taking there either.

Looks like the iPad version isn't worthy of the OneNote name either..

 

[alphaod]

OneNote is one of the main reasons I spent a lot of money on Wacom digitizer enabled tablet computers over the years. Very good product and highly functional. I imagine I would need a pen of some sort for this app? Because I can't imagine writing with my fingers to be very accurate.

 

[Daysight]

Love OneNote. It was one of the reasons I installed Parallels and Windows on my iMac when I switched recently. Simplenote and Notational Velocity work so well on my iMac that I find myself unfortunately defaulting to it all the time, but still use OneNote.

Aside from lost formatting in the iPad and iPhone versions (I am only trying the free versions for now owing to the cost of buying separate apps and upgrading OneNote then switching to cloud instead of local storage) is the lack of web-snipping to OneNote. A very useful feature.

I like OneNote much better than Evernote mainly because information seems much easier to get at in OneNote than EN. The tabbed "binder" metaphor works very well for me.

 

[BlackTofu]

Actually this app is meaningless to me... I have never used this program in Windows.

 

[loby]

Growly Notes is a wonderful program and is a great substitute for One Note. I hope the coder will continue to work on it. It is the closet program to One Note that I have found. Especially...it is "free".

 

[talmy]

I've used One Note at work (Windows based environment) and while I would have liked to see a OS X version I've been happier using Circus Ponies Notebook on my Mac than One Note on the work PC. So much happier that I now bring my Macbook to work just so I can use Notebook. YMMV, of course, but I find Notebook more flexible and easier to use.