Evernote Corporation has announced a free public beta of a new note-taking application for Windows Mobile devices. "Evernote" aims to let users create notes on a device as text or OCR camera snapshots, then synchronize them online to one or more desktop computers.
Evernote clients are available not only for Windows Mobile devices, but also for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Macintosh OS X desktops. All connect to -- and may be synchronized at regular intervals with -- a user's private account on the Evernote website.
The Windows XP client for Evernote (Click to enlarge)
The service, pictured above via its Windows XP client and below in the Macintosh OS X version, maintains a searchable database of "notes" and "notebooks" that can be reorganized and renamed at will. A key feature touted by Evernote is that once any graphical notes are synced to the company's server, they are automatically analyzed by OCR (optical character recognition) software. At that point, any words found are indexed for subsequent searching.
The Macintosh OS X client for Evernote (Click to enlarge)
The OCR functionality is claimed to be particularly useful with the Windows Mobile version of Evernote, because the application (shown below) uses a device's camera to take graphical notes of business cards, white boards, or any other text a user wants to record. Once synchronized to a user's Evernote database, notes are converted to text and can be easily retrieved, the company says.
The Windows Mobile Evernote uses a web browser to display notes (left), but has dedicated snapshot functionality (right) (Click to enlarge)
While they all operate with a single set of synchronized data, the Evernote clients vary somewhat in functionality according to platform. For example, the OS X client can create graphical notes either via capturing from a selected screen area, or by using a Macintosh's iSight camera. The Windows XP client, on the other hand, has an Import Wizard that allows selecting any of a computer's folder, than importing all the files within it as notes automatically.
Evernote can import a web page into a note automatically (Click to enlarge)
Menu bar or system tray utilities on Windows XP, Vista, and OS X Evernote clients allow pasting the contents of a desktop's clipboard into new notes. In addition, "Clip to Evernote" buttons may be installed into a web browser's toolbar, from where they allow a note to be created from all or part of a web page (shown above).
A video demonstration of Evernote Source: Evernote Corporation (click to play)
Further information
Creating an Evernote account and downloading Windows Mobile, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Macintosh OS X clients can be done from the company's website, here. The free version of the product includes an upload allowance of 40MB per month. For $45 per year, users can upgrade to a 500MB/month allowance, with enhanced OCR performance, more security features, and added support, according to the company.
