Summary

Are you a total scatterbrain? Forgot to bring out the trash for the millionth time? Is your wife angry because you didn’t pick up the kids from school? These are all things we experience in everyday life. Beyond too forgetful, however, can really cause some serious problems. Now here’s a little tool for your Android that could potentially change things around.

Springpad helps you get your daily chores done. You save notes, to-do-lists, pictures and much more. The app also notifies you about important things you have left to do. Find out all the details in today’s test.

Springpad is a tool to save notes, lists and just everything else to your phone. Everything that you save using this app is automatically synchronized with springpadit.com. That way you have a good backup of all your daily brainstorming. You’ll need an account to use this service, but the registration is short and simple. All Springpad needs to have is your email address and a password. If that’s too much of a hassle for you, you can also log in using your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Yahoo account. And here’s Springpad biggest drawback: if you ever log out of the service, you’ll need an internet connection to access your notes again. The second problem is that Springpad doesn’t remember your account information, which means that you have reenter all the information every time you use it.

On the main screen you’ll find a Friends Stuff section. There you can see the unlocked notes of other people that use springpadit.com. The actually note saving process is fairly straightforward. First, you create as many notebooks as you need. In these notebooks you can save just about anything that comes to mind. These can be notes, to-do plans, pictures and audio notes. There’s also a Quick Notes option that let’s write down ideas on the fly just using a simple text entry screen.

Every one of your notes can be categorized…and vice versa. By selecting Add by Type, you can select which category your note should belong to before you actually write anything down. You the following options:

• Note
• Task
• Business
• Restaurant
• Wine
• Product
• Book
• Movie
• TV Show
• Album
• Shopping List
• Packing List
• Check List
• Recipe

If you write down the name of a book, movie or TV show, the app does an online search to find information and locations related to your saved item. If the information is missing, you can enter it in yourself. Obviously, you can also use the app to search for books, films, albums, restaurants, stores, TV shows and recipes.

Springpad also includes the standard sorting and search features. The search function is limited to all your saved notes. Sorting can be down according to date, popularity or name. For all you scatterbrains, Springpad can also remind you about important chores or tasks. Springpad allows you to create as many reminders as you like with your own personalized reminder messages.

Afraid of someone looking at your shopping list? No worries because Springpad lets you secure your notes with a PIN. Just go to your Settings and set up a PIN to keep your things private.

Android would be nothing without its widgets. That’s why Springpad also includes two great apps for your Android phone. The 2x4 and 1x4 widgets are really useful. This way you can create notes directly from your screen, take a picture of your notes, scan barcodes and add geotags to your items. With the larger widget you get a small overview of all your notes. Need a quick peek of your shopping list? Not a problem with Springpad. Just create a checklist and enter in all the items you need. You can create a list for just anything.

Pros

• Intuitive controls
• Stylish user interface
• PC Sync
• Good widgets
• Location based searches
• Barcode scanning
• Web app at www.springpadit.com
• App2SD support

Cons

• No account management (enter in account info at every login, if you are logged out)
• Logging out without internet connection, prevents access to your own notes

Bottom Line:

Springpad is a useful and very recommendable tool for daily use. The design is especially well done. Maybe you could even finally forget about your forgetfulness. More work needs to be done to get rid of the whole log in issue.

The design is first class and fully customizable. You can choose your favorite look from over 12 different themes. The themes do need to be downloaded from the internet before you can use them. For a better overview of your notes, you can assign a specific color to each notebook.

The Springpad controls are extremely intuitive. The menu button is sometimes needed for certain functions such as sorting. Everything else is located right on your screen.

The widgets saves you a lot of time and “taps” by letting you choose whether to view just tasks, notes or other things.
 

Top-notch speed and performance with Springpad.

Springpad can be downloaded for free from the AndroidPIT App Center or the Android Market.