Now with OS X Mountain Lion, which should arrive some time this summer, true feature parity for Notes, Reminders and Notifications comes to OS X. I’ve spent some time with the new features, and I’m eager to share my experiences with you.

Notes

Notes syncing from iOS back to OS X has always struck me as a tacked-on feature, with notes buried in Mail.app, making viewing and editing notes awkward and unpleasant. With Mountain Lion, notes get their rightful position in their own app. The Mountain Lion version is a near-duplicate of the iOS version, and I do not view that as a criticism, because Notes on iOS is very elegant in its simplicity.

What I found interesting is while Notes can be turned on and off via the iCloud System Preference, it apparently still uses IMAP for some of the backend transfer as I was asked to enter in my passwords for my Gmail accounts. Notes appear to sync quickly, within a minute or so of being edited.

I’m really excited about Notes being easier to use in OS X. I swap between Evernote and Notes for my note-taking needs, with Evernote getting my article-length notes clipped from the web or imported PDFs, and Notes getting my day-to-day notes, like what printer my Mom has, dial-in codes for meetings, meeting notes, etc.

Reminders

Reminders, formerly To-Dos, made a lot of sense living in iCal pre-iOS. However, the Calendar iOS app never had to-dos, and with the advent of the Reminders iOS app, it became very uncomfortable having them stored in iCal. I always found iCal’s handling of to-dos unwieldy, and being stuck in a small pane off to the side didn’t help. It’s been said that the areas of OS X and iOS that are the most polished are the ones Steve Jobs was very involved in — if so, I’m fairly confident the man never managed a task list in iCal.

Now with Mountain Lion, to-dos are moved to their own Reminders app, and life couldn’t be better. It’s a nearly identical copy of the iOS app in looks and function, with two big differences: on OS X you can choose if a list is on iCloud or your Mac, and I cannot see a way to set a location-based reminder. While OS X isn’t really location aware (even though it does have Find my Mac), it would be nice if I could set a reminder in OS X for something I need to do at work and have my iPhone remind me when I get there.

Overall, I’m happy with Reminders in Mountain Lion as it allows me to easily manage my to-dos. While I still expect to handle most of my project-level task management in OmniFocus, Reminders will be the app I use to remind me of life’s daily minutiae.

Notifications

The last of what I call the Big Three features to migrate from iOS to OS X is Notifications. Users of Growl will find Notifications very similar as notifications are displayed in the upper right-hand corner. As with iOS, you can choose if an app displays a banner, an alert that shows up in the middle of the screen, a badge icon, or all three.

Right now, obviously, only the apps built into Mountain Lion are supported. According to this piece by John Gruber, only apps acquired from the Mac App Store can send events to Notifications. As an aside, you can configure Mail.app to only alert you if you receive an e-mail from someone you have flagged as a VIP, which helps cut down on the popup clutter.

So far my experiences with Notifications have been light, with not many apps supporting it. I’m not sure if Notifications will ever fully replace Growl for me since not all the apps I rely on Growl for are available in the Mac App Store.

Final thoughts

Apple’s headline on the Mountain Lion web page is “Inspired by iPad. Re-imagined for Mac,” and that’s pretty much true based on my usage of it so far. I’m happy there is feature parity between iOS and OS X for Notes and Reminders. If you don’t complement your Macintosh with an iOS device, you may not derive the same excitement I do from these new features. But if you’re a  heavy user of Notes and Reminders you will be thrilled that these apps are now on OS X.

One hope I have, with OS X moving to a yearly upgrade cycle, as iOS has always had, is that features that complement each other on both operating systems will be released at the same time, and not with the lag we currently have.

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Let me guide you through a number of solutions that allow you to sync data, contacts, calendar, and notes between your iOS and Mac devices.

Data Syncing

iDisk: Apple’s MobileMe is the only all-in-one solution I’ll be mentioning. However, data syncing via iDisk is the service’s biggest flaw. Frankly, it’s too slow for quick syncs. Even uploading one file can result in a several minutes’ worth of sync-time. Uploading a ton of data can be intolerable. I’ve also run into a ton of sync errors, where my local and remote iDisks get so far out of sync, I end up needing to start from scratch, forcing me to figure out on my own what didn’t get synced to Apple’s servers. That said, for small amounts od data the iOS app is a great way to share content while you’re out and about. Also, the iOS iWork suite natively connects to iDisk for file management.

Dropbox: Dropbox is the gold standard for data syncing. It just works. The basic account gives you 2 GB of storage, which is probably fine for most people. They do offer 50 and 100 GB solutions as well. The sync is near-instaneous, and Dropbox also allows you to restore deleted files via the web. I really can’t remember ever having have an issue with Dropbox. You can use DropDAV to allow WebDAV access to your Dropbox account so it will work with iWork on iOS devices. Dropbox also has an API available, so text editing apps like Elements and PlainText can access your Dropbox directly.

SugarSync: This service the potential to be a nice alternative to Dropbox. For starters, its free model gives you 5 GB versus Dropbox’s 2 GB. For  $99 you can get 60 GB of storage while Dropbox only gives you 50 GB for the same amount. But there is no WebDAV support, even via a 3rd-party tool, which may not be an issue if you’re unsure or unwilling to use WebDAV access anyway. However, the big difference is in how you determine what folders sync. On Dropbox, everything in your Dropbox folder is synced automatically; SugarSync requires you to use a desktop program to determine what folders sync. Overall, I found SugarSync’s interface a little cumbersome.

How I do it: I use both iDisk and Dropbox. Rapidly changing files (work, writing, business, school, etc.) are stored on Dropbox and I use DropDAV to make sure I can access the files using iWork on my mobile devices if I need to (for most of my text needs, I use Elements). Dropbox gives me the sync reliability I need, along with a rudimentary backup solution. Large or infrequently changed files (e-books and the like) are stored on iDisk. This gives me mobile access to the files, and I don’t have to deal with an overly-complicated sync system.

Contacts and Calendars

Frankly, syncing contacts and calendars is one of the easiest things to do. Address Book and Mail in OS X both natively sync with MobileMe, Google and Yahoo and when you add your accounts to your iOS device you can choose to sync both contacts and calendars. You can also add your Yahoo and Google calendars as sync calendars in iCal on the Mac.

How I do it: I’m a MobileMe subscriber, so I use that. It may not be free, but it keeps things simple.

Notes

For me, there are two different types of notes. I’ll make a note about something I need to get at the store, or a quick thought in passing, or the name of a book I see in a bookstore. Then there are more formal notes: the type you make during a meeting or class. Especially on iOS, there are almost as many note apps as there are flatulence simulators, so I’m going to focus on a few of my favorites.

Apple’s Notes: All iOS devices ship with the Notes app, which you can use to sync notes with any email account you have on the device. Notes is a nice little app for the basic things, but not great when it comes to long notes. While often derided, I actually like it quite a bit, especially since the notes sync happens during mail fetches. However, if you don’t use the Mail.app on OS X, it’s limited in its appeal, because while the notes will show up in Gmail, for instance, you can’t edit them.

SimpleNote: This aptly-named app has a nice, clean interface. It doesn’t natively sync with a dedicated desktop notes software (you edit notes on the web), but on their download page the app’s developers do list some programs and web extensions that do support the service.

Evernote: This is the big boy of note-taking apps. It’s great for collecting mass quantities of research notes, clipped web pages, graphics, the unabridged version of The Stand and that rusty kitchen sink in the basement. I don’t find it all useful for quick notes, and I don’t think that’s its focus. It is also a great collaborative tool letting you share notebooks.

How I do it: I use Notes for the minor, short notes and Evernote for all my project and class notes. PDFs from school get imported to a dedicated Evernote notebook for that class. The shopping list I’ve been handed goes into Notes.

The Future

Apple needs to get its act together for mobile syncing. The Wall Street Journal reports Apple is beefing up MobileMe, complete with the introduction of the oft-rumored wireless iTunes sync. One of the things keeping the iPad from being a true, untethered mobile solution is a better cloud system from the mothership, so let’s hope these latest reports prove true.

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Notes has come a long way since its introduction, due entirely to only two feature changes. The first was the introduction of the ability to choose from two other font options: Chalkboard and Helvetica. It’s a small change, but it does make the app easier on the eyes. The second, and more important, feature addition was the addition of over-the-air Notes syncing via MobileMe.

The new syncing feature means the notes you see on your iPad will be the same as you see on your iPhone or iPod touch, so long as you have a MobileMe account and Notes syncing enabled. It also means that notes you create will get pushed out automatically to Mail.app in OS X. It’s this last part of the equation that needs work.

Pushing Notes content to Mail is a lovely stop-gap solution, and it even lets you edit your notes on your Mac fairly easily. (Just type in a selected note in Mail’s message viewing pane, or double-click to pop out the message.) As the many Dropbox-connected plain text editors in the App Store demonstrate, users seem to want to be able to create simple documents that are automatically shared and instantly editable across all their connected devices. Apple’s current method of syncing notes accomplishes this, but just barely, and with considerable problems.

Notes in Mail are editable, as mentioned, but if you change font or start playing with formatting you can get some very screwed up results on your iOS device. And editing in Mail’s message viewer or a modified email compose window isn’t the most enjoyable of user experiences. Here’s what I suggest as an alternative: a standalone Notes.app for OS X, and a few changes in how it works on iOS hardware.

On the desktop, I’d like to see something more like the iPad/iPhone app, a standalone program that can be full-screened and provides a few more editing options. I’m fine with keeping the font choices to three, especially if it alleviates the formatting oddities that currently affect Notes. I’d love a way to change the color of the background “paper,” though, and in the iOS versions, too.

Finally, as Charles recently suggested, either turn on free MobileMe for all users, or just make Notes syncing one of the features available to all users. It’s a small thing, but it could vastly improve the experience of users with both Mac and iOS devices. You could actually use it as a remote whiteboard for communicating with family members while away from home. It would act as yet another buying incentive, and one that encourages multiple device ownership.

Apple might worry that a more powerful Notes would impact sales of Pages and other iOS apps, but I’m not asking for a feature-rich document editor. I just want an ever-so slightly more flexible plain text editor that automatically syncs between my Macs and iPhone/iPad. Apple’s already 98 percent of the way there, I’d just like to see Cupertino go all the way on this one.

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Finally, after so many years of fumbling with any number of clumsy devices, both high and low tech, the iPhone came around and brought with it the prospect of ditching those cumbersome things once and for all. The built-in iPhone Notes app offered basic utility, but the iPhone 2.0 firmware brought with it the promise of better, more robust third party apps. Notebook ($4.99, App Store), from developer Appigo, is one such app.

Appigo Notebook allows you to go well beyond the options available in Notes. Your notes are organized under Notebooks, hence the title, which you can create, edit, and delete. Above your list of notebooks are two permanent master categories, All and Unfiled. All give you access to any note, regardless of category, and Unfiled contains notes not attached to any specific notebook.

You can also change note formatting, including font type and size, which is good, because I absolutely hated the default Trebuchet option. Rotation is supported, as is landscape typing, which is a big plus in a note app, since the extra screen real estate it affords works well with my meaty thumbs.

Autotext entries come in handy, allowing you to insert things like the date, time, or bullets. Any note can also be marked as private, which, depending on which settings you select, could make it invisible, password protected, or masked. I don’t know what nefarious purposes you mights use this for, being far too virtuous to need this kind of thing.

I can already hear you all asking, “Yes, but does it sync?”. In fact, it does, and with Toodledo.com, no less. A Toodledo.com account is free, and I prefer it to desktop syncing, for the same reason I prefer Remember the Milk to Things: your synced information is available anywhere. It also supports searching the fulltext content of your notes for keywords, which is also useful once you start accumulating a ton of information. And if you have Appigo’s other iPhone app, Todo, you can create a new task from a note’s contents using the share button.

Really, Appigo Notebook is as fully featured a note-taking app as I could ask for on the iPhone/iPod touch, short of supporting text-to-speech dictation, which isn’t something I’d probably use that much anwyay. I can finally put the pad and pen to rest, hopefully for good this time.

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After our first week proper in 2009, we’ve run smack-bang in to a hurricane of Apple news courtesy of this year’s Macworld event.

Over at Apple’s final MacWorld Keynote, standing in for Papa Jobs, Uncle Phil unveiled brand new iLife and iWork suites, alongside completing the Macbook Pro lineup with a 17″ model touting 8 hours of battery life.

And, to finish proceedings off, Apple revealed special singing guest Tony Bennett, allowing the adoring audience to bask in the warmth of his orange glow as he crooned the keynote to a close.

While everyone else at TheAppleBlog has had their eye on Macworld, I’ve been rolling around in the App Store and getting friendly with the latest additions.

This week I’ve been looking at Keynote Remote, Wallpaper Notes, Cisco WebEx Meeting Center and Bank Panic.

Keynote Remote ($0.99)
If you’re passionate and prepared, presenting can be a true pleasure. Keynote, being the polished application that it is, makes both preparation and execution a breeze. When I present, the Apple Remote is a key tool: enabling me to present in a fluid and relaxed manner. Using the Remote, I’m not looking at a screen or even notes, I’m looking at — and engaging with — the audience. If you want your presentations to be more effective, don’t bother with this app, go back to basics — learn your subject inside out, practice, relax and, on the day, enthuse.

Wallpaper Notes ($0.99)
Apple’s embedded Notes app is already out-dated; there’s no desktop or web sync, no reminders functionality, no bells and a distinct absence of whistles. I replaced Notes with Evernote, which incorporates a cavalcade of note-taking features. Wallpaper Notes does nothing special, bar one killer feature: saving notes as iPhone wallpaper, meaning that a quick check of the screen keeps you informed. A cunning work-around indeed.

Cisco WebEx Meeting Center (free)
Back when I worked for the European-arm of an American mobile media publisher, I learnt two important things: a white vest and organic American Apparel underwear are only ever acceptable work-wear when working from home, and, when we conducted large-scale meetings with our cousins ‘cross the pond, Cisco’s WebEx was an invaluable tool in bringing us together. Long-awaited by iPhone-touting business folk, this mobile implementation of WebEx incorporates audio-visual presentations and even chat functionality.

Bank Panic ($0.99)
It’s a morbidly apt premise for a simple iPhone game and I love it: bankrupt stock brokers have taken to hurling themselves out of high-rises due to the global financial crisis. It’s your job to stop the depressed Dow dealers snapping their supple skulls on the hard floor by catching their falling bodies in your miracle blanket. Now if this deliciously horrid plot wasn’t reason enough to purchase the game, here’s the really clever bit: the game’s difficulty is linked to the real-world value of the Dow Jones — the lower the Dow drops, the tougher the gameplay gets.

Just One More Thing

It seems that this week’s Roundup has been of a decidedly productive nature, covering tools for meetings, note-taking and presenting. Even Bank Panic has serious under-currents with its amusing use of the declining Dow Jones feeding the stock-brokers’ suicide rate.

So it’s time we lighten the mood a little as, like Sauron’s great big burning eye in the sky, I’m going to turn my cyclopean gaze to the future and draw your attention to a very promising iPhone game due out soon.

Bovine Dragon Software are the designers behind Trace, an inventive game that involves drawing the platforms that your character traverses in each stage, released last year. About to pop its youngling head out from the womb of development is Bovine Dragon’s latest creation, Gomi.

From the cutesy preview videos, it seems that Gomi is a mash-up of Mario Galaxy, Katamari Damacy and LocoRoco, wrapped in graphics that look like they were drawn in Microsoft Paint. According to the developers, the eco-friendly, grinning Gomi will be out by February, in the meantime, check out the videos to see the game in action.

Over the course of the holiday season, I decided to invest in Gameloft’s Uno for iPhone. The game is bug-ridden, clunky and slow, certainly not worth the five bucks I paid for it. And I should have known better – I’ve previously worked for a big mobile publisher and developer, based on my own experience and general industry chit-chat with my peers, I know exactly what goes in to the development of these games.

Perhaps it’s an effort to appease the needs of licensors, or to hit unrealistic release dates promised by uncommunicative marketing and sales departments, maybe it’s to please investors (who are often shielded from a proper overview of the business by misguided MDs) or it’s as distasteful as knowingly rushing a title out with a recognizable logo pasted on to it (that acts as a horridly misleading seal of quality), there are a multitude of possible reasons as to why games from the big developers and publishers are often offensively shoddy disappointments.

I’ll summarize my point as such: look at Tapulous, Hand Circus and Illusion Labs –  bastions of quality independent development. It’s time the big guys started taking notes from the little guys.

That’s all from the App Store for this week, I’m quitting my jibber jabber for another 7 days and I’ll be back next Saturday with more apps. In the meantime, drop by the comments and let me know what apps you’ve been looking at.

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