Microsoft have now released their popular note-taking app, OneNote for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. The program, which is part of their Office suite is popular with people wanting to make notes in meetings of who want to jot down thoughts on the go.
While built-into the company’s own Windows Phone operating system, iOS is the next smartphone operating system to get this great piece of software and for a limited time it’s completely free.
The app isn’t just about storing notes on your mobile, just as with OneNote on Windows Phone it will upload your notes to Microsoft’s cloud storage service SkyDrive (you’ll need a Windows Live ID) so that you can share your notes with your PC and open notes created on the desktop when on the move. Microsoft say of the new product. OneNote users will also be able to view and edit their notes in the OneNote cloud app, that can be accessed through Microsoft’s Office Live service, or SkyDrive.
Microsoft OneNote Mobile is an easy-to-use note-taking application for capturing all of your ideas and to-dos on the go, brought to you by Microsoft Office. With OneNote Mobile, create searchable notes with text, pictures, bullets, and checkboxes. Then keep your notes in sync using free Windows Live SkyDrive cloud storage to access, edit and manage them from virtually anywhere, from your PC or almost any web browser.
OneNote was first introduced in Office 2003 but wasn’t really popularly used until touch screen computers became commonplace. Now with Office 2010 running on many tablet PCs, it’s considered a stable of the Office system. The extension of the software into the iPhone will only help professionals who need access to notes, and the ability to create notes on the move that they can then use and work with on their PC.
What is curious about this however is the release of OneNote for the iPhone at a time when the program itself still isn’t part of the Office 2011 suite for the Mac. Microsoft have not commented on this but it would most likely be down to the current lack of touchscreen support in Mac OS. Now that Apple are addressing this we can expect to see the next generation iMacs and MacBooks coming with touch screens. Thus the next version of Office Mac, due sometime around 2013, should include OneNote.
With this omission it remains to be seen how useful people will consider OneNote on the iPhone. Many iPhone users, probably most in fact, still use a PC and this will help uptake. The lack of OneNote support on the Mac could damage the apps chances of picking up serious traction on Apple’s smartphone platform though.
There is also no word currently on a version of OneNote for the iPad or for Google’s Android operating system. We can be reasonably certain that the former is already in development. The future of OneNote, and indeed other Microsoft Office services, on Android is less certain however. Microsoft haven’t made any announcement as regards this and could decide to avoid Android development altogether.
On the flipside, Microsoft have a long history of developing Office products for the Mac, and so this was only to be expected. Microsoft have also announced that they will be bringing their new Lync communications platform to the iPhone later this year.
The app needs iOS 4.2 or higher to run and can be downloaded from the iTunes store. There is no word yet on how long Microsoft will be making OneNote for the iPhone free to download, though it will probably be for 30 days or less. If you are interested in trying OneNote on your iPhone or iPod Touch I wouldn’t leave it too long before you add it to your download basket.
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“…though it will probably be for 30 days or less.”
Onenote for iPhone has already been free for a lot longer than 30 days, though it it has yet to become available outside US.
OneNote is free from release date on 18 Jan 2011.
Yikes. Oooooooolllldddddd guys, come on. Nothing about this story is new, not the app, not the fact that it’s free. Sheesh, why do I keep coming here?
I wonder that as well, since your comment seems way more suited for YouTube.
Oh, because you’re the pinnacle of decency and intelligent discourse. How’s the weather up on that high horse?
OneNote was only available to US users for free.
Just now is it made a worldwide release
and that is indeed current news.
OneNote for iPhone was just released in the UK,
where the author is based, and gHacks
itself is based in Europe.
If you knew it, you should have said it.
If Americans get crap for posting news and other people coming in and saying “there’s a world outside of your county,” the least other sites could do is the same thing and let people know when news is applicable to your area.
Jeff you r absolutely right dude…