Everything You Need to know about Google Keep

For many mobile users, note-taking apps and services are an indispensable tool to keep track of their schedule and tasks. In fact, Apple mobile users have long been enjoying the built-in Note feature on their devices for creating basic to-do list, while others refer to Evernote and Workflowy for more elaborate note-taking tasks.

Fortunately, Google is jumping into the bandwagon. With what appears as a long overdue reply to Evernote and Apple’s built-in Note feature, Google has just unveiled its own note-taking service app called Keep, giving Android phone users a faster way to make and save reminders and notes. The service is available both on devices that run on Android 4.0.3 and up and on Google Drive website. As of this writing, there are no words whether Keep will be available on iOS, Windows phone or other mobile operating system.

How Google Keep Works
After installing Keep on your Android phone, you will be prompted to choose what Google account you would like to use with the app. After which, you can start jotting down and saving notes. You have four options how you can enter notes: (a) create a quick note through the text box available on the initial screen; (b) make a checklist by tapping the check mark icon; (c) if you find it more convenient to speak than to type on your phone, you may opt to make a voice memo by tapping on the microphone. Voice memos are then instantly transcribed, allowing you to have both an audio and text copy; and (d) snap a photo by tapping on the camera icon and edit it using your Android phone’s built-in camera features. All the notes you create will be safely stored in Google Drive and can be synced to all your devices, making them accessible wherever you go

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No boring notes
Being a Google product, Keep makes finding notes more convenient for users with the integration of a search function. Nonetheless, there is no reason for you to create boring notes again as you can be able to assign colors by tapping on the color palette available on the top of the screen. You can also use these colors to keep all your notes organized. Photos can also be added to existing notes and once you are done, archive it by swiping across the note. There is also the tap-drag-and-drop function, letting you rearrange notes and change the layout on the screen.

Keep on Google Drive
The Google Drive page dedicated for Keep is easy to navigate and mirrors the functionality of the one available for mobile devices. Simply access the site, and you can start typing, editing, archiving and deleting notes. There are also different note types available (i.e. checklist, voice notes, photos), allowing you to choose the one that works best for you.

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Keep’s Potentials
Although some of Keep’s functions may be reminiscent of Evernote’s, Google Keep does offer a lot of promise. Considering Google’s aim to make all their products in sync with each other, it is possible that later improvements will allow users to send over Google map directions on Keep or copy snippets from their Gmail accounts. It will also be interesting to know how Google will integrate Keep on its rumored universal messaging platform, Babble. Whatever the future might hold for Google Keep, hopefully everything will be for the better and will not leave Android users disappointed.

What do you think of Keep? Think it’s just another run-of-the-mill note-taking service or a more promising app compared to the other ones available?

This guest post was penned by Ericka for www.movingpictures.tv. Ericka is a freelance writer who has written a number of posts for different websites. She is particularly interested in writing about tech-related topics.