Touchanote is a new Android application that ties together NFC technology with the popular note-taking and organizing software Evernote. Created by the Montreal-based startup Wiseleap, the app took home the $50,000 grand prize at Evernote’s recent developer conference in San Francisco.
At the time of the conference, the results of the developer contest were overshadowed by the much larger news regarding Evernote’s acquisition of image-sharing app Skitch. But Touchanote, despite its niche appeal, is worth a second look.
Through a combination of NFC stickers and this mobile application, both of which are available via Touchanote’s website, you can easily associate a note in Evernote with a particular NFC tag. So, for example, you could place a sticker on your fridge that’s associated with your grocery list in Evernote, enabling you to launch the list on your phone just by tapping or waving your device near the tag.
Or maybe you could stick a tag on your suitcase that’s associated with your packing list. A tag that launches your “to-do” list could be stuck to something on your desk at the office. You could tag boxes you’re planning to store or move to a new house with a list of their contents. You could tag devices with links to their online user manuals or support pages.
These are just a few ideas, of course. You can probably think of more.
The only problem, of course, is that NFC technology is currently limited to a small number of handsets. Most notably, Google’s flagship phone, the Nexus S, offers NFC, as do some variants of the Samsung Galaxy S II, select Nokia devices (like the newer Astound), RIM’s BlackBerry Bold devices (9900/9930) and its newer Curve models (9350/9360/9370), among others.
But for those of you out there who are just starting to experiment with NFC and its potential use cases, this seems like a practical way to take advantage of the functionality that such a technology provides.
Evernote allows users to capture, organize, and find information across multiple platforms. Users can take notes, clip webpages, snap photos using their mobile phones, create to-dos, and record audio. All data is synchronized with the Evernote web service and made available to clients on Windows, Mac, Web, and mobile devices. Additionally, the Evernote web service performs image recognition on all incoming notes, making printed or handwritten text found within images searchable.
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