Noteskinery

Developer: Hon Cheng Muh
Price: $4.99
Version Reviewed: 1.23

iPhone Integration [rating:4/5]
User Interface [rating:3/5]
Re-use / Replay Value [rating:4/5]

Overall Rating:

Noteskinery (formerly Moleskinery) is a note organization and editing utility. While the notes themselves are simple text, the organizational aspects of this application are the most beautiful I've ever seen. This app obviously takes cues, and formerly the name, from the Moleskin notebooks and their hipster PDA following.

The main features of this application are it's ability to organize notes in folders (or notebooks) and nested subfolders. The ability to change each folder icon to any of the included wide variety of beautiful themed icons. The text editing itself is rather sparse, but functional. It would be great to have a more full-featured editor for the notes.

One nice feature recently added was the ability to backup and restore your entire notebook hierarchy to Google Docs. This is a great feature, and one that's needed considering some of the data retention problems people have had with the iPhone. Though you can edit the notes once uploaded, you must be careful. It's a true data backup and restore process and not really friendly enough to make too many changes. A full sync application is a much needed addition. It should be noted that if you restore from Google Docs, it will replace all of your local notes. This is not a sync, just a backup and restore.

The + version of this application adds the ability to attach an picture either from your library or the camera, and a audio recording to a note. It's the one difference between this normal version and the more expensive plus version ($11.99). Of the two, I recommend this one. The only reason for the other is if you have the need to attach images or voice.

While I appreciate the absolute beauty of this application, there are some shortcomings. The user interface could use with some shortcuts. Adding / editing notes could use their own dedicated buttons to save some time. In addition, a way to edit the text, either through syncing or some other method is greatly needed. As it is now it's really only good for reference. Though I'm not sure the best way to get notes onto the device.

If you are in need of a good organized note application, this is a good possibility. There are currently very few other options. This one, in my opinion, just needs the functionality to be as beautiful as the application design is.