Microsoft may prefer that everyone use Windows Phone 7, but Microsoft Android products are vital considering that the Redmond-based company needs to be wherever its users of other services congregate. That means releasing a One Note Android app, and that’s exactly what users can go grab.

One Note Mobile is now live in the Android Market, available for users on Android 2.3 or higher. Now you too can use OneNote as your daily planner, memory aid, and note taker. The app creates multiple notebooks for keeping track of the things you need to do or wish to remember. Whether that consists of recipes, travel itineraries, or notes from a meeting, all the information is stored in one place and organized according to your preference. One supports more than just text, so you’ll be able to take photos with a camera and embed them in notes, as well as maintain formatting when saved.

Other features include:

• Text formatting, images, and bulleted lists
  
• To-do lists with clickable checkboxes
• Quick photo capture with your phone’s camera
• Quick access to recent notes
• Store and access multiple OneNote notebooks
• Sync to your free SkyDrive account for access anywhere
• Offline access to your notes
• Option to sync notebooks only over a Wi-Fi connection
• Built-in spelling checker
• Support for external hyperlinks
• Table editing

Microsoft did a good job designing One Note. The app is available for free and works with Windows Live ID and Skydrive, allowing users to sync their notebooks across devices. Users can store up to 500 notes for free, but a $4.99 USD monthly subscription is required to go beyond that. Prices may vary depending on your location, but the app should be available in the following countries.

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

I’m not the only one here at Androinica who loves Evernote, and I use it many times every day, as well as my trusty Dolphin browser. Well this week these two good friends have started working together on Android in a big way, through two new add-ons, and Evernote rounded things out with a new version that adds some very handy new features as well.

If you’re still not familiar with Evernote, I strongly recommend you head over to the Market and give it a try. I’ve used it to organize my thoughts, writing, receipts, warranties, loyalty cards, grocery lists, travel plans, gift ideas, goals, ideas, and just about anything. I love being able to access searchable notes from my Android phone, tablet, Windows desktop, laptop, and even a browser in a pinch.

Up until now, the desktop version had a few features that were sorely missed on Android, but no longer!

The Evernote Add-On for Dolphin lets you do web clipping similar to the desktop Chrome browser extension. This is functionality that I had actively been trying to find ever since I first started using Evernote, and now we finally have it.

Download the Add-On, authorize your account, and you’re ready to start clipping any text you want to remember. Select text on a website and click the Evernote icon to send it directly to a new note, and you get to edit the title (default is the webpage title), choose the Notebook, and add Tags as well. I love that feature while I’m doing research, grabbing a recipe or part of an interesting blog post, or picking up book titles or model numbers for future reference. In fact, it helped me write this post.

Quick tip: make sure you select the text you want first, then press the button, otherwise you’ll end up with just the title and an empty note.

It is a nice and usable start, but far from perfect and can (and likely will with Dolphin being very responsive to user feedback) get even better as we go along. I’d like to see an option to automatically added the source link to the bottom of the note, and quite a number of users are complaining that the Evernote icon replaced the Dolphin Home button in the browser. The latter didn’t bother me, since I never really use the home button, but I’d far rather have the web clipper accessible from the main screen rather than have to go to the add-ons by sliding to the right side Dolphin drawer. It would definitely make sense to give users that option up front. Note that it does a good job clipping the formatted text, but it doesn’t grab images like the Chrome extension. That would be a nice future addition too.

Download it now in the Market, and get clipping!

Skitch for Dolphin extends all the great capabilities for image annotation right into your browser as well. Click on the Skitch icon in the drawer and the screenshot goes right into Skitch and you can annotate away. Its perfectly implemented and very smooth – great job Dolphin! This is one area where we’re now ahead of the Windows version, since Skitch is still Mac and mobile only.

Available now in the Market.

Not to be outdone by Dolphin, the new update to version 3.5 of Evernote for Android adds the usual bug fixes and reliability improvements, but a few little changes that make the overall experience better.

• Auto Titles auto generates a title for a note that you create via snapshot or voice memo if you don’t give it a name. I’ve had notes that I made and then had trouble finding before when they stayed nameless, but now the name will be based on the type of note and the date/time.
• Improved image spacing in notes by using a bit of padding around the border to make it look better, especially with multiple images in a note. You can tap and zoom to fullscreen for an image, or even better long press and open it in Skitch to annotate.
• You can now Save anytime, without having to exit the note. A basic feature and one you would have thought was in there earlier. The desktop version autosaves frequently, and while working on mobile you might like to be able to do those saves without breaking your flow.

It’s not very often that three great applications I use daily get together to get even better, but this is one of those rare and special times. Great job by everyone involved.

How are you going to use these great new Add-ons, and what’s your favorite way to use Evernote?

Do you do a lot of writing on your Android tablet? Have you been looking for the perfect app to help you focus on the most important part – the writing? Whether you’re a blogger, journalist, working on your next book, participating in the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), or you just prefer to write a draft before sharing in social media or other web-based apps, Jotterpad HD could be the answer you’re looking for.

I’ve been a fan of minimalist interfaces when I sit down to write on any device, and while there’s a number of great desktop options, I hadn’t found the right fit for Android. Most either have too many functions and create distraction, cater to developers and try to mimic a very basic text editor, or have all the design elegance of a post-it note. While I’m a big fan of apps like Evernote for short messages and storing information, and there are lots of great apps or browser-based possibilities for connecting to your writing’s social media or online destination, I often find them all a bit laggy when I’m writing something longer like a novel chapter or feature article.

Well I’ve finally found my solution in Jotterpad HD from 2nd Class Citizen and I’m using it to write this post right now. Available for tablets running Honeycomb or Ice Cream Sandwich, it also supports all types of physical or bluetooth keyboards, in English and Chinese.

Open it up and you’re given a list of your past documents with icons to create a new document, edit a past one, share, or more options. If you click on a document from the list, it shows the creation date, last update date and time, number of time machine backups, and word count for the document. If you have a personal word target for your daily writing, or your editor has a requirement, you know just how important this little feature can be.

Create a new document and you’re faced with a clean white screen, space for a title, an attractive font and a very simple top ribbon with icons for save and back, and the paid version adds undo/redo/day-night mode. There’s room for a title centered on the first line. Want more options? There are a few in the more options icon, allowing you to Find within the document or display/hide a bottom ribbon with icons to increase or decrease the font size, change to one of the other 3 fonts (2 classic serif fonts and one arial-esque sans serif), or change the text alignment for the page. That’s it. And really, when you sit down to write, that’s all you need.

One thing that makes it so powerful is how it uses standard Android sharing, but with a twist. The title automatically becomes the title in another application (like WordPress or Evernote) , or the subject in an e-mail. That means you can use Jotterpad as your main writing pad for all sorts of writing, and with its clean interface and fast response time, you can be more efficient and focused. Since it is plain text, you don’t have to worry about correcting strange formatting when you use this as a first draft for your blog.

The Time Machine is a fantastic function and very smoothly implemented. Every time you open a document and save again, it creates a new Time Machine backup. Available under More Options, if you open the Time Machine it will show you side by side your current version and the previous version for you to check for differences. You can choose an even earlier version as well.

Also under More Options you can create a duplicate of a current document, export to TXT or PDF, or change the Settings. They’ve done a great job with the PDF export, where you can choose the font color and style, background color, alignment, file name (defaults to the title) and see a preview of how it looks before you complete the export. The Settings menu lets you customize your interface a bit by changing your ribbon style and day/night mode (paid version only), or you can backup your entire database.

No, this is not a full-featured replacement for your desktop Word Processor, nor is it trying to be. But when you need to write, this has the killer combination of only exactly what you need, and looks great doing it. Download it now from the Market to try it out and get writing! You’ll be paying for the full version soon!

It was just a few days ago that Dropbox showed off the design changes that it would make for Ice Cream Sandwich devices. Today, the company has released an updated Dropbox for Android app that changes the appearance of the app on all phones (pre-ICS included) and adds some nice new features to go along with its pretty new face.

First, let’s talk about the facelift. Dropbox now has a three-tab interface for browsing your online Dropbox: the main view where all stored files are displayed; Uploads to see which files are queued to be uploaded from the phone to the cloud, as well as a log of files recently completed; and Favorites, which is the section where users go to access files that have been downloaded to the phone for offline use. Honeycomb and ICS phones will see the tabs represented in a flat action bar with just the icons, but Gingerbread and previous devices will see a gradient bar. All versions will be able to tap the down arrow on a file or folder and get options to Share, Favorite, Delete, Rename, or export.

As for the new features, we just revealed one of them. Dropbox makes it easier now to manage files from that dropdown menu. Users can send files from Dropbox directly to Google Docs or an email, and they can share it with any app with access to the Android share function. Adding a Favorite to a file then saves it to the device and makes it accessible offline in the Favorites tab.

Dropbox has also become a better manager of files. The app supports bulk file uploads, which will be great news for folks who like to immediately backup their photos to the cloud. Gallery view has also been improved to go along with other “bug fixes and stability improvements” to make for a better Dropbox. Download the app from the Android Market and see these welcome changes for yourself.

[Dropbox]

Any.Do doesn’t have as many features some other to-do apps for Android, so how has it managed to get so much universal praise and more than 500,000 downloads since its release a few months ago? Because Any.Do does one thing and does it well. What the app lacks in complexity is precisely why so many people enjoy this beautifully-designed Android app.

However, don’t take that simplicity to mean that Any.Do is underpowered. Someone can still Prioritize, Organize by Folder, set Reminders, and add Notes if necessary. But the point is that Any.Do presents its set-up in an elegant way so it does’t really feel as cumbersome as some other apps. The white or black themed design is smooth and minimal, creating an easy-going sense that can become more detailed when the situation calls for it. And with support for syncing to Google Tasks, another no-frills to-do manager, getting things done is simple with this app.

The people who love Any.Do got a few more reasons to praise the app over the weekend. The latest update to the app adds support for tablets, a feature that I’ve sorely missed since I started trying the app in recent weeks. There’s nothing tablet-specific about the interface, but the app scales-up very well on both a Toshiba Thrive 7″ and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1″ that I’m using (the app was previously not viewable in the Market by such devices.)

Any.Do now supports a missed call feature that can create a task directly from a notification. Should a user miss a call from a client, vendor, or loved one, a pop-up will appear with the following options: Call now, Call Later, Ignore. Pressing “Call Later” automatically creates an Any.Do reminder to call that person later. This feature can be disabled, but it’s convenient for those times when you can’t return a call right away but don’t want to risk forgetting it.

Download Any.Do to your Android 2.2 or higher device. According to the Android Market page for the app, it will soon support sync to Catch, Microsoft Exchange, Remember the Milk, Producteev, and more.

KEY FEATURES

• Syncs across phones, tablets, and desktop using Google Tasks
• Shake to clear completed items from task list
• Two home screen widgets to monitor to-do list

Dreamers, goal-oriented technophiles, and enterprising minds take note – Google has delivered a way to manage those schemes digitally. With the appropriately-named Schemer, users keep a journal of the things that they hope to accomplish and see if anyone else may have the same idea.

Schemer, currently in beta only in the United States, is like a to-do list specifically for aspirations. Users create “schemes” to attend an Olympics, learn a foreign language, get a promotion, or make it into the the Top 1,000 of COD: Modern Warfare 3 players in the world. Other schemers can then say that they have actually done this already or that they want to pull off the same trick.

And that’s where the “community” aspect comes in. Because Schemer links with your Google account, it automatically pulls in your contacts from Google+ and can be a way to discover skill sets or aspirations that you never knew others had. For instance, one of my G+ friends listed “Get 1,000 followers on Google+” as a scheme, which I marked as something that I have done. I then provided tips on how he could do it, the secret being posting cat GIF’s and geek culture meme posts. Meanwhile, I want to learn Japanese, and people who have or are learning the language have provided links to resources that can accelerate the learning process.

Schemer features recommended schemes based on location and categories in which users express an interest, so there’s never any reason to get bored with the app. From a practical standpoint, it’s hard to imagine that most people will succeed at even half of the schemes they list, but the app is interesting because of the potential value for those rare occurrences that you might actually work towards the goal. People always say that they’d like to run a marathon or volunteer, but you’d be more likely to work towards those goals with encouragement from people in circle who have experience in that matter or share your interests. Schemer is not a magic pill for working towards your dream, but it’s a good starting point for getting or giving feedback to make goals obtainable.

At the moment, the service is invite only to United States residents, so not everyone will be able to use it. However, the first 20 people in the U.S. to click this link will be able to get an invite. I ask that you then pay it forward and share an invite link with your fellow Androinica.com readers. (Look on the right side of Schemer.com once you’ve logged-in).

While DepositFiles, Megaupload, and Rapidshare have become the default resources for consumers looking to share large files, YouSendIt has been popular among businesses and some consumers as well. Anyone who has been passing those large files around can do that on Android now that the YouSendIt Mobile App has been released.

YouSendIt, available now for Android 2.2 and higher, is a management tool for sending and receiving large files. It’s commonly used for video producers sending raw files to clients, coworkers using shared documents, or between people looking to send files too large for email attachments. With the YouSendIt Mobile App, users can download those files directly to their phone or send them securely to someone else. (You can even digitally sign them.)

Because YouSendIt includes a cloud storage component, users can also manage their accounts with the mobile app. Folder creation or moving is available in the app, and so is the ability to adjust Read/Write permissions for select folders. That allows team members to grant each other access to critical files without having to compromise their accounts. Users can also upload or delete files, access stored documents or videos, and send a file stored in the account. YouSendIt can share via the standard method or create a link that can pass to the Android share function.

A YouSendIt account is free if you want only the most basic features: 2 GB of total storage, 50 MB max file size and 5 e-signatures. However, you can sign-up for a $9.99 per month Pro account that raises those limits to 5 GB of storage, 2 GB max file size , and 10 signatures. A $14.99 per month plan offers unlimited storage, 2 GB max file size, and unlimited signatures, as well as a range of tracking features and support. View the full-breakdown of options or sign-up for a free trial at the YouSendIt.com plan comparison page.

Catch Notes has redesigned its note-taking app that gives users the option to open up their notebooks to others. While Catch has primarily been a private dynamic note-taking app with some sharing abilities, the latest version of the app actually supports sharing notes with others and allowing for members to give each other feedback.

The brand-new Catch Streams function – available in the Catch.com web app and the Android 1.6+ mobile app – groups a series of notes into a Stream, which is basically a notebook centered on one idea. Within the stream, someone can post photos, record voice notes, send reminders, or write a text note. Someone planning a trip could create a stream with notes about what has to be done, or create one with ideas for the places and activities that may be of interest.

Streams also allows for Catch members to work together or share notes with each other. For instance, I just created an Androinica Team Stream and invited the other members of the site to join. I recorded a voice note about an internal project and shared it with the others, who can comment on what I propose. We could also use this as a way to pitch ideas, track what others are working on, or share photos that we spot that may be of interest to the staff. There’s great potential here for collaboration and getting immediate feedback from each other.

Catch will also come in handy in your personal life. The company pitches another use case where a couple is house hunting and each person posts notes to the stream showing potential homes. The spouse could then comment on a photo and say, “It’s pretty, but it looks like it’s in a busy area.” The other spouse could then record a voice note to show that it’s actually not very noisy.

Users can create private streams for better organization or share their streams and notes through invitations. This is a great new feature that Catch users should enjoy, and an important point of distinction considering the new features announced by Evernote yesterday. Download Catch from the Android Market and sign-up for a free account if you haven’t already. Free accounts are limited to 3 active streams; a paid Pro account can create 10, and a Premiere account can create 50.

Note taking and memory-aid app Evernote has added three often-requested features to its Android app. Today Evernote announced that users can share notebooks and get “more sketch goodness” for annotation.

Evernote now allows users to mark a note as shareable to certain people named or with anyone who has a link to that note. That will make it easier to pass on notes you make to friends, family, or coworkers. Access can later be taken away by the note creator. And to put the cherry on top, Evernote premium users can allow others to edit notes. That might be useful for the folks who use Evernote as a productivity tool.

Skitch, the annotation company that Evernote acquired a short while ago, has been included. There’s now a link to open the Skitch Android app, edit an image, and then save the into Evernote. Users can save as a new image or replace the original with what was edited in Skitch.

By the way, if you’re storing Evernote on your SD card, you cannot gain access to the widget. That’s because Android doesn’t support widgets when an app is installed on the SD card. To remedy the situation, Evernote built a separate widget specifically for such users. Download the Evernote app and install to the SD card, then download the Evernote widget app (leave it on the standard phone memory) and you should be able to have the best of both worlds. Here’s Evernote’s developer page to download whatever you need.