Appigo’s Notebooks for iPad, a Quick Look and Exclusive Interview

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One of the companies that I got to know when I was writing for an iPhone review website was Appigo. Appigo released a task manager, ToDo shortly after the App Store went live and it has been a mainstay on my iOS devices ever since. Appigo is a small outfit that makes quality apps. They are relatively slow to release new products and, over the last few years have proven their commitment to quality and adding value to apps customers have already purchased. Some time after they released ToDo the company also released Appigo Notebook. It was a simple, easy to use notes app that, like ToDo, offered sync capabilities with Toodledo. When the iPad was released Appigo made a version of ToDo for it. Notebook however did not see a similar update… until now.

Appigo has released a version of Notebook for iPad. I’ve been using it for the past day and, like their other offerings, I’m impressed. The app is simple to use, powerful enough to become your go-to note app and, thanks to Dropbox sync, notes are and remain “universal”. As Appigo’s Boyd Timothy put it
“Appigo Notebook has a specific purpose … and that’s to stay simple. People appreciate simplicity, especially when it is solid and works.”

Here’s what the company has to say about it and out exclusive conversation with Appigo principles, Calvin Gaisford and Boyd Timothy.

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From Appigo:

Notebook focuses on simple functionality for creating, sharing, and editing your notes. Notebook 2 now gives you an easy and convenient way to share your notes from anywhere with Dropbox sync — collaborate with friends, keep your notes on all your iOS devices, and even add, edit, and modify them on your Mac and PC.

Notebooks: Keep related notes safely organized in different notebooks.

Date & Time Stamps: Easily insert the current date and time.

Text Formatting: Effortlessly create bulleted lists within your notes.

Share via Email: Share your notes with others by emailing them directly from Notebook.

Passcode Protection: Keep important information secured from curious eyes by marking a note private.

Offline Access: Access and edit your notes even when you do not have an Internet connection.

Todo Integration: Import a note as a task directly into Appigo Todo.

Friendly Support: Visit our support page for feature walkthroughs and support articles. Contact our support team for additional help when you need it.

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The app is simple, offers pretty much all the features you need without becoming bloated and, having watched the company over the years, will only improve with time. At just $4.99 it is worth every penny. Grab it here. (Links to all their apps can be found at the end of this post.)

We had a chance to chat with Calvin and Boyd this morning and here is how the conversation went.

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You got into the iOS market early, before it was even an established platform for apps. Why iOS?

Calvin and I were working on projects for the Linux Desktop before the iPhone came to the market. We were also using Mac OS X on our own because we loved the platform. When we found out that the iPhone was running a mini version of iOS on a fun and exciting platform, we’d kick ourselves later if we didn’t build something.

You have stuck with iOS pretty specifically except for a small move into OS X. What went into that decision?

We’ve stuck with iOS for the same reason we went into iOS. We’re Mac Heads and love the platform. We build solutions for problems we care about and are passionate about.

Can you tell us a bit about your specific philosophy when considering news or updated apps?

We are a fairly small shop, founded by two programmers. It’s a bit rough knowing exactly how often to break away from coding (which we love so much) in order to broadcast information about our apps. We heavily rely on our users and bloggers like you to pass along news about our apps. When we started four years ago, we imagined eventually building a few handfuls of apps. We quickly learned that adding value and quality to our existing apps was more important than pushing out a large pile of apps. We carefully choose which features/apps to add in order to keep them relevant and simple for users.

Anything else we should know about you and Appigo?

We love our location (Orem, UT) because of the great options for skiing, hiking, fishing, mountain biking and most any other typical outdoors activity.

Any plans to branch out to other operating systems? Android? Windows Phone?

This is a tough question and it comes down to overall satisfaction with our jobs. We really love OS X and iOS. We’ve “been there” with other platforms before and the level of fun we had was never as much as what we get out of offerings Apple has put on the table.

If you have any questions for Calvin or Boyd leave them in the comments before and we’ll make sure to forward them on.

Here’s a list of all of Appigo’s apps…

iPhone:

Todo
Corkulous
AccuFuel
Todo Lite
Notebook

iPad:

Todo for iPad
Corkulous
Notebook

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About the Author

Dan Cohen
Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. Dan is married to Raina Goldberg who is also an avid user of Apple products. They live in New Jersey with their golden doodle Nava.