OneNote comes to the iPhone

One of the cool things about technology is when it makes our life easy. More often than not, numerous things seem to make technology more of a hurdle then a helpful time saver. I have often proposed a communistic approach to technology to ensure the best for everyone as opposed to needless competition based solely on profit goals that slow down development but that is another discussion for another blog post.

Today however, the stars aligned and things really started to gel. As you know last year, I took the plunge and joined the dark side in getting an iPhone. While the iPhone provides numerous integration and data synchronization tools to help keep my life in order one thing that is obviously missing are Microsoft Office tools. One tool I use all the time is OneNote. OneNote automatically stores its files in the cloud using Windows Live SkyDrive allowing it to automatically update from wherever I open it. It is very productive when you can open OneNote in the office and make some changes and then open the same program at home and see those changes and then make more knowing the next day they will automatically show up at the office. This is why God made the cloud.

I have searched many times looking for OneNote on the iPhone and today it appeared. Microsoft has released OneNote for the iPhone that functions just like the desktop client. It opens the files from the cloud allowing you to make notes and update notes via the iPhone.

It is free for the time being in the App store however, I can see Microsoft starting to charge for this soon enough. If you use OneNote, this is a must-have app. I also hope this shows Microsoft’s commitment to bringing the power and benefits of the Office desktop suite of clients to more mobile platforms like the iPhone.

Disclaimers:

1. Sorry Android users, nothing for you yet. 
2. There is a bug when you login to your Windows Live account. You may get a 400 error. That’s ok, just keep trying and you will eventually get logged in. Once logged in it works great. They are working on the bug but it is easy to overcome.