A few months ago I tried out the recently open-sourced Simplenote application from the folks at Automattic. One of the other fairly new additions to their cross-platform note-syncing platform is that an Android app is available for free in the Google Play Store.

The Android app does pretty much all the same things the desktop or web-based app does, and it syncs between devices automatically. With many "syncing" apps, I find it frustrating that the syncing isn't reliable or consistent. I have to admit, this one seems pretty solid. Perhaps it's because it does text and only text—I'm not sure.

To be completely honest, Simplenote doesn't do nearly as many things as Evernote does; however, that seems to be by design. It is a "simple note" program, and it handles simple notes extremely well. Along with syncing to other devices, it also allows you to publish notes publicly on the web so others can see them (here's an example). On top of that, it allows you to share notes between a group of users simply by tagging the note with their email addresses.

Simplenote may not be as robust as Evernote, but what it does with text is amazing. From my limited experience with it, it's also fairly reliable. If you're not using Simplenote for taking simple notes, you should give it a try. Just search for Simplenote in the Google Play Store. It's from the folks at Automattic, the same company responsible for WordPress.