The other day, we were let in on an early sneak peak of Google Keep. The site went live ahead of Google’s readiness, but quickly went down and left us all watering at the mouth. Welp, fast forward to Wednesday and Keep has gone live at drive.google.com/keep, and it also has a nice application to go along with it in the Google Play Store.
Keep offers a lot more than we were originally lead to believe, which makes sense considering the first early look at the service didn’t look all that “done.” Welp, you can liken this to a nice, juicy rare steak now. Google Keep allows you to jot down your thoughts in pure text, create lists, add pictures with annotated text, and even take voice notes that can be transcribed to text. Notes can be color-coded, titled, searched for, and easily deleted at the swipe of your finger.
You can take notes using home-screen widgets and place those notes on your home-screen without having to go through the app. The app isn’t hugely complex, and that’s the very chord Google wanted to strike with this one — simplicity to create usefulness, and powerful enough to make it a must-have app on your device.
Its existence under the Google Drive URL means your notes stay backed up to your Google account, and you can access them from any device that has a web browser or a Google Keep app. Google says Keep will eventually be accessible right through the main Google Drive URL, but for now there is no direct integration. Enough said — give it a try at the website and in the Google Play Store here, and let us know what you think!
[Update]: The site is giving an error message right now, but it’s not a 404 page and it’s still live. Google has also officially announced it on its own blog so we’re fairly certain this wasn’t another slip-up. We’ll keep an eye on the site to see if things improve, but the site itself is still live so keep trying (no pun intended) over the course of the day.
[via Google]