App Review: totenotes

Here's a very new app that many people probably haven't heard about yet. I have only been using it this week, but it's already shown me that it will get more than just a quick trial for review.

Grade A

Quick Pitch: totenotes is an app that launches after each call you complete and offers a chance for you to make voice notes regarding the call. It transcribes your note, attaches the mp3, and sends the whole shebang over to your preferred email (which you've smartly filtered for the expected message). totenotes goes a step further than some other "after-call" apps and allows you to set both All hours and Business (8-6) hours for the app to activate AND to set a timeframe for the pop up to disappear without you having to press anything.

Full Story: I expected to rate this app about a B-. I don't like apps that ask me to take an extra step after every call. It's just another obtrusive step with which I'd rather not deal. When I do need to make a note following a business call, I'm OK with heading over to my preferred note-taking app and doing it myself. totenotes however, is as automated and as unobtrusive as I've seen for this type of app. The additional benefit of being able to set business hours (even though I only get to choose totenotes' 8-6) is another great feature. If you use your phone for business use this is a fantastic app to try. If you are like me and taking notes is something you need to do more of, this is perfect.

Bonus idea -- If you want all of your notes in one place you could use your note-app's email account rather than your regular email.

Pros:

• Automated and Unobtrusive - this app does what you need it to, then gets the heck out of the way.
• Customization - there are a number of preference settings to help this app work for you.

Cons:

• Contact Recognition - I organize my Google contacts into groups like a boss, and I'd be totally OK giving totenotes permissions to see which contacts I'd leave notes for and which I won't.
• Notification Bar - I know this is really Android's problem, but I do have a threshold for the number of apps that I allow to occupy my notification bar all the time.

I only tested the free version of this app, but if you're looking for power-user options you can upgrade for $3.99 to be able to leave longer notes and add a CC email address. 

You can download the free version of the app here.