We have published several articles about the wildly popular, cross-platform and cloud-based service application, Evernote — most recently Aaron Couch's introduction to why Evernote should be used as a go-to place for remembering everything, and my overview of how Evernote works between Mac and Apple's iOS devices.

Evernote is a free universal app that works on the iPhone and iPad.

Basic Features

The Homepage for both versions of the iOS Evernote apps includes section tabs for viewing Notebooks, Notes, Tags, and Places (a view of your notes by the location they were created.)  There are also three Quick Notes buttons for creating text notes, shooting and adding photos directly into a note, and another camera features for scanning documents.

evernote app iphone

Tapping the Notes tab presents all your notes, sorted either by most recently updated, date created, or alphabetically by title. The iPad version of Evernote also includes a row at the top of the home page of your most recent notes that you can tap and access quickly. Previews of notes can be browsed in the List or Card view.

evernote app ipad

Because of the new card view, I typically try to add an image or graphic to my individually typed notes, which makes them more visual and easier to browse. In the browsing view of the Notes section, you can search notes, or tap the plus "+" button in the top-right to add a new note.

Notebooks

The Notebooks tab on the Homepage presents all your personal notebooks, notebook stacks (a collection of two more notebooks) and shared notebooks. In this browser view, you can also create new notebooks.

evernote app ipad

The Edit button at the top-right of this notebook section enables you to edit existing titles of notebooks, as well as share a public link to a selected notebook, or share the notebook with specific people. Sharing notebooks with specific individuals, however, requires a premium Evernote account. A URL link to a notebook means that the content of your shared notebook can be viewed in a web browser by anyone with the link. See my article for more details about sharing notebooks in Evernote and Springpad.

evernote app ipad

Unfortunately, the Notebooks browser is a little bland, lacking the visual context found in the Notes section.

Tags and Places

I tend to use Evernote mainly for current projects I'm working on, but if you find yourself frequently searching notes for current and past notes and other content, tagging notes might be of help to you.

evernote app

Also, if you frequently create notes in various locations you travel, the Places feature may also be useful for quickly finding notes.

Notes

It goes without saying that notes can be created and edited in the iOS version of Evernote. The software keyboard of the iOS apps includes a collection of formatting tools (including bold, italics, check boxes and bulleted lists) as well as handy undo and redo buttons.

evernote app

You can also add images to notes from your device's photo library, or shoot photos using the app's built-in camera. Individual notes can be shared to the usual places— Twitter, Message, Mail, or Print.

evernote app

You can click on the little "i" icon at the top-right of a note to assign tags to a note, move it to another notebook, and view information about the date it was created and updated, as well as the geographic location of where it was added.

Storage

Using Evernote with a free account allows you to sync all of your notes between your computer and mobile devices, using the Evernote cloud service. Note that notes are not downloaded and installed on your iOS devices. You must have a Wi-Fi or cellular connection to the Internet to view them on those devices. Premium account users do get the option to download all of their Evernote content to their iOS devices for offline viewing.

evernote app iphone

Unfortunately, you can't selectively target individual notes for offline viewing, as you can with files in the mobile version of Dropbox.

The Bottom Line

The benefits of using Evernote and its cloud service is that your notes get synced between your Mac, PC, and iOS devices. The service and apps are also supported by a growing collection of third-party applications and web browser plug-ins that enable you to more conveniently add notes and other content to your Evernote account.

If you're looking for a way to store lots of stuff on your iOS devices, Evernote is a good option among the many iOS notebooks apps. For a full overview of Evernote, download Mark's Missing Manual for How to Use Evernote and do more with the service.

Download: Evernote iPhone, iPod Touch & iPad (Free)

Let us know what you like about the iOS versions of Evernote. What features would you like to see added or removed?