Who doesn’t love sticky notes?  They may be among the most convenient inventions in the history of the office.  I use them for everything.  Anytime I need to write down a phone number, jot down an important fact, make a list, or just make a note, my desk is quite literally littered with these square, sticky, colorful notes.  Now, imagine you could transfer all of those notes stuck around your workspace straight to the iPad.  That should give you an idea of what you will find with Bug Me! from Electric Pocket.

The main interface is a corkboard…because where else would you store your pending notes?  I thought it would be pretty cool if you could adjust this background with a few other options.  Hanging your notes on corkboard is fun, but what if you could hang them on the fridge, wall, or even all over your messy desk. That is really a lot more like real life for me and my Post-it Notes. I think there was an opportunity for Electric Pocket to have a lot of fun here with these backgrounds, and I would love to see what other options they could create.

Regardless of how this background looks, all of your notes will be posted here, looking an awful lot like the real thing, I might add.  From here, you can tap on any note to open or edit it.   Tap and hold on any note and you can drag it around the screen to rearrange. 

The first note in the upper left is the new note icon.  Obviously, tap this to create a new note.  Tap and hold to change the default color of the new note.

Creating and editing notes could not be easier.  From a blank note, just start scribbling with your finger.  You can choose from two different brush sizes, and a myriad of colors.  Just choose your brush and color and start writing with your finger.  This is about as easy as it comes. 

If you are like me, though, you might prefer something a little more…legible.  If that is the case, you can also choose to use the keyboard on your iPad to make typewritten notes.  Even the folks over at 3M must be kicking themselves over this one.  They have never offered Post-it Notes with a built in typewriter.

The problem so far should be pretty obvious.  It is great to be able to write notes to remind yourself about upcoming events or shopping needs.  But if these notes are buried inside the app, they may never get seen…and Murphy’s Law states that they almost never get seen until immediately after you need them.  So, there must be a way to view these notes outside of the app.  Just tap on the paper airplane icon to share any note via email or Twitter.  You can also choose to save a doodle to your photo album, or even straight to your home screen. 

Saving notes to your home screen, however, is a bit convoluted.  Notes cannot just be saved directly to your home screen.  And here, I am going to divert into a bit of criticism of Apple rather than Electric Pocket.  For whatever reason, Apple made it incredibly easy to save web pages and shortcuts directly to your home screen with a single touch.  Files are another story.  There is currently no easy way to save documents or files as home screen shortcuts…which really makes very little sense. 

As a result, there is no real way for Bug Me to save notes directly to your home screen.  Instead, Bug Me will turn your note into a web page, which can then be saved on your iPad’s home screen.

If this is not enough to help you remember your important appointments, you can also assign an alarm to any note.  It was a little frustrating that alarms only sound when you have Internet connectivity.  This means the alarms will not help much when you are “off the grid” as I often am at work.  Frustrating to say the least. 

I was also a bit annoyed to find that there is a pretty minimal reminder when you are outside the app.  It would be nice if Bug Me could make the complete note pop up, rather than just a generic reminder to check your Bug Me notes.  Then again, this may very well have been a limitation from Apple more than the app itself.

I am a huge fan of Post-it Notes.  I use the for just about everything, and the little slips of colored paper literally litter my office.  So, the opportunity to clutter my iPad with dozens of colored doodles and reminders is far too tempting for me to avoid.  Bug Me makes it just as easy to scribble a quick note to yourself as a regular Post-in Note.  The fact that you can also make them infinitely more legible, and even attach alarms to these notes, makes them even more useful than regular Post-it Notes.  I just hope my iPad can keep up with the increased clutter these notes will create on my home screen.

Bug Me! for iPad is available from Electric Pocket for $1.99 in the iTunes App Store.

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