Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Attention Grabber Note Widget Helps You Pay Attention To Your Elusive Home Screen Notes [Android 2.2+]

Attention Grabber Note Widget Helps You Pay Attention To Your Elusive Home Screen Notes [Android 2.2+]:
android home screen notesYour smartphone is supposed to help you get connected, make services more accessible and generally, aid you in your productivity while on the go. Thus, we have recommended a few other note apps, such as Easypad and AK Notepad, Catch Notes (that can be used for logging travel details) on our Best Android Apps page, Memoires, and one of my favorites, Evernote.
Even though I have some of these great note apps, lately, my phone has been more a source of entertainment with Draw Something and Facebook Mobile than a mobile productivity enhancer. I try to keep my lists of tasks and calendar events on my home screen, but they quickly become neglected as my day (and week!) goes on. Sound familiar?
If you are having a similar problem and really wish to pay more attention to the to-do list on your homescreen so you can eventually follow up with and cross off items off your task list, you might find the Attention Grabber Note Widget quite a welcome addition to your collection of Android apps. What makes this note app stand out from the sea of  note apps? The fact that it focuses on capturing your attention after you have jotted down your note. How does it do that? That’s what we will be talking about up next.

A Reminder App That Grabs Your Attention

The Attention Grabber Note Widget effectively grabs your attention by changing colors on an interval of your choice. You can download this free, ad-supported app from Google Play here and AppBrain. Here is the QR code for it if you want to go that route.

android home screen notes

Once you download it, head to your desired home screen, long tap on it and select to add a widget. Then choose one of the following sizes for your note widget.
android note widget In my case, I selected the 4×2 size. After this step, you can type the desired text that you want to keep in mind. You can choose to align it and increase the font size (default is at 22 point), but otherwise, there are no other font style options.

android note widget

By default, many combination of colors are selected for you so that your note can alternate note background and text colors. If you feel strongly about certain colors, however, you can tap on Select Colors and un-check a specific color combination.

android note widget

Since it’s probably harder to visualize various colors together with only text, here are a few screenshots illustrating some of the native note color combinations.

attention_grabber_various_colors

How often do the colors shift to capture your attention? You can select the interval when you tap the widget and press your hardware Menu key. Here you can see auto-refresh and interval options.

android note widget app

You can pick your note widget colors to change anywhere from 1 hour to every 2 days, or randomize the frequency of the color changes altogether.
android home screen notes
The simplicity of this app may be its strongest (or weakest, depending on how advanced your needs are) point. If you want a note widget to display weekly reminders without complex features and distractions, Attention Grabber Note Widget is probably very handy. If you want to sync your notes, then you can probably try another note app. Either way, Attention Grabber Note Widget has a great concept and executes it well without distracting the user.
I heavily rely on Evernote, but its widget can’t quite display a note’s content because it can only create a note shortcut. Thus, I welcome note syncing features in any note widget. Even then, I use Attention Grabber Note Widget because it actually helps me pay attention to the note and reminds me of its message.
What do you use to take notes on your Android device? Let us know in the comments section below.
Image Credit:Robot With Sticky Note Image Via Shutterstock

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