Take simple notes with simple iPhone note-taking app Noted

I've yet to discover a note-taking app that's lasted me more than a week. Typically, I find they require too many taps to create a note or get in and out of an existing note and I soon return to my trusted method of jotting down notes on an actual pad of paper. The thing is, I often wish I had that pad of paper with me instead of my iPhone, which I carry with me pretty much everywhere I go. Thus, I continue on my search for a simple note-taking app.

Today, I came across Noted by Tack, which looks like it might have the legs to make it past the first week. It's dead simple to use (and free), relying more on a handful of gestures than buttons. There are no organizational tools, no folder hierarchy, no font or formatting options, and no sync settings, for example, to mess with. Your can't even reorder your notes, which is one feature I'd like to see added. Another feature to add: landscape support -- Noted works only in portrait mode.

When you launch Noted for the first time, it will offer a quick tutorial on its various gestures. In it, you will learn that swiping down creates a new note; a one-finger sideways swipe when viewing a note lets you flip to the next note; a two-finger sideways swipe when viewing a note deletes it (complete with cool shredding graphic); and a pinch on a note brings you to a stack of all of your notes. Your notes are stacked like notecards where you can see the top line of each. When viewing all of your notes, swiping sideways with one finger on a note will also delete it, saving you a step from opening it and doing the two-finger swipe to delete.

You can tap on a note to bring up the keyboard, while a quick swipe down hides the keyboard. Tap the options button in the upper-right corner of a note to choose from among six background colors. Below the color choices is a share button, which lets you share a note via Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, or text message.

There is one gesture not covered in the tutorial: shaking your phone to undo or redo changes.

There is but a single setting in the Settings menu. You can turn off the status bar that runs along the top of your iPhone so that Noted occupies the full screen.

I'm going to give Noted a try for a week to see if it can unseat the pad of paper I keep on my desk as my go-to note-taking object. The one missing feature that could make it an uphill climb is landscape support. When typing on my iPhone, I hate being restricted to portrait mode.

What is your preferred note-taking iOS app? Let me know in the comments below.