TL;DR
- Google Keep is diversifying with new note types, including a handwriting mode.
- New background options will let you spice things up with lines and color.
- Working with images is due for a big upgrade, too, with positioning and cropping tools.
Update: October 23, 2024 (1:33 AM ET): We now have some additional information regarding Google Keep’s handwriting mode. Thanks to more digging around by our contributor, Assemble Debug, we now know that the new handwritten notes will be completely separate from the notes that you can currently draw. A drawing note will not be affected by the new handwritten notes feature.
You will still have the old drawing UI for old drawing notes or drawings that you have inserted into a text note. Also, adding a drawing in a text note will display the old UI. Although, this could change in the future.
The handwritten notes will show the title of the note at the top, while the old drawing notes will have it at bottom.
Moreover, users will be able to export the new handwritten notes as PDF files. In contrast, hand-drawn notes can only be shared as images.
Lastly, the onboarding dialogue of the new handwritten notes feature also mentions a “Text to sketch” feature. We think this feature could allow users to apply AI to create sketches through text prompts.
Meanwhile, we were also able to spot handwritten notes in the web version of Google Keep, but you can’t do anything with them for now. They just show up as PDFs, along with options to print and download.
Original article: October 22, 2024 (6:52 PM ET): Google Keep can be a great way to avoid losing track of your good ideas, letting you jot down inspiration at a moment’s notice. But there’s also room for improvement, and going back to the early days of 2024, we’ve been looking forward to Keep getting support for note-taking right from your phone or tablet’s lock screen. With Android 15 and its formal support of lock screen note apps, that day is finally arriving, but this isn’t happening all on its own. Today we’re checking out some of the other improvements the Keep team has been working on, giving you a bunch of new options for creating notes.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
We’re taking a look under the hood of version 5.24.422.02.90 of the Keep app, and while you won’t see these features on your own phone just yet, we were able to enable a few for an early preview. Right now in Keep, all notes are created equal, but that looks like it’s about to change.
We see some new options for getting started, with Keep presenting you with the choice between plain-old text, a checkbox list, an image-based note, and a handwriting mode that feels like an evolution of the old drawing tools. While the latter looks ideal for devices with a stylus, it should work just fine if you’re using your finger. Even in this mode, you’re free to mix things up by inserting pictures, or blocks of printed text.
Keep should be getting some new options for dressing up your notes, including a bunch of new looks for the background. While we had a few fun illustrations to choose from in the past, these lines and grids we’re seeing now might be a lot simpler-looking, but also probably a lot more useful — to say nothing of imparting a clean, fresh vibe.
Image support within notes gets a real shot in the arm, and Keep is working to let you move around and resize pics inside the body of notes — you’re no longer stuck just showing a few up top. The tools here even support cropping images down within the app.
We were able to check these out in action even with Keep’s tablet interface. Right now, there’s no telling when any of this will go live, but when it does we expect these tools to be available across the app — including when accessing through the lock screen.