Positive news for Android users: Users of Google Keep rejoice—the text formatting options that have been sorely lacking for years are now available. This week, Google revealed that you will soon be able to bold, italicize, and otherwise change the language in your notes.
This feature is already rolling out, according to Google. (I don’t have it yet, but Mishaal Rahman and a few others did; the functionality was discovered before the formal debut, so it is approaching quickly.)
The new Keep features aren’t exactly brand-new, but they are nonetheless a great addition to the program and fall more into the “should have been here all along” category than the area of flashy new things. Google has been giving Keep an unusually high priority lately.
Users received a new home screen widget early this year, and you may now have multiple Keep windows open on your device at once. To allow you to view all the changes you’ve made to your notes over time, Google is also gradually bringing out version history.
If you didn’t know, Keep is a fantastic note-taking tool. It’s quick, accessible via Android, iOS, and the web, and manages to be straightforward and incredibly brilliant. When you paste a link into a note, the card becomes a rich preview, allowing you to see the exact content.
A single-line note resembles a Post-it, whereas a longer note resembles paper. A note can record voices, create pictures, and even set reminders. Additionally, since this is a Google product, it can all be searched for and accessed in the sidebar of other Google products.
The main issue with Keep is that it has a shaky future. The app is more than ten years old, and this may be the biggest update it has ever had. It receives little attention or feature updates. At the I/O developer conference, you won’t hear someone give a big speech about how awesome Keep is and all the cool things you can do with it.
Users are understandably concerned because of this that Google may at any time decide to discontinue the app, as it has done with so many others, as part of an effort to save costs or refocus. Keep is superior to Docs in many areas, but Docs is much more likely to be around in a few years.
Because of this, it’s encouraging to see Google continuing to acknowledge the existence of Keep, just as it appears to have done with Tasks this year. (Go ahead and have Keep reminders appear in Tasks, Google.
(That’s where it is!) The formatting options increase Keep’s capabilities on top of its straightforward interface and are likely to be available on the web and iOS. Hopefully, it will continue to be one of the top note-taking applications for Android and other platforms.