We compared 3 of the most popular note taking apps for iPhone — but the winner depends on what you want to do

Note taking apps

I shudder to think where I would be in life if it were not for my smartphone note-taking apps.

Surely, I would have forgotten hundreds of tasks over the years, misplaced hundreds of paper shopping lists, or lost hours-worth of notes taken at work. All those brilliant screenplay ideas that I've had while riding the bus or at the gym or somewhere else where I couldn't easily get to a more traditional word processor would be simply gone forever, if it were not for my note taking apps.

There are tons of generic note taking apps for iPhone on the app store, and they're all pretty good at the basics. However, I've been using Apple's built-in Notes app, Google Keep, and Evernote for a long time now, and have found that these three stand above the rest, each for unique reasons.

And while I've tried (more than once) to consolidate my usage to a single app, I've found that each of these meets a specific need in its own way, and I truly do rely on all three for nearly everyday use.

Rather than arguing that one should be the ubiquitous note-taking solution, I've pitted these three apps against each other, identified each of their strengths and weaknesses, and identified which you should use based on which kind of notes you're taking.

Check it out:

COST: Luckily, all three of these apps have a free version for iPhone.

Apple's Notes app comes pre-installed with every iOS and OS device. So if you use an iPhone, congratulations! You're already a third of the way there.

Google Keep can be downloaded from the app store for free on iOS mobile devices, and a desktop version can be installed as an extension of Google Chrome, also for free.

Evernote has a free mobile and desktop version for Apple devices, but reserves several features and extras for premium (paid tier) customers.

For $7.99 a month (or $69.99 a year) premium users unlock the ability to access their notes offline, store emails inside the app, use keyword search on uploaded documents and attachments, annotate PDFs, and scan business cards.

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