Microsoft OneNote is an app that lets you create and organize notes and synchronize them with the web or between devices. The company has released versions of OneNote for Windows Phone, iPhone and iPad… but it wasn’t until this week that an official OneNote app for Android found its way into the Android Market.

OneNote for Android lets you create notes that include text or pictures, and you can either add photos from your gallery or snap new photos using your camera.

The app also includes support for to-do lists with checkboxes and text formatting. You can also add hyperlinks to web pages.

You can synchronize your notes with Windows Live SkyDrive, but notes saved on your device are also accessible when you’re offline.

OneNote Mobile for Android lets you create or access up to 500 notes for free. If you hit that limit you can make an in-app purchase for $4.99 which will remove the limit.

OneNote runs on Android 2.3 and up.

Microsoft is still working on software updates for Windows Phone 7 — but the company is also looking ahead to Windows Phone 8. While Microsoft hasn’t had much to say publicly about its next-generation smartphone OS, the folks at PocketNow got a look at a leaked video which spells out an awful lot of details.

Paul Thurrott followed up with more details at WinSuperSite.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• The operating system will be based on the Windows 8 kernel, not Windows CE.
• While Windows 8 apps won’t run on Windows Phone 8, the two operating systems will share enough code that developers can port Win8 apps to WP8 easily.
• The Zune Client desktop sync app will go away and Microsoft will launch a new app dedicated to synchronizing Windows Phone 8 devices with Windows computers.
• Windows Phone 8 will support multicore chips, new screen resolutions, NFC radios, and other high-end hardware.
• There will be a Wallet app to compete with Google Wallet.
• Microsoft plans to use a proxy server to speed up webpage load times in Internet Explorer 10.
• Windows Phone 8 will support 128-bit full-disk BitLocker encryption.
• Microsoft is introducing a “lens app” for camera functionality.

The new mobile operating system is expected to ship around the same time as Windows 8, which probably means the second half of 2012.

Microsoft has released a new app that lets you access your Xbox Live account on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. The free app is called My Xbox Live, and it offers many of the features that you can find in the company’s Windows Phone 7 app.

You can view your achievements, send messages to your friends, read news about apps and games, and change your Xbox Live avatar.

Windows Phone 7 users can also control media playback on an Xbox from a phone. That feature is sadly missing from the iOS app. But pretty much everything else is there — including Windows Phone 7 Metro-style buttons at the bottom of the iPhone version of the app.

via TechCrunch

GroupMe is a group messaging service that lets you create groups from the contacts on your smartphone and start conversations involving everyone in the group. The company offers clients for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 and also works over SMS.

Today Skype announced that it’s acquiring GroupMe — which actually means Microsoft is buying GroupMe, since Microsoft acquired Skype recently.

Skype offers voice, video, and text chat services for PC, Mac, Linux, and mobile devices. Earlier this year the company also acquired Qik, a service for recording and sharing short videos.

In a press release, Skype says the GroupMe acquisition will bring the company’s expertise in “text-based communications,” location sharing, and photo sharing to Skype. In other words, we could see group messaging capabilities coming soon to Skype’s mobile apps — as well as some of the company’s SMS features which allow you to engage in group communications with non-smartphones.

Up for some good times with your Windows Phone 7-toting friends? Firing up the new We’re In app puts you on the fast track for geolocation-powered fun.

Select friends from your phone’s contacts, let “your peeps” (Microsoft’s words, not mine) know what you’re up for, and let the app know how long you’d like to make your location known. We’re In offers built-in group messaging — which we already knew was coming system-wide in the Windows Phone 7 Mango update — and lets your friends ask questions and post updates (like “stuck in traffic” or “almost there”) right inside the app. When the event expires, location sharing stops automatically. Participants can also tap “leave” at any time to opt out instantly.

We’re In is sort of like an answer to check-in apps like Google Latitude and Foursquare, though it doesn’t yet offer goodies like check-in deals or badges. Of course, with Microsoft’s affinity for Facebook there’s a decent chance that We’re In could add support for Facebook Places and Facebook deals in future versions of the app.

Keen-eyed observers might also detect some similarities between We’re In and another Microsoft app for Windows Phone 7, Lunchbox. Lunchbox, however, is a more 9-to-5 take on things and is geared toward business use — power lunches, spontaneous meetings, and the like.

Microsoft has updated its OneNote app for iOS to version 1.2. First launched in January, OneNote Mobile for iOS lets you create notes and synchronize them with a Windows Live SkyDrive account so you can view your notes on the web — or view notes created on the web or in Microsoft OneNote for PC on your iPhone.

Verzion 1.2 includes a number of new features, including:

• You can now view notebooks other users have shared with you.
• You can choose which notebooks to synchronize and which should appear on your home screen.
• There’s an option to pin your most frequently used notebooks to the top.
• You can now search notebooks.
• There’s an option that lets you adjust the image size for photos. Smaller images can be synchronized more quickly, while larger images look better.

There’s good news for those of you who are waiting for the Windows Phone 7 Mango update to arrive on your smartphones: Mango has been released to manufacturers and is being sent to cellular carriers for certification.

That should mean things are right schedule for the previously-announced September launch, though we could see Mango roll out even sooner. Fujitsu’s IS12T is set to hit retail shelves in Japan in August, and it’s expected to ship with Mango. There is, of course, that small hurdle of carrier certification to clear, and we’ve already seen just how long that can take. Some Windows Phone 7 owners are still waiting for their last pre-Mango updates to arrive.

While Windows Phone 7 devices haven’t exactly been flying off the shelves, customer satisfaction rates have been high and the platform has seen the arrival of a number of top-tier mobile apps (including Evernote and IM+) recently. Mango’s 500+ new features will open up scores of new possibilities for developers, which should help boost retail sales once the Mango-friendly apps start rolling in to the Zune Marketplace.

Mango’s other big improvements — like turn-by-turn directions, speech-to-text, group messaging, built in support for Live Messenger and Facebook chat, and a greatly improved email app — should help Microsoft win some new fans, too.

via Liveside.Net

The Windows Phone 7 Mango update is coming soon(ish), and Microsoft is taking to the streets (or at least the web) to tout some of the upcoming operating system’s new features.

Curiously, Microsoft chose to title its blog post “navigational improvements,” which probably got a lot of curious readers thinking they’d see Mango’s turn-by-turn directions feature shown off in greater detail. Unfortunately, they were talking about navigating the screens on your phone, specifically the Apps list.

Now that the Marketplace is starting to fill with apps you actually want to install, your list could be getting quite lengthy. To make locating specific apps easier, Mango will add a search feature and quick jump list like the one currently available in your People Hub. Type in a few letters of the app you’re after and suggestions appear instantly below — just tap to launch. To keep clutter to a minimum as is the Metro M.O., the search box only appears when users have more than 45 apps installed.

And since finding and launching apps is so much easier in Mango, you’ll need a way to seamlessly switch among them, too. That’s where Mango’s webOS-inspired card switching comes in, finally bringing multitasking to WP7 phones.

Hit up the official blog post for full details, and then return to twiddling your thumbs while you wait patiently for Mango to RTM and be approved for deployment by carriers.