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Sometimes, this whole "journalistic objectivity" thing can be very, very difficult. Because, kids, I am clearly on Team Evernote. It's one of my most favorite, most used apps. Along with Twitter, I'd say it's an absolutely tool in my daily writer's toolbox.

So it's from that position that I write about CourseNotes, a note-taking app that has just released a Mac version today. In other words, I'm a skeptic when it comes to any other note-taking app that isn't Evernote. So take what I say here with a grain of salt.

Until today, CourseNotes has only been available on iPad. The app is aiming for the student market and lets you keep and organize notes based on your classes, "putting an end to unreadable notes on torn up spiral notebooks."

The app lets you write text notes and draw sketched notes. You can easiliy share these notes with others, and view others' notes, all within the app.

There are a couple of features here that make the app specifically geared towards students: the app lets you build out a dictionary, based on vocab terms, and more importantly, the app lets you create easy to-do lists, based on classes -- all of which can be synced to iCal. The To-Do list fully and beautifully integrated with Evernote is missing -- I've tried AwesomeNote and Egretlist, but these are iPhone-only, and I need a to-do list that works on Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Web, thank you very much.

The apps are pretty spendy, particularly considering a basic Evernote app is free. The iPad app costs $4.99. The new Mac version will set you back $9.99. It's hard to see how, at this price point, the app can be competitive with Evernote (which just today unveiled an update to its Web version, something that CEO Phil Libin told me was clearly addressing the uptick in student adoption). But hey, here's an option.

Audrey Watters


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