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Sticky Notes: Turn your iPhone wallpaper into a useful reminder

Sticky Notes: Turn your iPhone wallpaper into a useful reminder

With the Sticky Notes app, you can set yourself a reminder or leave a friendly message and see it every time you wake your iPhone or iPod touch— without needing to unlock it.

I’m the first to admit how unbelievably forgetful I am. No matter how hard I try, things just have a way of leaving my mind 5 minutes after I think of them. Of course, I’m not the only one with this problem — you may even suffer from it occasionally too. If that’s the case and you happen to be the proud owner of an iPhone or iPod touch, Sticky Notes from Air-O-Matic may be one of the most useful apps you’ll ever find.

Available from the App Store for $1.99, Sticky Notes is a tool that lets you create short notes to yourself and then saves them as your iPhone’s wallpaper. Unlike other programs (including Apple’s own Notes app), you don’t even have to unlock your iPhone to see what you wrote. Just wake the device and there it will be for quick & easy viewing.

Creating a note in Sticky Notes is extremely simple. Tap the plus (+) button in the upper-left corner and start typing your message. It can be anything from a quick shopping list to an important birthday reminder. To give users some opportunity for customization, the developer has integrated functions which change the note’s background color, font, and text size. The options are limited, but they’re fairly unimportant compared to the content of the note itself. Multiple notes can be created and stored in Sticky Notes for later editing, but only one can be set as the wallpaper at a time.

Sticky Notes for iPhone and iPod touch Sticky Notes for iPhone and iPod touch

While the first half of the process is pretty much as effortless as anything can get, the second half involves a little more work on the user’s part. Since Apple does not allow 3rd party applications to change the device’s wallpaper directly, Sticky Notes merely saves an image of your note in the Camera Roll. This means you have to go into your phone’s Photos section, find the image Sticky Notes created, and set it as wallpaper manually. It’s not a time-consuming task, but it is nonetheless a minor inconvenience which can be annoying. However, as previously mentioned, this is an Apple-imposed limitation and it doesn’t take away from the overall value of the app to those who need it.

Wrapping things up, Sticky Notes is built on a fantastic idea and the execution is well done considering the roadblocks thrown out by Apple’s SDK. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve forgotten to even look at the built-in Notes app when I’ve left messages for myself. With the Sticky Notes approach, however, reminders are right in front of my eyes every time I turn my iPod touch on. If you’re the forgetful kind, you won’t regret spending $1.99 for this handy app on the App Store. In fact, you’ll probably even find it to be a bargain after using it a few times and seeing how functional it is in everyday life.

Sticky Notes Wrap-Up

Pros:

  • Shows convenient notes & reminders on the iPhone’s wake up screen without the need to unlock
  • The repetition of seeing notes every time the phone is turned on helps to remember them
  • Ability to change note’s color, font, and text size
  • Intuitive and visually appealing interface

Cons:

  • Apple does not allow setting the wallpaper directly from 3rd party apps

7 Comments Have Been Posted (Leave Your Response)

I’m the developer of this app. Thanks for the review!

I know I’m partial, but of all the apps on my phone, this is one I actually use often, and still use after having on my phone for months. It was an idea I had based on a need (I am very forgetful) and it’s really helped.

The part about having to go the photo roll is frustrating to me as a user, as well. It would be great to just tap a button in the app and have it be set as your wallpaper, but as you noted, it’s not possible. As soon as it is possible, we’ll send out the update. I’m looking forward to that.

Again, thanks for the review!

This is useless. Make a screen capture when writing a note, and select it as desktop wallpaper. No need to pay for that.

What I would really like is an automatic wallpaper of my coming appointments. You need to unlock it for such app.

That might work in theory, but its hardly an elegant solution. When you take a screenshot the text isn’t positioned correctly and there’s a bunch of stuff overlapping. Have fun doing it your way… I prefer this method much more.

TapFactory Apps have developed a similar application that has alot more customization available (Multiple Sticky notes, backgrounds, more fonts, etc ). Check that out in the AppStore it’s called “Stick It” http://tapfactoryapps.com/Stick It/

I’m new to IPod Touch and am just learning. I did download the stick notes and have played around with it. I’ve created notes but cannot find them in my photos to set as wallpaper. Could someone tell me what I am doing wrong? Thanks.

Tammy,
After you’re done creating your sticky note, are you tapping the Save As Image button at the top before looking in your photos?

Jack, why don’t you take a screenshot of the list section of your calender? not hugely elegant, but it will do the job. Alternatively, you could screenshot a to do list app.