Evernote for Android now as sexy as it is useful

The beloved note-management tool now looks way better on Android than it does on iOS.

As much as we have mad love for Evernote, we've always found its apps to be a little, well, challenged in the usability department. Not much to look at, either.

With the newly released Evernote 4.0 for Android, all that changes. And iPhone users should be jealous.

The update brings a completely new look to the smartphone version of the app, starting with a beautifully overhauled home screen. It not only provides one-tap icons for creating a new note, snapshot, recording or attachment, but also gives you quick access to your existing notes, notebooks, tags and places. It's a simple, effective and attractive design.

Navigation has been improved, as well: you can now swipe from the home screen to your note list, and then back again — a fine improvement over the previous back-button method. In another welcome tweak, you can swipe between notebook, tag and place views.

Evernote's redesigned note list is also a little cleaner, with a smarter, easier-to-figure-out toolbar, but we miss the high-contrast section headers. Now everything just sort of blends together — that's one change we could have lived without.

The tablet version, which we tested on a rooted Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet, employs a cool tiled interface that's a bit reminiscent of Flipboard. There's no swiping, as with the smartphone version, but, overall, we like its cleaner, more straightforward approach to note lists and overall management.

Our only hope is that the awkward iPhone version of Evernote gets this same makeover, very soon.

Via CNET