Major Springpad Release: New and Improved Ways to Help You Remember
We’ve spent the last couple of months hard at work to make Springpad a better service to help you remember the many little things you come across online and in the real world. We’re excited to announce today’s release – it’s got a bunch of improvements and simplifications focused on providing you more ways to capture information and better ways to access that information when you’re ready for it.
Here are some of the many features waiting for today you at Springpadit.com.
Login now & check it out!
Announcing the Springpad iPhone App
Everything in your Springpad can now be synchronized with your iPhone! Plus, the iPhone app includes some great new ways for you to save things on the go: Use GPS to find restaurants and businesses near your current location, scan products with a barcode scanner, take photos of things you want to remember or just type in a quick note! Get it today or click here to learn more.
A New Way to Add Things to My Stuff
When you add something to Springpad, we help you out by making suggestions.
Your Stuff is Enhanced with Useful Links & Information
Everything you add to Springpad just got WAY MORE useful with automated data integration. Products display prices from the web with quick links to purchase. Movies include showtimes, links to rent and a summary of reviews. Also, restaurants, businesses & contacts now include maps.
We’ll be continuing to enhance the data that is displayed in Springpad. Have a request? Let us know!
Brand New Clipper
We showed you a sneak peek of the new clipper last month. With one click you can save a simple bookmark or something more specific like a recipe, restaurant, product, movie or wine. Plus, add media & notes directly from the clipper. If you’re already using the clipper, don’t worry – the update is automatic. (Get the clipper!)
We’re supporting automated parsing of many popular sites like Amazon, Wine.com, TripAdvisor, IMDB & Zagats. Have a request? Let us know!
Email Notes into Springpad
Save notes to Springpad just by sending an email to springit@springpadit.com. Learn more about how to send an email to Springpad.
New Layouts in My Stuff
Depending on what you’re trying to do in My Stuff, you may want to view your data in different ways.
Use the gallery view to see your items by photo – great for recipes or movies! Use the List View to see the most items at one time.
Sorting in My Stuff
Many users have asked for this feature! Now you can sort everything in Springpad alphabetically, by date added or by popularity.
Organize Your Stuff with Lists
Lists are a quick & flexible way to group anything that’s in My Stuff like tasks, recipes, businesses & notes. Learn more about Lists.
Save Searches to Refer to Again & Again
Make a custom search in Springpad using our new filtering feature. Great if you’re looking for a Recipe that you like to try, Tasks tagged with “home” or a Book you’d like to read.
Find people in Springpad
This has been a popular request from our users! Now you can search for other people in Springpad by username, real name or shared interests. See how it works.
We’ve also removed some things
In an effort to simplify Springpad, some features have been removed or changed.
43 Responses to “Major Springpad Release: New and Improved Ways to Help You Remember”
Leave a Reply
Gman says: Why remove stars system? What’s the point in logging restaurants and books if you can’t rate them and filter on stars rating? Please re-instate asap!
Mike says: I added an event to my calendar for 11:30AM on March 12th. When I look at the calendar, it shows at 1:30PM on the 11th. Looks like a bug.
Hey Mike – is your time zone set properly? You can find this under Settings, then follow the link to change password & timezone.
shidong wang says: I just add some movies i have, but seems that i have to add many information by myself, like the actors and directors, etc…
is there any possibility enable users to search and add information in IMDB? i guess it will be much convenient to add movies….
Sarah says: I agree with Gman. The whole reason I wanted to add movies, books, etc. was so I can easily rate and review them for myself to remember later. I’d love to have this feature back. It just makes sense.
Hey shidong – When you add a movie, all of that info should come in automatically. I’ll send you an email to get more details!
Gman & Sarah – I hear what you guys are saying about star ratings. Thanks for the input, I’ll see what I can do.
Donna says: Love the ability to toggle between the list, detail & gallery views in My Stuff. Would love to have the same option added to the Applications. When I am in my persona Recipe Box, I’d like the option to view my recipes in the gallery view.
I think there should be more than one option for things like books. It is not either “I want to read” or “I have read.” There is also, for instance, “I am reading this.” and “I started but never finished reading this.” Any way we can get these in-between options for this stuff?
Pretzel says: At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, every time you release new changes in Springpad, I just groan. The information just seems to get shuffled around in more confusing ways. The “My Stuff” page is such a chaotic jumble I just ignore it and use the Apps drawer–which you have now moved again.
Do you have any librarians on staff? That is what you need–librarians. They are experts at organizing information, creating systems for storing info and making it accessible. For example, it would make sense if the My Stuff page was sortable by tags. I can’t see any place you can just see your tags and organize or sort them.
Hey Pretzel – I hear what you’re saying, thanks for being so frank. I hate to hear a user feeling so frustrated. We’ll definitely take your feedback into consideration.
Have you checked out the “+Filter Results” in My Stuff? I think it may solve some of your issues.
Pretzel says: Ah! No,I hadn’t seen that. Thanks, Katin. Just what I need.
I think the thing I find frustrating about the My Stuff page is that visually it makes me anxious–because it’s got everything up there I need to pay attention to in haphazard order, like a disorganized purse or as if I’ve just stuck a bunch of notes on a bulletin board and they are all calling out at me for attention. The thing I like about the Apps drawer is that it feels like things are tucked away in their place until I’m ready to deal with them–it feels like I’m more in control of all my items so I can just get to work on whatever I want to do. I realize this is making me sound like a control freak, although I never thought of myself as being particularly anal (my desk is a mess, my car is a mess, etc) but one reason I’ve used Springpad and stuck with it is the chance to get the clutter out of my head and store it somewhere else for later–a place for everything and everything in its place, as the saying goes. But when I see that My Stuff page, I just want to pull a shade down over it so I don’t have to see the mess….Perhaps there are other freaks like me.
STeve says: Would really like to be able to sort the Events by Date
zak says: Katin,
keep on keeping on….while some changes don’t go as planned and/or have unintended consequences, they do generate feedback. It’s your openmindedness to said feedback and the ease with which the average user can provide it that helps fine tune this app.
Cant wait to test the new iphone app.
Zak
pmski says: Wow. I used to keep a list of restaurants on my Palm Device of restaurants that i want to eat at and those that I did. The “I’ve eaten here” is great, but you took away the star rating system. That one thing made me move away from my Palm to your site. Now it’s gone. Ouch.
Donna says: How do I get a bookmark I’ve saved to My Stuff using the new Clipper transferred/moved to an application?
zak says: Katin,
I would like the option to set some of my tasks to repeat. Is there also a way for me to set subtasks for each task if needed?
Thanks
Zak
PS: The iphone app seems to be working well so far.
Gman says: Any update on bringing back stars? I want to be able to rate books/restaurants without just adding them to my list. Please advise whether this might come back or will be forced to look into alternative sites. Thank you!
Hey Gman – We are planning to return star ratings in the coming weeks! Thanks for your patience.
lovetoorganize says: I found Springpad just a little while ago and was very excited. I had just gotten everything set up using apps and the functionality was exactly what I needed. I was also excited because I had just gotten an iPhone. However, with this update, I was very disappointed that I could no longer use the clipper to send items directly to my apps. Also, I could not view my apps from the iphone app. It is now very difficult to get my information into and view them in the apps. Is there any chance the functionality to send items directly from the clipper to apps will be restored in the future and/or the ability to view my apps will be added to the iphone app?
Hey lovetoorganize -
I’m sorry to say that we’re not currently planning to add Apps back to the clipper, but we are hoping to make it much easier to add things into Apps from My Stuff in the coming weeks.
As far as apps in the iPhone – we hope to release additional iPhone apps that will allow you to access specific apps. In the meantime, everything in your system can be found & edited on the iPhone via My Stuff.
Have you checked out Lists? The just might help you out!
I’m sorry you’re disappointed, we’re hoping to continue to make Springpad better & simpler over time – hearing what users want to see definitely helps us.
Don’t hold back! katin@springpartners.com
Mike in AZ says: I am really happy that I stumbled upon Springpad. One way I was hoping to use it was to organize technical support information. One thing that I noticed that I was hoping can be fixed was the arrangement of photos on my iPhone in a note. When I add photos to a note in a certain order the photos stay in the same order I added when viewing the website from my computer. However when viewing the photos on my iPhone they are all jumbled. If they displayed in the right order then this would be very powerful for having instructional screen shots or pics for steps in recipes or any type of pictoral instructions. For a work around I was going to add discription labels that count the pictures, for example “1 of 10″, and so forth. I would have to scroll through the pictures and find the right order by reading the descriptions. Is there a way to currently do this successfully or will this be in the works? Thanks.
Hey Mike -
Great idea! We’ll work on syncing the photos & notes between the Web & the iPhone in the same order. Sorry, you’re having this trouble – hopefully, we’ll get it fixed soon.
ccgreen says: Just trying after gopingme is leaving. not sure how the phone number is verified for me to use. it doesn’t ask for phone in settings, so tried to set as new contact w/ just phone number – and it says needs verification. Any thoughts – what am i missing? thank you
ccgreen says: and one last question – saw above commenting on using APPS, so not so cluttered. can already created events, tasks, alarms, be moved to APPS, or need to be recreated?
Hey ccgreen -
I see that you also asked the question about notification here: http://getsatisfaction.com/springpartners/topics/phone_verification-16166
As far as adding things to Apps, there is no need to recreate things – within the week, we will add a feature that will make it easy for you to add things from My stuff to an app.
pmski says: On your web-app, you have a “search near” my location function.
Can you add something similar to your standard website?
It would be great to plug in the zip code of a future destination and see what restaurants are in that vicinity.
Kat – we are working on a Springpad Android app now. In the meantime, you can access the mobile web app on any smart phone. Here’s how it works: http://blog.springpadit.com/2009/06/introducing-the-springpad-mobile-web-app/
pmski – good idea! Would you want to search just your stuff or your friends’ stuff too?
Pmski says: I guess my stuff, but that’s only because I don’t use the ‘friend’ functionality. I’m sure others might see the value in both.
[...] here’s a fabulous post from the SpringPad team! It goes into a little more detail and shows a lot of pictures for those who like to see something [...]
[...] alarms, tasks, and scanning bar codes (iPhone). You can read about all the cool features here, and find out how to use them [...]
Boz says: Great work! Having a play around and looks soooo much better – plus with a nifty iphone app. You just won me back from Evernote, ugly interfaces on all platforms and poor usability, after not checking in on the springpad for a while. Keep on springing! 
fille says: i just want to say that you guys rock for creating this awesome app/service, i admire its simplicity and efficiency and just the fact that it WORKS and can be fully customized by the user is brilliant. thanks for listening to everyone’s complaints and suggestions. by using Springpad I was able to eliminate my need for around 5 other services/apps. Keep it up you guys! Simple but efficient. I can’t wait for all the better stuff you have planned for Springpad’s future!
Agi says: What is sort by popularity ? How to set popularity on our task ?
-
Agi – Popular refers to how many other users on Springpad have the same item saved. It is not something you can set yourself.
Joey says: Back in the day, before the web, a favorite organizational tool of mine was Ecco. It was beautifully structured with an outlining theme. New columns could be added to views, sorting/searching was excellent, and users had the ability to automatically assign entries to Ecco folders. (Though not the purpose of this comment, I’d like to observe that custom columns/properties added to data entities within Springpad would be sweet — though maybe overly complicated or confusing.)
What’s interesting to me about Ecco that I haven’t seen repeated (well) in any of the current crop of organizational tools available is what is effectively auto-tagging (or auto actions of any sort) based on the content of a data entity (in Ecco it was the ability to automatically add data to folders). Catch.com allows for the inclusion of hash tags in their notes. That is close. But Ecco allowed for a much more complex implementation than simple hash tags.
What would be extremely cool in Springpad, and would likely satisfy we Ecco users of the past, would be a Filters implementation similar to Gmail.
For example, if I use “John Smith” (which would be the “key”) in any of my data entities (Notes, Events, etc.) I could have a Filter that automatically assigns this entity to the Tags “John Smith” and “ABC Company” (for whom John Smith works) and always include the data entity in the Notebook “TF Program.”
Further, similar to what I did with Ecco, if I create an Event that contains the key “PhoneCall”, such as “Tomorrow I need to PhoneCall John Smith”, SP would automatically add the tag “Calls” to the Event while also applying the Filter above which would trigger the tags “John Smith” and “ABC Company” and include the Event in the “TF Program” Notebook. Thus saving me a hug number of clicks.
Such a feature, triggered whenever new entities are inserted to the database, would also satisfy the want for a way to automatically assign Categories, Notebooks, Tags, DueDates, etc. when adding via email or other non-standard entry methods.
P.S. I also posted this on Dan Gold’s blog. Sorry for the redundancy.
Cmsarch says: How do I use Springpad on my iPad, is there a link that explains how to do this? Particularly when I am surfing the web and come across something and want to save it to Springpad?
Leave a Reply
Connect with Us
Why remove stars system? What’s the point in logging restaurants and books if you can’t rate them and filter on stars rating? Please re-instate asap!
I added an event to my calendar for 11:30AM on March 12th. When I look at the calendar, it shows at 1:30PM on the 11th. Looks like a bug.
Hey Mike – is your time zone set properly? You can find this under Settings, then follow the link to change password & timezone.
I just add some movies i have, but seems that i have to add many information by myself, like the actors and directors, etc…
is there any possibility enable users to search and add information in IMDB? i guess it will be much convenient to add movies….
I agree with Gman. The whole reason I wanted to add movies, books, etc. was so I can easily rate and review them for myself to remember later. I’d love to have this feature back. It just makes sense.
Hey shidong – When you add a movie, all of that info should come in automatically. I’ll send you an email to get more details!
Gman & Sarah – I hear what you guys are saying about star ratings. Thanks for the input, I’ll see what I can do.
Love the ability to toggle between the list, detail & gallery views in My Stuff. Would love to have the same option added to the Applications. When I am in my persona Recipe Box, I’d like the option to view my recipes in the gallery view.
Good idea – thanks for the feedback!
I think there should be more than one option for things like books. It is not either “I want to read” or “I have read.” There is also, for instance, “I am reading this.” and “I started but never finished reading this.” Any way we can get these in-between options for this stuff?
Hey Genius Steve – Nothing like this is planned, although you could always use tags
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man, every time you release new changes in Springpad, I just groan. The information just seems to get shuffled around in more confusing ways. The “My Stuff” page is such a chaotic jumble I just ignore it and use the Apps drawer–which you have now moved again.
Do you have any librarians on staff? That is what you need–librarians. They are experts at organizing information, creating systems for storing info and making it accessible. For example, it would make sense if the My Stuff page was sortable by tags. I can’t see any place you can just see your tags and organize or sort them.
Hey Pretzel – I hear what you’re saying, thanks for being so frank. I hate to hear a user feeling so frustrated. We’ll definitely take your feedback into consideration.
Have you checked out the “+Filter Results” in My Stuff? I think it may solve some of your issues.
Ah! No,I hadn’t seen that. Thanks, Katin. Just what I need.
I think the thing I find frustrating about the My Stuff page is that visually it makes me anxious–because it’s got everything up there I need to pay attention to in haphazard order, like a disorganized purse or as if I’ve just stuck a bunch of notes on a bulletin board and they are all calling out at me for attention. The thing I like about the Apps drawer is that it feels like things are tucked away in their place until I’m ready to deal with them–it feels like I’m more in control of all my items so I can just get to work on whatever I want to do. I realize this is making me sound like a control freak, although I never thought of myself as being particularly anal (my desk is a mess, my car is a mess, etc) but one reason I’ve used Springpad and stuck with it is the chance to get the clutter out of my head and store it somewhere else for later–a place for everything and everything in its place, as the saying goes. But when I see that My Stuff page, I just want to pull a shade down over it so I don’t have to see the mess….Perhaps there are other freaks like me.
Thanks for the feedback – very helpful!
Would really like to be able to sort the Events by Date
Katin,
keep on keeping on….while some changes don’t go as planned and/or have unintended consequences, they do generate feedback. It’s your openmindedness to said feedback and the ease with which the average user can provide it that helps fine tune this app.
Cant wait to test the new iphone app.
Zak
Steve – Login this weekend & you’ll see the fix!
Zak – Thanks for the support
Wow. I used to keep a list of restaurants on my Palm Device of restaurants that i want to eat at and those that I did. The “I’ve eaten here” is great, but you took away the star rating system. That one thing made me move away from my Palm to your site. Now it’s gone. Ouch.
How do I get a bookmark I’ve saved to My Stuff using the new Clipper transferred/moved to an application?
Katin,
I would like the option to set some of my tasks to repeat. Is there also a way for me to set subtasks for each task if needed?
Thanks
Zak
PS: The iphone app seems to be working well so far.
Any update on bringing back stars? I want to be able to rate books/restaurants without just adding them to my list. Please advise whether this might come back or will be forced to look into alternative sites. Thank you!
Hey Gman – We are planning to return star ratings in the coming weeks! Thanks for your patience.
I found Springpad just a little while ago and was very excited. I had just gotten everything set up using apps and the functionality was exactly what I needed. I was also excited because I had just gotten an iPhone. However, with this update, I was very disappointed that I could no longer use the clipper to send items directly to my apps. Also, I could not view my apps from the iphone app. It is now very difficult to get my information into and view them in the apps. Is there any chance the functionality to send items directly from the clipper to apps will be restored in the future and/or the ability to view my apps will be added to the iphone app?
Hey lovetoorganize -
I’m sorry to say that we’re not currently planning to add Apps back to the clipper, but we are hoping to make it much easier to add things into Apps from My Stuff in the coming weeks.
As far as apps in the iPhone – we hope to release additional iPhone apps that will allow you to access specific apps. In the meantime, everything in your system can be found & edited on the iPhone via My Stuff.
Have you checked out Lists? The just might help you out!
I’m sorry you’re disappointed, we’re hoping to continue to make Springpad better & simpler over time – hearing what users want to see definitely helps us.
Don’t hold back! katin@springpartners.com
I am really happy that I stumbled upon Springpad. One way I was hoping to use it was to organize technical support information. One thing that I noticed that I was hoping can be fixed was the arrangement of photos on my iPhone in a note. When I add photos to a note in a certain order the photos stay in the same order I added when viewing the website from my computer. However when viewing the photos on my iPhone they are all jumbled. If they displayed in the right order then this would be very powerful for having instructional screen shots or pics for steps in recipes or any type of pictoral instructions. For a work around I was going to add discription labels that count the pictures, for example “1 of 10″, and so forth. I would have to scroll through the pictures and find the right order by reading the descriptions. Is there a way to currently do this successfully or will this be in the works? Thanks.
Hey Mike -
Great idea! We’ll work on syncing the photos & notes between the Web & the iPhone in the same order. Sorry, you’re having this trouble – hopefully, we’ll get it fixed soon.
Just trying after gopingme is leaving. not sure how the phone number is verified for me to use. it doesn’t ask for phone in settings, so tried to set as new contact w/ just phone number – and it says needs verification. Any thoughts – what am i missing? thank you
and one last question – saw above commenting on using APPS, so not so cluttered. can already created events, tasks, alarms, be moved to APPS, or need to be recreated?
Hey ccgreen -
I see that you also asked the question about notification here: http://getsatisfaction.com/springpartners/topics/phone_verification-16166
As far as adding things to Apps, there is no need to recreate things – within the week, we will add a feature that will make it easy for you to add things from My stuff to an app.
How about an app for droid? Hmmm?
On your web-app, you have a “search near” my location function.
Can you add something similar to your standard website?
It would be great to plug in the zip code of a future destination and see what restaurants are in that vicinity.
Kat – we are working on a Springpad Android app now. In the meantime, you can access the mobile web app on any smart phone. Here’s how it works: http://blog.springpadit.com/2009/06/introducing-the-springpad-mobile-web-app/
pmski – good idea! Would you want to search just your stuff or your friends’ stuff too?
I guess my stuff, but that’s only because I don’t use the ‘friend’ functionality. I’m sure others might see the value in both.
[...] here’s a fabulous post from the SpringPad team! It goes into a little more detail and shows a lot of pictures for those who like to see something [...]
[...] alarms, tasks, and scanning bar codes (iPhone). You can read about all the cool features here, and find out how to use them [...]
Great work! Having a play around and looks soooo much better – plus with a nifty iphone app. You just won me back from Evernote, ugly interfaces on all platforms and poor usability, after not checking in on the springpad for a while. Keep on springing!
i just want to say that you guys rock for creating this awesome app/service, i admire its simplicity and efficiency and just the fact that it WORKS and can be fully customized by the user is brilliant. thanks for listening to everyone’s complaints and suggestions. by using Springpad I was able to eliminate my need for around 5 other services/apps. Keep it up you guys! Simple but efficient. I can’t wait for all the better stuff you have planned for Springpad’s future!
What is sort by popularity ? How to set popularity on our task ?
Agi – Popular refers to how many other users on Springpad have the same item saved. It is not something you can set yourself.
Back in the day, before the web, a favorite organizational tool of mine was Ecco. It was beautifully structured with an outlining theme. New columns could be added to views, sorting/searching was excellent, and users had the ability to automatically assign entries to Ecco folders. (Though not the purpose of this comment, I’d like to observe that custom columns/properties added to data entities within Springpad would be sweet — though maybe overly complicated or confusing.)
What’s interesting to me about Ecco that I haven’t seen repeated (well) in any of the current crop of organizational tools available is what is effectively auto-tagging (or auto actions of any sort) based on the content of a data entity (in Ecco it was the ability to automatically add data to folders). Catch.com allows for the inclusion of hash tags in their notes. That is close. But Ecco allowed for a much more complex implementation than simple hash tags.
What would be extremely cool in Springpad, and would likely satisfy we Ecco users of the past, would be a Filters implementation similar to Gmail.
For example, if I use “John Smith” (which would be the “key”) in any of my data entities (Notes, Events, etc.) I could have a Filter that automatically assigns this entity to the Tags “John Smith” and “ABC Company” (for whom John Smith works) and always include the data entity in the Notebook “TF Program.”
Further, similar to what I did with Ecco, if I create an Event that contains the key “PhoneCall”, such as “Tomorrow I need to PhoneCall John Smith”, SP would automatically add the tag “Calls” to the Event while also applying the Filter above which would trigger the tags “John Smith” and “ABC Company” and include the Event in the “TF Program” Notebook. Thus saving me a hug number of clicks.
Such a feature, triggered whenever new entities are inserted to the database, would also satisfy the want for a way to automatically assign Categories, Notebooks, Tags, DueDates, etc. when adding via email or other non-standard entry methods.
P.S. I also posted this on Dan Gold’s blog. Sorry for the redundancy.
How do I use Springpad on my iPad, is there a link that explains how to do this? Particularly when I am surfing the web and come across something and want to save it to Springpad?
Cmsarch – try this http://bit.ly/f9Lco3