OneNote Floatie saves notes wherever you are in your smartphone

Have you ever had a sudden burst of idea while you’re doing something on your device, whether browsing your Facebook timeline or chatting with an officemate. But going out of the current app you’re using, opening your note-taking app, and then writing that thought down sometimes takes forever? Sounds like we’re just being lazy, but really, all we want is to conserve a few seconds and a few steps so we can do other things. That’s what OneNote believes, and so they’re now bringing us the Floatie button.

Floatie comes with the latest update of the Microsoft app, and it is a bit like the chat heads of Messenger, except, hopefully, it’s less annoying. It allows you to write down whatever it is that suddenly popped into your head, whether it’s a reminder or an idea for a new marketing strategy or something you want to text to your loved one later on, without having to leave the current app that you’re on. It is non-intrusive and is just on the side of your screen, with the visible portion semi-transparent, while the other half is off-screen.

And if you still think it’s too annoying just sitting there quietly on the side, you can remove it by tapping and dragging to the X that will appear on the bottom of your screen. When saving the note you’ve written down, you can actually choose to which folder you can save it to, without dumping everything into just one folder that you’d have to sort through later. There is also a shortcut to your device’s camera so you can include photos in the note you’re writing on the fly.

The Floatie comes with the updated version of the OneNote app. To activate it, simply open the app and then choose “Start floatie” in the overflow menu. If you find that you don’t like to have that floating sticky, you can disable it from the app settings.