Google ‘Keep’ makes brief appearance online, could compete with Evernote

Looks like Google could be about to re-enter note-taking space in a serious way. The internet giant looks to be readying a product called “Keep” which earlier appeared in Google Drive before disappearing again.

Google watcher 1E100 spotted the new app in Drive’s source code as well as a likely icon for it.

Android Police then discovered that the desktop version of the app had gone live in the US. It then disappeared however, suggesting that it had been released earlier than intended.

The screenshots that the dedicated Android site managed to gather show a basic, made for mobile interface that allows people to make notes but which doesn’t allow for much integration across Google’s other products. That’s most likely to be a temporary state of affairs though. When it launches, expect Keep to be integrated across Google’s range of services on the Web and mobile, such as Gmail, Google Now, Google Calendar and Google+.

An image found in a Google+ post from the internet giant meanwhile suggests that the app will be able to save snippets of websites directly from Google Search. The fact that the image and post come from mid 2012, suggest that Google’s been working on the product for some time now.

If Keep is to pose a serious challenge to Evernote however, it’ll need more than just integration across Google’s own products. One of Evernote’s core strengths is that it plays well with a variety of platforms.