Springpad, a productivity app similar to Evernote and Pinterest, is planning to throw in the towel as it admits defeat against its cloud-based notes rivals.
The six-year old company based in Boston, which began almost alongside the development and rise to popularity of the Android operating system, has raised more than $7 million, an amount that is nowhere enough to provide a challenge to rival app Evernote.
In a notice posted on its blog, Springpad confirmed it will close its service June 25. It will make an export tool available soon, the company's post said. The announcement was in response to a story in The Verge that the planned closure was imminent.
Springpad, an app that uses digital notebooks to record notes and tasks, never came close to matching the momentum of Evernote, which now has over 100 million users. The company was never able to develop a unique identity that separated it from its rival apps, which received better funding. Springpad's Twitter account has even been silent since May 1.
In November last year, Jeff Janer, Springpad co-founder and VP of business development, said that Springpad was nearing the 5-million mark on registered users.
A CNET review on Springpad states that the app is "beautifully designed" and loaded with features that allow its users to save anything that they want to remember. However, because of the myriad of ways of saving content, with 18 kinds total, the user may find that navigating through the app could be overwhelming.
Springpad users sign in using either an account on Facebook, Google + or a unique Springpad account, which syncs with the Springpad website, allowing users to use their Springpad on any device that has it installed. The home screen displays every single thing that the user has saved, searchable through a variety of tabs and search boxes. Users can also include photos, links, audio, PDF documents and reminders to each note that they save.
As Springpad shuts down its note-taking app, a source said that the company is looking to create a new product. However, details regarding the company's plans in this regard are still unclear.
Evernote continues its dominance in the cloud-based notes sector, recently forging a deal with LinkedIn in an effort to increase its usage in the business industry. The partnership will close down CardMunch, a cardscanning app, by July, as it moves its users to Evernote. Evernote users will get free scanning services for a year in exchange for connecting their account with their LinkedIn one.
In January, Evernote released an update that syncs data four times faster for its users.
