Apple’s cloud offering, dubbed iCloud, gives you the handy ability to check your calendar, email, contacts, and iWork documents from the web. According to Macstories, it’s set to add reminders and notes into the mix.

With the addition of being able to send your notes and reminders to iCloud in Apple’s latest OS, Mountain Lion, it makes complete sense that those options would eventually become available on the web. A screenshot was captured by Macstories of http://beta.icloud.com, which has now been taken down. It shows a Notes icon in the background:

Here’s what the iCloud.com page looks like now:

The early leak of the page is probably just an accident, but could mean that Mountain Lion is closer to coming out of developer preview mode to make its way to consumers.

My experience with Mountain Lion thus far has been extremely seamless and I’m enjoying all of its new features, especially the notifications it provides me.

I’ll be the first one to tell you that my iPhone and Android devices are glorified, and over-priced, note-taking devices. I use the iOS version of Notes more than any other application on my phone. I know that without even having to think twice about it.

I constantly take notes, be it during a meeting or while I’m sitting on a plane. Whenever I have an idea, or need to remember specific details like a confirmation number, I jump right into the notes app. That’s why Fetchnotes was interesting to me, because the company has a solution for the Web and both Android and iOS mobile devices.

We’ve written about Fetchnotes before, well kind of. You might remember them as the crew who accidentally cursed at its users when it was testing a new email system, which actually spiked usage amongst its beta users.

Just for fun sakes, here’s that email:

If you’re a note-taker, you’re going to love what the team has cooked up for you. I’ve stayed in contact with the Fetchnotes CEO and co-founder Alex Schiff since that hilarious email test, and the company has delivered on its promise for seamless note-taking and sharing over multiple devices.

Mobile, Web, and Desktop

When you use Fetchnotes on the web you’ll notice and extremely simple interface that allows you to add notes quickly. By slapping in a hashtag anywhere in your note, it will be turned into a tag that will group those notes together:

The services saves your note as you type, so you don’t have to worry about clicking save every few minutes. With the web version of Fetchnotes you can also search your entire log of notes, as you see on services like iOS notes and Evernote. I’ve never really been a fan of using Evernote, only because all of the things I jot down are text-only, and I don’t have a need for most of its features.

The mobile versions of Fetchnotes are slick and act exactly like you’d expect as well. When you log in from your device, all of your notes will come up and you’ll be able to tap your way through them based on tag or by searching for them.

Fetchnotes also has a desktop widget for Mac users which is nothing more than an open box that’s connected to your account and ready to receive your braindumps:

While Notes is a great iOS service, especially since its been rolled into the desktop version of OS X in Mountain Lion, your notes aren’t available when you’re using your browser on the web.

Fetchnotes makes your important content available no matter where you are and no matter what device you’re using and that’s why it’s something that I can see myself using daily. The fact that I can annotate notes that I took on my iPhone with my Android tablet is a pretty awesome thing.

Protip: If you don’t have the app installed, you can register your cell and retrieve your notes by texting the service. For example, you could text “fetch #groceries”, and all of your notes about groceries will be texted to you. Neat, huh?

➤ Fetchnotes for Web, iOS, and Android

I’ll be honest, productivity isn’t the most glamorous category of application to develop for the web. Not only is it not glamorous, but it’s extremely difficult to find a workflow that suits and scales for many users. One company that has done this really well is 37Signals, with an ever-growing suite of project management products. The Orchestra app went a bit further with social for to-do lists.

Another company that may have nailed it is 6Wunderkinder, creators of the popular cross-platform to-do list app “Wunderlist”. When we spoke to the company in August it shared two interesting facts; 1) Wunderlist had over 1 million active users 2) It was working on what it hoped would be a “industry-standard productivity platform”.

That second fact might not be far off, as we’ve had a chance to take a look at the beta version of the company’s latest product, Wunderkit. The best way I can describe Wunderkit is as a productivity management platform that is extremely social and is capable of handling both your personal and business life. That sounds like a tall order, but let’s take a look at Wunderkit thus far.

The total package

Productivity software isn’t usually social, in that you create a project or task and invite some of your co-workers and colleagues to participate. Either that, or it’s completely personal for yourself. It’s usually an extremely closed environment and can be kind of messy if you personalize it for your personal workflow. It’s like scribbling random notes down on a piece of paper and handing them off to someone as if they can do something with it.

What Wunderkit does really well is leverage what the company has done with Wunderlist, and built similarly strong products to support task management and overall project communication.

Open communication

When you start a new “workspace” on the platform, you can choose to make it private or public. Even if you make it public, you can still keep your notes and tasks private. The public workspace profile is a perfect way for say, an iOS developer to get feedback on their app and to communicate new releases and features with its audience. In this way, Wunderkit gives you a Twitter-style page that people can follow for updates as well as leave comments.

This is a really handy feature that makes managing projects social. Of course, you can invite your colleagues and friends into the private areas of your workspace, and the app lets you connect to Twitter and Facebook to do so easily.

Tasks and Notes

The task management portion of Wunderkit really shines through due to 6Wunderkinder’s success with Wunderlist. The product is polished and sets the tone for the rest of the app. You can create a series of lists with tasks under them, along with attaching tags, dates, and invitations to others. With a series of social features like commenting and favoriting, each item within Wunderkit becomes fully interactive.

Similarly, the Notes feature of the app lets you take an infinite number of notes for commenting on amongst those in the workspace. The fact that this portion of the app fits in nicely to the rest of Wunderkit’s flow is a testament to its brilliant design. Hopping between a few notes and tasks is simple and pretty fast for an early beta.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is easily the slickest part of the Wunderkit app. For each of your workspaces, you can see a feed of activity going on within it. That means all of the notes, tasks, and comments happening with you and your colleagues will pop up on this easy to follow dashboard. We’re trained to follow streams of information thanks to Facebook and Twitter, so Wunderkit is perfectly designed to suit that trend.

If you’re managing multiple projects, these dashboards will save your sanity.

Still in beta

For a product that is invite only and in beta, I have to say that I’m really impressed with how well it works so far. A few members of The Next Web have taken to it quite nicely and I could see it becoming a tool that we all adopt. The simple fact that one of your friends can follow you on the platform and see what you’re up to without asking you directly is pretty impressive.

Along with the social features within your workspaces, Wunderkit is featuring a few when you visit the homepage, which furthers the notion that productivity can absolutely be social. For example, you might follow someone who starts working on a project that is similar to yours. On the spot, you could invite them into your own workspace without having to email them to ask for help.

I think Wunderkit has a bright future ahead of itself, and with pricing unknown at this point, I’m still sold on its future regardless.

Check out a demo video of Wunderkit below:

➤ Wunderkit

If you’ve used services like foursquare that let you check-in to a location or leave tips, then you’re familiar with the concept of leaving your digital mark on top of a geographic location.

The service SkyChalk doesn’t want you to check-in though, it just wants to know what you have to say about a certain area, no matter where you are.

With a great spin on the Google Maps API, SkyChalk lets you annotate any location on a map, even if it’s not a location to check-in at, such as a restaurant.

For example, you could use SkyChalk to write a note about that chance encounter you had with someone, hoping they’d one day find the service and read it.

Chalking the globe

The different types of use cases for SkyChalk are limitless. When you sign up for the service, the app picks your current location and shows you all of the notes people have written about different areas around you. People can submit notes with their names, or anonymously if they choose.

With no need to download an app or check-in anywhere, you are free to surf around Google Maps for locations that bring back memories to you. The service is also extremely useful for policing a community, as you can point out tricky sidewalks or faulty traffic lights.

All of your notes are tracked with your profile, so if you post them with your username, other users can check out all of the places you’ve annotated. It’s quite an interesting geographic based social network, with no bounds or rating systems for locales. You can however, vote up someone’s note as a sign of appreciation or usefulness.

One thing I’d like to see is the ability to make notes private, as this would be a great annotation tool for travel, without all of the social aspects.

If you travel a lot, or really care about the location around you, then you might want to give SkyChalk a try. I’ve found a lot of silly comments about how rude a waitress is, or how certain blocks in San Francisco are full of girls who aren’t single, so whether you’ll find it useful or not is up to you.

➤ SkyChalk

In its latest update for its mobile app, Yelp decided to take a swing at Presidential Candidate Rick Perry.

Recently, during a debate, Rick Perry completely forgot what he was talking about and embarrassed himself very publicly. Here’s the video for reference:

In response, check out Yelp’s app update notes from today:

New in 5.4.3
There are three types of bugs that are now gone:
- Bookmarks-related bugs
- iOS5 styling & layout bugs
- And the um… uh, what’s the third one? Let’s see… Bookmarks, iOS layout, and the um… the third one we can’t recall. Oops.

Well played, Yelp.

Entrepeneurs are getting younger, but their ideas are getting more focused.

Take 18-year-old Ben Lang, for example. When you talk to him about his projects, he speaks about some of them in the past tense. Meaning, he has already moved on to bigger and better things.

His latest project is MySchoolHelp, a site focused on helping high school students share notes to prepare for tests and quizzes. This is a type of entrepreneurial focus that excites me, because it’s a service that fits a very specific need. Technology is much-needed in Education, and Ben Lang is taking full advantage of the opportunity.

Here’s a video explaining the note sharing site MySchoolHelp, which will host PDF’s and let people favorite and rate content from those who attend the same school as they do.

I had a chance to talk to Founder Ben Lang about MySchoolHelp and his participation in the Teens in Tech incubator.

TNW: Where did you get the idea for MySchoolHelp, and how long did it take to develop?

Ben Lang: The idea stemmed from RamazHelp.com, a note sharing site I cofounded two years ago just for my high school, Ramaz. Over the past few years the site has gained wild popularity in my high school with over 70% of the student body using it regularly. In its first year over 100 notes were uploaded and in the second year over 200. Also in the yearbooks they joke about it and when they bring in new potential students they mention it.

Based off that success I decided to create a note sharing site for all high schools to use. With a team I brought on, we finished building the site in about 3 months.

TNW: What was it specifically about note taking at school that told you it needed its own service?

Ben Lang: Before each test and final every student would dash to the library to photocopy other student’s notes. It was a madhouse, trees were killed in the process. I decided to make it a more efficient process by allowing students to simply upload all of their notes from their computer onto a central site. They shared notes that they took on their laptops and scanned in handwritten notes.

Even with the growth of learning platforms online the best way to study still is by reading class notes. No teacher teaches the exact same class around the globe which is why it’s crucial to have notes specifically taken in that class.

TNW: How many notes does MySchoolHelp host right now?

Ben Lang: After launching two months ago we’ve had 165 notes uploaded so far. Right now our focus is encouraging more students to share their notes. Even though at my school students uploaded out of their good will we’re trying to make it more “incentivized” to upload. First off, we have a leaderboard with the top note takers from your school: http://prntscr.com/3s1eo, increasing the gameification aspect of submitting notes. We also have some amazing sponsors who contributed prizes to give away to note takers, such as Fandango tickets, premium Evernote accounts, Livescribe pens and Starbucks gift cards.

TNW: Can you share any success stories from students that you’ve heard about how the site helped them with a test?

Ben Lang: Sure, for RamazHelp, the predecessor to MySchoolHelp we’ve gotten amazing feedback such as:

“RamazHelp was the epicenter of all my studying, an absolute academic life saver for me and every other student at my school.” – Zachary Weiner
“I’m going off to college in a few weeks, and I can truthfully say I would have never gotten through school without RamazHelp.” – Shalti Serels

So far in the two months that MySchoolHelp has been in the air there haven’t been enough tests to hear about success stories, but as the school year goes on we’re looking forward to hearing similar stories to that of above.

TNW: Do you want to expand the service into Colleges, if so, when and how?

Ben Lang: Right now we’re testing the service at a few colleges. Some of my classmates from Ramaz who graduated and went to college kept asking for us to expand the service to colleges which is why we’re testing it now. Our focus is still high schools but we’re open to seeing how this model will work in colleges. There are plenty of note sharing platforms for colleges but our “differentiator” is that we’re 100% free, signup isn’t required and it’s more about the positive aspect of sharing and collaborating.

TNW: Tell us about your experiences in the Teens in Tech Incubator

Ben Lang: Attending the Teens In Tech Incubator was certainly an incredible experience. We were all provided with incredible mentors, a wonderful office and helpful workshops. At the end Mozilla was kind enough to extend its hand to a few of the teams for the WebFWD accelerator which we’re now a part of.

The type of service that a site like MySchoolHelp provides could make the difference between a student falling behind in class, and getting a leg up. The way Ben Lang has started the service, by getting over 100 schools to adopt it, is reminiscent of Facebook’s slow infiltration in the 90′s. Schools need technology, and it’s nice to see focus there. Can Lang see it all the way through before getting drawn into the Valley like Zuckerberg did?

After a year in the making, the Remember The Milk team has finally released its iPad application, allowing users of the service to sync their tasks, notes and lists on the go.

The team explains in its blog post that it had rebuilt the app from scratch and thrown out four different designs concepts to get the app just as they wanted it, making sure the experience was natural and intuitive on the iPad. As a result, the interface allows for different gestures, works offline and will sync when the iPad connects to an Internet connection, so notes will not be lost.

The app provides different options to organise tasks, filtering by type and date. Additions can be sorted by priority and task name, allowing the user to review completed tasks with a single gesture.

Gestures allow tasks to be completed or postponed with a simple two finger swipe, with a single tap, users can edit the task list to complete, postpone, prioritize, move, tag, and set the due date for tasks.

The app also allows users to:

• Add Smart Lists, automatically detecting syntax in tasks and notes and adding the time accordingly. For example: ”Lunch with Mum tomorrow”, adds the task for the next day.
• Add notes that contain email addresses, phone numbers and links, which will auto-link to Mail, Contacts and Safari.
• See nearby tasks. Users will be able to see tasks located nearby with one tap,  in the Nearby view, so you can plan the best way to get things done.
• Search through your tasks.
• Save your favorite searches as Smart Lists for quick access.
• Utilise Accessibility and VoiceOver support, the app has full support for VoiceOver, the iPad’s gesture-based screen reader.

To cater for all Remember The Milk users, the app will come with two subscription options; free and Pro.

The free version will sync manually once every 24 hours with the user’s Remember The Milk account but the Pro account will allow for the delivery of push notifications, unlimited syncing and the ability to update tasks on any device, reflecting changes on the iPad app’s icon. The Pro option is $2.99 for one month and $24.99 for a year.