Google this week launched their new Google Keep app for Android and the web. It's a simple notepad. What's so remarkable about a notepad app, you ask?

For one thing, after four years Android finally has a native notepad app. Not sure why it didn't have one from the get go. Second, the reaction has been skeptical, because of Google's recent decision to drop Reader. People are growing wary of trusting any more of their stuff to Google, and even starting to question Gmail, Docs, etc., although those clearly aren't going anywhere.

Anyway, it's a nice little notepad with some cool features. It saves your notes in your Google Drive storage (at https://drive.google.com/keep/) so they are accessible anywhere from your smartphone, tablet or a browser (no Chrome plugin app yet, though). It can record text notes, voice (that it automatically transcribes to text), a checklist or a photo note.

The coolest feature is its integration with Google Now (Android 4.1 Jellybean or later). You can open Google Now, say "Google... take a note..." and start dictating your note. It records your voice note and stores the audio and the transcribed text to a Google Keep note in the cloud. (You can remove the recorded voice audio from the note and just keep the text to save space.)

Google Keep is missing a few features found in similar apps such as Evernote, like password protecting a note, folders, tags and such. But this is version 1.0, and more features will likely come ("innovate, iterate" as they say, although a notepad isn't really all that innovative.)

Speaking of Google Now, play around with it to discover some other cool features buried inside. For example, you can say "what is 48 times 52" or "what is the square root of 1024" or "how many cups in a quart" and a pleasant voice says "the answer is" whatever and shows it on the screen.

You can also say "make an appointment at 10:00 AM on April 4th with Doctor Who" and it will create a Google Calendar entry with all that filled in, synced across all your devices.

Or you can say "what's the temperature in Orlando?" and it answers with voice and a weather display. Or say "directions to Disney World" and it says "getting directions" and a few seconds later Google Maps pops up with the route and turn-by-turn directions. Or "show flights to Orlando" and it pops up a Google Flights list of flights and prices.

If it can't figure out what you're asking, it shows a Google Search for whatever it thinks you said.

There are hundreds of other features, and it tries to anticipate what info you might need. It automatically shows "cards" with info about drive time to recently searched locations, upcoming local events, sports scores, weather, stock prices and all kinds of stuff.

As with most Google stuff, the price for Google Keep (and Google Now) is free.