9 ms·

What’s New in Evernote 5

50 points by benguild 14y ago

sabret00the 14y ago
For the longest time I've been looking for an Evernote alternative that is open source and able to sync my notes between Windows and Android (and desktop Linux) but haven't found one. I really hoped that Mozilla would diversify and offer something in this regard. No such luck though.
jvoorhis 14y ago
I love Evernote as a productivity tool, and I do have a few decent recipes buried within, but I have doubts about adding first class support for them (a la Evernote food), or first class support for this or that. Evernote have done an amazing job of creating the core experience for creating, retrieving and synchronizing notes across devices. I don't know what lessons their product team has learned along the way, but I wonder why they are drifting away from their core strength.
ianstormtaylor 14y ago
I've never been able to get into Evernote. I think my problem with their approach to design is that they try to solve all of these random different use cases with random different features. And when you do that, you end up with a really fragmented app and features that never get touched by 99% of users. (Those Firefox heatmaps come to mind.) On the opposite end of the spectrum is something like Trello or Workflowy. They decided on several core abstractions: cards for Trello and nodes for Workflowy. Then, as the user, you figure out how to bend those core components to fit your needs. And the product itself remains incredibly basic. I realize there's also a danger in abstracting things away too far, but it just seems like the other direction degrades into feature chaos way too quickly.
- guga31bb 14y ago
  Seconding WorkFlowy. I started using it a couple months ago and haven't turned back since. I showed it to my (not very technologically savvy) wife, and she loves it too. It's great for sharing the mobile interface is nice, and I like how simple it is. (sorry if this sounds like an advertisement but it's great to actually have a to-do list manager that I actually like)
veidr 14y ago
I really love Evernote. It has absolutely changed my life for the better. Every single significant piece of paper in my life, be it physical (e.g., parking ticket) or virtual (e.g., airline e-ticket) in my life goes into a feed scanner which directly inputs it to Evernote, then into the shredder. It has spared a lot of cumulative hours of my life from being wasted on crap-work. Having said that, the Mac app totally SUCKS. Big time. It abruptly loses the cursor and keyboard focus so you can't type. It sometimes pauses for a looooong time. It crashes. Outlining is buggy. Keyboard shortcuts buck the standard Mac conventions. It has egregious design flaws, including completely wrong/insane behavior for the basic functionality of creating a new note (Cmd-N opens an insanely huge bloated master-detail view of all your notes, search field, notbook list, multiple toolbars, and activity monitor, requiring that you find the new untitled note in all that crap, double click it to open the new note in a note window, and then close that bloated behemoth (necessary even if you don't mind a huge unnecessary second window being open, because several editing operations cause crashes when two views on a note are open simultaneously)). It is one of those apps where the actual function is so beneficial/important that you deal with the app itself being a total piece of crap. So I look forward to a major new version, although pre-announcing software that isn't available is annoying, and there's not much in this post to indicate whether or not the severe problems with Evernote 3 have been fixed in addition to adding all the glitz.
- larsberg 14y ago
  The two biggest bugs/issues I've had with Evernote are: 1) The sync/merge sucks. Despite having a common baseline, if there's any sort of conflict (usually due to one of my machines "forgetting" to sync every 5 minutes), you just get two copies of head and have to do a baseless merge by hand. 2) If you're not subscribed to premium, the mobile app seems to actively remove notes that you had already downloaded if you're offline for a while. I got quite the surprise when I had planned out lots of day trips in Japan, switched between two notes to check on tomorrow's itinerary, and then got a, "you need to upgrade!" message for the one I was just reading. It's also kind of sad that the iPad version doesn't have even basic handwriting input with OCR and text search, ala OneNote for tablet PCs from ~2002.
- jwr 14y ago
Bvalmont 14y ago
This looks great. I always wondered why they never seem to highlight their best feature, which is the ability to search text in images or scanned documents. That has been a huge timesaver in the past. One day I'll put all my important documents in there.
zaptheimpaler 14y ago
I've never quite understood the point of Evernote. To Evernote users - what kinds of things do you use it for?
- robmcm 14y ago
  I second that. It seems like it has lots of features and call do all this stuff, but no real direction. What is it? I think they could benifit by having some use cases, hot to use evernote for receipts, evernote for ideas, evernote for shopping lists, that sort of thing.
- jclos 14y ago
  As a PhD student, I use it to organize my research. Instead of having physical notebooks, I have virtual notebooks that I use to note and track the evolution of my ideas over time or when I need to write a report, because it syncs between my lab computer, my phone and my laptop. I also use the web clipper when I want to download and annotate a web page. I know that I could use a combination of free tools to do the same thing but I like having all of it bundled in the same package. The only big drawback is that they take my data hostage - I can't access it using a third party client (at least to my knowledge).
  - rrreese 14y ago
    In the windows version at least you can export your notes as html files.
    - jclos 14y ago
      Yeah I know (I'm actually on Windows and just realized the news was for the Mac version) but I'd like to have something to automatically back up all my data on a daily basis for instance. I still think Evernote is worth it though, it's purely for nitpicking.
  - cing 14y ago
    Seconding that. I do computational research, so while I can't merge my code repositories with Evernote very cleanly, I can drag in just about everything throughout my day into Evernote to make a record. Also, the audio recordings are extremely cheap (storage-wise) so I tend to record most conversations and meetings I have. It's a vital part of my research and I don't even pay for premium.
bravoyankee 14y ago
Springpad http://springpad.com http://springpad.com might be the best Evernote alternative I've seen, but they aren't charging money so I'm a little worried about their long term sustainability. Personally, I can't seem to get into Evernote in a serious way. Springpad, probably.
- moystard 14y ago
  Trying it out and since you mentioned it, I have a question: Something I like with Evernote is that it is quick to edit a note while on Springpad it seems painful to do, especially if you want to follow your progress on a note/task using comments. I don't like the social comments as it does not seem to be effective, I would like to edit the note itself. Any idea?
  - Leynos 14y ago
    On the Android app anyway, clicking on the note text brings up the edit box.
  - bravoyankee 14y ago
    I haven't experienced any kind of friction when it comes to editing files. Springpad is intuitive for me, even on the iPhone.
lucian1900 14y ago
Every now and then I try out Evernote, but every time I stop because they lack a linux app. I wish they fixed that.
- moystard 14y ago
  Have you tried nevernote?
- murrayb 14y ago
  Agreed. I've had reasonable success with NixNote/Nevernote http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/ http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/
dade_ 14y ago
For me, cross platform support and reliable backend are critical and these are two places where Evernote excels. Evernote really needs to focus on app stability. For example, the current IOS app crashes constantly and has a glitchy interface. Over the years, feature growth has been very messy from a UX perspective so it is good to see they are working on a fresh approach. I have been using Evernote since before it was a cloud app and I always loved the cross platform support with the same data file. Once it became a cloud platform, the broad platform support of mobile devices is truly fantastic: BlackBerry at work, personal iPhone and iPad, Linux desktop (Web app / email address to add notes), Windows 7 & 8 on VMware, and it works great on my Nexus 7. Evernote is a key part of my workflow and daily life and I found my investment in time figuring it out has paid off immensely.
sutterbomb 14y ago
Anybody notice how similar the promo video is to Apple's product intro videos? The tone, pacing and even language come across as strikingly similar - all they are missing is the stark white background.
codex 14y ago
I would use Evernote more if there were a private sync option, or even a local LAN sync option (which would be usable from my iPhone via VPN). I don't trust my personal data in Evernote's cloud, or any cloud.

50 points by benguild 14y ago

For the longest time I've been looking for an Evernote alternative that is open source and able to sync my notes between Windows and Android (and desktop Linux) but haven't found one. I really hoped that Mozilla would diversify and offer something in this regard. No such luck though.

jvoorhis 14y ago

I love Evernote as a productivity tool, and I do have a few decent recipes buried within, but I have doubts about adding first class support for them (a la Evernote food), or first class support for this or that. Evernote have done an amazing job of creating the core experience for creating, retrieving and synchronizing notes across devices. I don't know what lessons their product team has learned along the way, but I wonder why they are drifting away from their core strength.

ianstormtaylor 14y ago

I've never been able to get into Evernote. I think my problem with their approach to design is that they try to solve all of these random different use cases with random different features. And when you do that, you end up with a really fragmented app and features that never get touched by 99% of users. (Those Firefox heatmaps come to mind.) On the opposite end of the spectrum is something like Trello or Workflowy. They decided on several core abstractions: cards for Trello and nodes for Workflowy. Then, as the user, you figure out how to bend those core components to fit your needs. And the product itself remains incredibly basic. I realize there's also a danger in abstracting things away too far, but it just seems like the other direction degrades into feature chaos way too quickly.

guga31bb 14y ago
Seconding WorkFlowy. I started using it a couple months ago and haven't turned back since. I showed it to my (not very technologically savvy) wife, and she loves it too. It's great for sharing the mobile interface is nice, and I like how simple it is. (sorry if this sounds like an advertisement but it's great to actually have a to-do list manager that I actually like)

veidr 14y ago

I really love Evernote. It has absolutely changed my life for the better. Every single significant piece of paper in my life, be it physical (e.g., parking ticket) or virtual (e.g., airline e-ticket) in my life goes into a feed scanner which directly inputs it to Evernote, then into the shredder. It has spared a lot of cumulative hours of my life from being wasted on crap-work. Having said that, the Mac app totally SUCKS. Big time. It abruptly loses the cursor and keyboard focus so you can't type. It sometimes pauses for a looooong time. It crashes. Outlining is buggy. Keyboard shortcuts buck the standard Mac conventions. It has egregious design flaws, including completely wrong/insane behavior for the basic functionality of creating a new note (Cmd-N opens an insanely huge bloated master-detail view of all your notes, search field, notbook list, multiple toolbars, and activity monitor, requiring that you find the new untitled note in all that crap, double click it to open the new note in a note window, and then close that bloated behemoth (necessary even if you don't mind a huge unnecessary second window being open, because several editing operations cause crashes when two views on a note are open simultaneously)). It is one of those apps where the actual function is so beneficial/important that you deal with the app itself being a total piece of crap. So I look forward to a major new version, although pre-announcing software that isn't available is annoying, and there's not much in this post to indicate whether or not the severe problems with Evernote 3 have been fixed in addition to adding all the glitz.

larsberg 14y ago
The two biggest bugs/issues I've had with Evernote are: 1) The sync/merge sucks. Despite having a common baseline, if there's any sort of conflict (usually due to one of my machines "forgetting" to sync every 5 minutes), you just get two copies of head and have to do a baseless merge by hand. 2) If you're not subscribed to premium, the mobile app seems to actively remove notes that you had already downloaded if you're offline for a while. I got quite the surprise when I had planned out lots of day trips in Japan, switched between two notes to check on tomorrow's itinerary, and then got a, "you need to upgrade!" message for the one I was just reading. It's also kind of sad that the iPad version doesn't have even basic handwriting input with OCR and text search, ala OneNote for tablet PCs from ~2002.
jwr 14y ago

Bvalmont 14y ago

This looks great. I always wondered why they never seem to highlight their best feature, which is the ability to search text in images or scanned documents. That has been a huge timesaver in the past. One day I'll put all my important documents in there.

zaptheimpaler 14y ago

I've never quite understood the point of Evernote. To Evernote users - what kinds of things do you use it for?

robmcm 14y ago
I second that. It seems like it has lots of features and call do all this stuff, but no real direction. What is it? I think they could benifit by having some use cases, hot to use evernote for receipts, evernote for ideas, evernote for shopping lists, that sort of thing.
jclos 14y ago
As a PhD student, I use it to organize my research. Instead of having physical notebooks, I have virtual notebooks that I use to note and track the evolution of my ideas over time or when I need to write a report, because it syncs between my lab computer, my phone and my laptop. I also use the web clipper when I want to download and annotate a web page. I know that I could use a combination of free tools to do the same thing but I like having all of it bundled in the same package. The only big drawback is that they take my data hostage - I can't access it using a third party client (at least to my knowledge).
- rrreese 14y ago
  In the windows version at least you can export your notes as html files.
  - jclos 14y ago
    Yeah I know (I'm actually on Windows and just realized the news was for the Mac version) but I'd like to have something to automatically back up all my data on a daily basis for instance. I still think Evernote is worth it though, it's purely for nitpicking.
- cing 14y ago
  Seconding that. I do computational research, so while I can't merge my code repositories with Evernote very cleanly, I can drag in just about everything throughout my day into Evernote to make a record. Also, the audio recordings are extremely cheap (storage-wise) so I tend to record most conversations and meetings I have. It's a vital part of my research and I don't even pay for premium.

bravoyankee 14y ago

Springpad http://springpad.com http://springpad.com might be the best Evernote alternative I've seen, but they aren't charging money so I'm a little worried about their long term sustainability. Personally, I can't seem to get into Evernote in a serious way. Springpad, probably.

moystard 14y ago
Trying it out and since you mentioned it, I have a question: Something I like with Evernote is that it is quick to edit a note while on Springpad it seems painful to do, especially if you want to follow your progress on a note/task using comments. I don't like the social comments as it does not seem to be effective, I would like to edit the note itself. Any idea?
- Leynos 14y ago
  On the Android app anyway, clicking on the note text brings up the edit box.
- bravoyankee 14y ago
  I haven't experienced any kind of friction when it comes to editing files. Springpad is intuitive for me, even on the iPhone.

lucian1900 14y ago

Every now and then I try out Evernote, but every time I stop because they lack a linux app. I wish they fixed that.

moystard 14y ago
Have you tried nevernote?
murrayb 14y ago
Agreed. I've had reasonable success with NixNote/Nevernote http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/ http://nevernote.sourceforge.net/

dade_ 14y ago

For me, cross platform support and reliable backend are critical and these are two places where Evernote excels. Evernote really needs to focus on app stability. For example, the current IOS app crashes constantly and has a glitchy interface. Over the years, feature growth has been very messy from a UX perspective so it is good to see they are working on a fresh approach. I have been using Evernote since before it was a cloud app and I always loved the cross platform support with the same data file. Once it became a cloud platform, the broad platform support of mobile devices is truly fantastic: BlackBerry at work, personal iPhone and iPad, Linux desktop (Web app / email address to add notes), Windows 7 & 8 on VMware, and it works great on my Nexus 7. Evernote is a key part of my workflow and daily life and I found my investment in time figuring it out has paid off immensely.

sutterbomb 14y ago

Anybody notice how similar the promo video is to Apple's product intro videos? The tone, pacing and even language come across as strikingly similar - all they are missing is the stark white background.

codex 14y ago

I would use Evernote more if there were a private sync option, or even a local LAN sync option (which would be usable from my iPhone via VPN). I don't trust my personal data in Evernote's cloud, or any cloud.