45 replies to this topic

[mgoode]

Greetings folks,

I think that here must have been a change to the iOS client I would like to find a workaround for. I use the Evernote client on my iPhone to take photos of things for my records like serial number tags for computer hardware or prescription products for my cats. But it seems that snapshots taken with the Evernote client now also saves a copy of the photo to my Camera Roll - which then dumps things into my iCloud Photostream. This is not desired behavior - I really want "new" snapshot notes taken with the Evernote mobile iOS client to simply go my Evernote account, not be saved with the rest of my photos. And since I use Photostream, I don't need these photos being downloaded into iPhoto or showing up on the screensaver on my TV.

So...I do have a hacky workaround for this, but is there any way to stop the mobile iOS client from saving snapshot notes to my Camera Roll and just send the photo notes to my Evernote account? This seems to be the behavior before and I would like to go back to that.

Best regards all.

[gazumped]

I know it's no consolation, but exactly the same thing happens in Android; pics taken via Evernote are saved in a note, but are also saved in my phone camera "gallery" to be deleted later.

[BurgersNFries]

AFAIK, there is no workaround, other than turning photostream off. Fasteversnap ( a third party iOS app that makes sending photos to EN very fast) does the same thing, too. It may be a way of insuring a photo doesn't get lost if the note gets munged on its way to the cloud.

[mgoode]

Thanks for the feedback all. To these points:

AFAIK, there is no workaround, other than turning photostream off. Fasteversnap ( a third party iOS app that makes sending photos to EN very fast) does the same thing, too. It may be a way of insuring a photo doesn't get lost if the note gets munged on its way to the cloud.

I don't really want to turn Photostream off because it is useful for what it is useful for. And even lacking Photostream, I don't want those photos saved to the Camera Roll anyways. I did check out Fasteversnap and it looked useful and I would have happily purchased it, but as of last look, it uses port 80 and not 443 to do its business and I'm not down with that.

If any iOS users are intersted in my hacky workaround: I've been a Camera+ user since it launched. That app dumps photos into its own "Lightbox" before saving them to your Camera Roll - which you can do manually if you wish. So, it is possible to take a photo in Camera+, use it to email the photo to Evernote and then delete/not save the photo to your Camera Roll. This is less than optimal, but it works.

I have no idea why Evernote is now saving note photos to your Camera Roll that think that it either should not do that, or one should be able to disable this behavior with a preference.

Regards all.

[JMichael]

You might want to checkout the iPhone app Genius Scan+.

It links directly with Evernote and does NOT store the image in the Camera Roll unless you want it to.

See the Genius Scan+ web site for details.

[mgoode]

You might want to checkout the iPhone app Genius Scan+.

It links directly with Evernote and does NOT store the image in the Camera Roll unless you want it to.

See the Genius Scan+ web site for details.

I already use DocScanner for scanning/edge detecting things I want to turn into PDFs with my iPhone and am happy with it. Can Genius Scan+ simply send images to Evernote, skipping the PDF business, in a simple and straightforward way? If so, I'm all over it.

[JMichael]

Yep, Genius Scan+ can do all that and more.
You have a choice of JPG or PDF for file format.

See this post for more: http://discussion.ev...post__p__120019

[mgoode]

Yep, Genius Scan+ can do all that and more.
You have a choice of JPG or PDF for file format.

See this post for more: http://discussion.ev...post__p__120019

This looks great, does it do secure connections? How does it inteface with Evernote? Login across the net? Save to local app?

I do appreciate your input so thanks!

[JMichael]

Please see the links I provided for more details.

[mathegg]

I hate this behaviour too. Found this app, not tried yet: FastEver Snap on App Store!
Autostart with camera and option to not save to camera roll!
Downside, it has a price.

[BlueOak]

This dumping of EN-snapped photos into the Camera Roll is a pain.

I am a bit confused – it appears this behavior is not due to EN, but rather iOS5 and iCloud, correct?

‘Do not recall seeing this duplicate-save behavior prior to iOS5.

BTW, I intentionally have Photostream (and always have had) turned off. Is Photostream really the cause?

I do like Genius Scan, but not for this purpose.

(iPhone4/iOS5, iPad2/iOS5, Win client)

[mgoode]

This dumping of EN-snapped photos into the Camera Roll is a pain.

I am a bit confused – it appears this behavior is not due to EN, but rather iOS5 and iCloud, correct?

‘Do not recall seeing this duplicate-save behavior prior to iOS5.

BTW, I intentionally have Photostream (and always have had) turned off. Is Photostream really the cause?

I do like Genius Scan, but not for this purpose.

(iPhone4/iOS5, iPad2/iOS5, Win client)

- Not sure what the behavior is due to. It isn't iCloud. Something in the EN client is saving snaps to the Camera Roll now - not sure if it is iOS 5 or an EN upgrade that happened around the iOS 5 transition. It didn't before, it does now. iClould just syncs things like your contacts and calendar.
- Photostream is not the cause but is collateral damage as far as I can tell since anything that goes to the Camera Roll goes there if it is enabled.
- I've tried out Genius Scan as per suggestions on this thread, and like it for what is supposed to do, but would prefer a simple way to take snaps that don't go to Camera Roll. Genius Scan is really good, but as you noted, I would prefer to not have to use it for this purpose.

Between this thread and looking around, it appears that if one does not want EN snaps saved to the Camera Roll, then one needs to use a third party app that does not directly save photos to Camera Roll, and get it to EN some other way like Genius Scan or emailing photos from Camera+.

[JMichael]

This dumping of EN-snapped photos into the Camera Roll is a pain.

I am a bit confused – it appears this behavior is not due to EN, but rather iOS5 and iCloud, correct?

The iOS behavior may have changed with iOS5 (I don't know), but it is under the control of each iOS app.
So, Evernote can change this behavior if they so wish.
Other iOS5 camera apps do NOT automatically save to Camera Roll.

I do like Genius Scan, but not for this purpose.

I'm curious, what objections do you have to Genius Scan?

[BlueOak]

This dumping of EN-snapped photos into the Camera Roll is a pain.

I am a bit confused – it appears this behavior is not due to EN, but rather iOS5 and iCloud, correct?

‘Do not recall seeing this duplicate-save behavior prior to iOS5.

BTW, I intentionally have Photostream (and always have had) turned off. Is Photostream really the cause?

I do like Genius Scan, but not for this purpose.

(iPhone4/iOS5, iPad2/iOS5, Win client)

- Not sure what the behavior is due to. It isn't iCloud. Something in the EN client is saving snaps to the Camera Roll now - not sure if it is iOS 5 or an EN upgrade that happened around the iOS 5 transition. It didn't before, it does now. iClould just syncs things like your contacts and calendar.
- Photostream is not the cause but is collateral damage as far as I can tell since anything that goes to the Camera Roll goes there if it is enabled.
- I've tried out Genius Scan as per suggestions on this thread, and like it for what is supposed to do, but would prefer a simple way to take snaps that don't go to Camera Roll. Genius Scan is really good, but as you noted, I would prefer to not have to use it for this purpose.

Between this thread and looking around, it appears that if one does not want EN snaps saved to the Camera Roll, then one needs to use a third party app that does not directly save photos to Camera Roll, and get it to EN some other way like Genius Scan or emailing photos from Camera+.

@mgoode, Thanks for the info regarding your experience.

Since the problem seems to have started around iOS5 I'd really like to know why and whether there is a solution coming.

One of the EN-photo uses for me is on the fly with little time to be messing with multiple apps -- really need to keep it simple by using only EN.

I guess I'll have to manually delete the extra copies of the photos in the camera roll for now... ('wish there were an easy way to multi-delete on the iPhone as with emails or with multi-photo emailing)

[BlueOak]

This dumping of EN-snapped photos into the Camera Roll is a pain.

I am a bit confused – it appears this behavior is not due to EN, but rather iOS5 and iCloud, correct?

The iOS behavior may have changed with iOS5 (I don't know), but it is under the control of each iOS app.
So, Evernote can change this behavior if they so wish.
Other iOS5 camera apps do NOT automatically save to Camera Roll.

I do like Genius Scan, but not for this purpose.

I'm curious, what objections do you have to Genius Scan?

@JMichael, your question came in as I replied to @mgoode. My answer: "One of the EN-photo uses for me is on the fly with little time to be messing with multiple apps -- really need to keep it simple by using only EN."

Perhaps I'm also a bit paranoid about wearing out the home button changing between apps since a friend had his fail. ;-) (Needs 4/5 finger mult-pinch like iPad! I find myself trying it on my iPhone all the time due to habbit!... maybe there is some truth to the rumor of no home button on the iPhone5)

[JMichael]

@BlueOak: I don't know if you have tried Genius Scan+ or not, but I find it just as fast to snap a photo and send to Evernote.

So you can use EN for text notes, and GS for snapshots. I don't see the issue with switching between these two apps (along with my other use of the iPhone). I have had 3 iPhones now (diff models) and have never had any problems with the Home button (nor have I heard of anyone who has). But, all mechanical devices will fail at some point.

How often do you need to switch between text and snapshot?

[heather]

Let me pipe up here about why we're saving photos to the Camera Roll:

That was a charge led by me and my team to save users from potential data loss in the case of failed sync, improper note creation, any number of reasons that could cause a snapshot note to not reach our server.

Ask any number of users who had lost their images whether or not they feel this is a change for the better. You can always delete them from the Camera roll once you're certain the note has been synced.

[mgoode]

I'm curious, what objections do you have to Genius Scan?

1 - In general: I should not need to use a third party application like Genius Scan or DocScanner just to get a simple snap into Evernote to bypass the Camera Roll. Of course, this is not Genius Scan's fault.
2 - In particular: Since Genius Scan is designed to scan and edge detect the input from the camera (and it does do that, does it well, and I will happily use it for that purpose) having the edge detection kick in and having to manually tweak the photo selection when I am NOT photographing something needing edge detection is a burn.

There is NOTHING wrong with Genius Scan if you need a scanning app. If you want to just take a snap, not "scan" it, and send it to Evernote, Genius Scan introduces a step that you don't need. Don't get me wrong, I'm not busting on your app (I'm not sure if you are the developer or just a fan).

[BlueOak]

@BlueOak: I don't know if you have tried Genius Scan+ or not, but I find it just as fast to snap a photo and send to Evernote.

So you can use EN for text notes, and GS for snapshots. I don't see the issue with switching between these two apps (along with my other use of the iPhone). I have had 3 iPhones now (diff models) and have never had any problems with the Home button (nor have I heard of anyone who has). But, all mechanical devices will fail at some point.

How often do you need to switch between text and snapshot?

@JMichael, I get your point about the ease of Genius Scan+ (EN integration) and EN. I do not currently have the + $2.99 version - I’m too cheap and hoping for a $0.99 sale ;-)

Examples of how I use photos & EN:

• Snapping the price labels over products at stores to do price compares later (again, I am cheap). This is a rapid fire event as I’m walking the isles, pushing a cart.
• Recording assets/inventory which requires notations with each picture, in a single running note.
• Capturing print media content (I do attribute) along with notes/observations.

Yes, I could flip between apps for the above but it would be an extra step. For the time being I choose manual deletion of the ‘offal’ that land in the Camera Roll.

I didn’t intend to overplay the Home button point – the real issue is the extra step.

[BlueOak]

Let me pipe up here about why we're saving photos to the Camera Roll:

That was a charge led by me and my team to save users from potential data loss in the case of failed sync, improper note creation, any number of reasons that could cause a snapshot note to not reach our server.

Ask any number of users who had lost their images whether or not they feel this is a change for the better. You can always delete them from the Camera roll once you're certain the note has been synced.

Thanks Heather – that makes sense if photo loss-on-sync has been an issue. I guess I’ve been lucky so I consider duplicates/backups to be a small step backward. (Not fun to delete many extra photos if you do this a lot. It would not be so painful if iOS had a multi-select/delete function on the iPhone.)