(Archived) offline synch should not be a premium feature

[sprior913 0]

I had a look at the beta for the next Android client and it looked like a major improvement over the current version. Unfortunately I had to uninstall it after a few minutes because it wasn't getting the updated version of notes changed from the website - I'm sure that'll be fixed soon.

It appears that the offline synch feature is being considered for only premium users. I think that should not be the case and here is my justification - offline synch is really just a hedge against connectivity problems. If connectivity were not an issue then nobody would care about offline synch. As a fairly recent new user of Evernote I see a lot of promise in Evernote, but I have already been bitten by creating a shopping list note and then getting to the store and finding that I have no signal there. Despite Evernote being a great service that incident made me more cautious about relying on it.

So by including offline sync as a basic feature you are really just eliminating the situation where a basic user would become more cautious about relying on your service which long term reduces the chance of them becoming a long term (possibly premium) user. Forcing that user right away to decide whether to become a premium user to overcome this problem probably doesn't work out as well for you.

Thanks

Steve

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

A lot of software has free/pay versions. Some companies choose to give full featured, 30 day trials. Others provide free software but if you want the more advanced features, you have to pay for them. That's EN's model. They chose to include offline notes in the pay version. I don't see the problem. You can play with EN when you have a connection. You can pay $5 for a month long premium version to see if it works well for you. If not, you're out the price of a large, fancy coffee. If it works the way you envision it, you can pay the $45 for an annual premium subscription. NBD.

[sprior913 0]

Burgers, I don't disagree with you on what Evernote's model is and don't disagree with it either. However I think that this particular feature should not be part of the premium upgrade for the reasons I wrote pretty carefully. I'm not saying they're being bad in any way, just that the absence of this feature in the basic version can make new users more tentative about getting fully immersed in the product.

[acjohnnson55 1]

I agree. I see Evernote as a service I could potentially consider purchasing, but not right now, given the numerous unresolved issues. I had almost given up on Evernote as a whole out of frustration with its uselessness when I can't get a signal, as well as user experience issues. The only reason I didn't is because I logged on here and saw the new beta is out.

In my opinion, it would behoove them to provide more value for free to build a strong user base, and an increase in paid customers will follow as people are impressed with the service. Positive goodwill and word of mouth are huge assets for an emerging company.

I would even consider buying EN as a paid app to get offline support, but certainly not as a monthly or yearly service.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Positive goodwill and word of mouth are huge assets for an emerging company.

As is a positive net income. Unfortunately, all the goodwill in the world doesn't pay the bills.

I would even consider buying EN as a paid app to get offline support, but certainly not as a monthly or yearly service.

EN is on a different level from many other phone apps where you pay a buck or two & that's it. Heck, even many people balk at phone apps that are over $3 and some can't conceive of paying $10 or more for a phone app. In EN's case, you're paying for the more advanced services you get each month. In fact, if you are totally against paying for EN at all, you could have been conceivably been using it every day for the 2 1/2 years it's been in existence without paying a single cent. But yeah, if you want the beefier features, you have to pay to play.

And as far as building up a strong user base...

http://blog.evernote.com/2010/08/17/4-m ... -counting/

[acjohnnson55 1]

The point you're missing is that it's possible that by foregoing income now, EN could vastly increase future income. In fact, that's the whole point of them offering a tiered free/pay service in the first place.

Running a business in this model requires a constant analysis of what features to use a lures to get people to sign up to build market- and mind-share, and which to use to incentivize the paid service.

Four million users may sound like a lot to you, but it's small potatoes compared to the potential market size. And if you break that number down to the actual number of people that are hooked on EN for good, well, that's an even smaller chunk. Evernote is a great idea, but it's relatively easy to duplicate, at least in its most basic functionality. They can try to cash in now, but the real payoff is a year or two down the road when they are a household name, which they will probably be if they don't allow themselves to get undercut.

Let's be honest, most people aren't going to up and decide to sign up for the paid service to get offline notes who weren't already going to pay anyway. Obviously, there's also a group of people that will, but I think we can agree that most won't change their minds on that basis alone. And there's also a group that sees charging for offline access as a money grab, and is turned off. Every non-paying user is easy pickings for a service that can do the baseline of what EN can do, plus offline access, and believe me, the race is on.

I'm not saying it's an easy calculation of what should be free or not. And for the record, I have paid for plenty of apps. I'm just saying that if some service pops up that is similar, but does have offline viewing, I for one would be ready to jump ship.

[engberg 89]

Thanks for the feedback. A lot of companies deliver broken "free" versions of their applications that include short trial periods or things like watermarks on every printed page, nagging pop-ups every time you launch the application, etc.

We've chosen to make a service that can be used for many years without paying anything.

However, we are a business (not a UN-backed nonprofit), and our employees like to eat and pay rent and whatnot. So we do need to pick some set of more advanced capabilities that you get if you actually do pay us a relatively small amount of money. We've tried to choose a set of features that most people can live without, and that tend to cost us more than other features.

So Premium users can upload more data (which costs us more bandwidth and storage), they get faster and more direct tech support (which costs us in labor), and they can access their data offline on an iPhone or Android phone (which costs us many engineer-months of effort to add to the clients).

These Premium features are designed to balance our costs by giving you a gentle reminder to consider paying us for our work.

Thanks

[canyon 0]

Dave,

Bottom line up front (BLUF): I just bought a subscription because of this feature.

I have been waiting, not always patiently, for this feature for almost Two Years now. I have been a supporter and proponent of Evernote since the early betas of 3.0 for windows. I have recommended Evernote to all of my friends and coworkers who HAVE IPHONES. I have complained to all of my Android compatriots about the lack of a good evernote client. I had stopped using Evernote entirely! I switched to Simplenote, which has several good android clients.

All this changed with the new beta client. I have now moved all my information to Evernote and am in progress of loading 18 months worth of archive data. Most importantly, I paid for my subscription this morning. I don't need more upload bandwidth, I don't need searchable PDFs, and I don't need priority support. What I do need is offline access. This is what I was waiting for and I'm very willing to pay for it.

Thank you for all your hard work on this product, I hope that you are able to get through the beta quickly so the rest of the android users can enjoy this great client.

P.S. On the topic of features that should be in the "Free" version, I think that SSL should be standard for everyone. I think addressing security and privacy concerns are a base level feature. Conversely, and unfortunately, I doubt that many people upgrade for this feature alone.

[engberg 89]

Thanks!

[palmheads 0]

I agree with you canyon. I thought I'd try out the premium features by going initially for a 1 month sub ($US5). Its absolutely awesome having all my notes offline on my phone now. And only synching when on WiFi - terrific.

It'll be one of those balancing acts. Paying $US45 for a full year (about $NZ60) might become a tradeoff, but if the offline is really what you want, it might be worth the $$$.

[katahdin 8]

However, we are a business (not a UN-backed nonprofit), and our employees like to eat and pay rent and whatnot.

Maybe if you moved from the west coast to a rural area, you wouldnt have to pay so much ! .. ;=}

But I understood that offline sync works on the iPhone in the free plan. Why not for the droid also?

There's been many times when I almost cried because I can't get my data on the droid. Even with a connection it is so slow..

For years I had all the data I needed at hand with a cheap palm device (actually sony clie) and for the last year or more - no matter how much I like EN on the desktop, not having the ability to do a search to find data on the droid is frustrating as all get out !

[sprior913 0]

I had a situation this last weekend where lack of cell coverage prevented me from getting a note when I needed it. Made me think of how using Evernote can be unreliable, not that I should consider going premium. That's why I consider offline synch to be a feature which smooths over holes in the system and not a productivity feature - offline synch is just a kludge for an imperfect environment, not something I should have had to think about.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Maybe if you moved from the west coast to a rural area, you wouldnt have to pay so much ! .. ;=}

But I understood that offline sync works on the iPhone in the free plan. Why not for the droid also?

There's been many times when I almost cried because I can't get my data on the droid. Even with a connection it is so slow..

For years I had all the data I needed at hand with a cheap palm device (actually sony clie) and for the last year or more - no matter how much I like EN on the desktop, not having the ability to do a search to find data on the droid is frustrating as all get out !

"There's been many times when I almost cried because I can't get my data on the droid."

Really?

-Shh... hear that music?

It's the world's saddest song on the world's smallest violin.

[shimra 14]

However, we are a business (not a UN-backed nonprofit), and our employees like to eat and pay rent and whatnot.

Maybe if you moved from the west coast to a rural area, you wouldnt have to pay so much ! .. ;=}

But I understood that offline sync works on the iPhone in the free plan. Why not for the droid also?

There's been many times when I almost cried because I can't get my data on the droid. Even with a connection it is so slow..

For years I had all the data I needed at hand with a cheap palm device (actually sony clie) and for the last year or more - no matter how much I like EN on the desktop, not having the ability to do a search to find data on the droid is frustrating as all get out !

If Evernote is upsetting you that much that you are almost crying, you should look for an alternative solution.

Alternatively, if you need only a few Evernote notes offline when you go out you could perhaps email them to yourself and download them using an offline (non gmail) app.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I had a situation this last weekend where lack of cell coverage prevented me from getting a note when I needed it. Made me think of how using Evernote can be unreliable, not that I should consider going premium.

As you know, this has already discussed a lot. EN has posted very valid reasons for their decision. You don't have to agree with them. If this is so disappointing to you, please see shimra's reply above to another poster.

That's why I consider offline synch to be a feature which smooths over holes in the system and not a productivity feature - offline synch is just a kludge for an imperfect environment, not something I should have had to think about.

I have no idea what this means. :?

[engberg 89]

Ok, we appreciate everyone's feedback on this topic, but the discussion has devolved into poor treatment of other users, and I am closing this thread.