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Hating the new IOS version


Alvin C

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* PLEASE do not change users' title in the forum and I am not unhappy. I just can't accept the big buggy update. I am happy because I have left Evernote for much better note-taking app!

Evernote needs to improve as much as possible but not spends time editing posts.

I used to be impressed with the big update, but after using three days, I can absolutely I can't really accept it!

On v8.0 I didn't find it unusable although there were so many bugs. On v10.0, I regretted updated it.

One of the disastrous examples is the sync problem. On my three devices at the same time, with "Date Updated" view I can get different notes. Note that there are duplicate notes on MacOS I wasn't notified.

I tried to refresh by scrolling down and nothing works, unless I forced quitting iOS/iPadOS apps.

As your blog article said, "The company’s Beta Program incorporated nearly 150,000 users representing nearly every country in the world, with feedback collected through surveys, forums, Apple TestFlight, Google Play, and extensive user testing."

So why 150,000 users can't find those bugs which are critical to the basic function?

"An improved, reliable foundation. By rebuilding “under the hood,” the new Evernote features a smooth, automated sync; provides peace of mind with automated app updates; and will allow for more rapid feature development." Do you think you have already done it, or are moving in an opposite direction?

I am not the only one to complain it. You can find these comments here and also on Twitter.

I expect under this circumstance, the company will roll out v10.0.1 and even v10.0.2 in these few days. However, nothing has done yet.

Should I say Evernote should allow users to use v8.24.6 again, until v10.0 is much better?

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For what it's worth:

I'm in the process of migrating to Keep It, which is fully native on iOS and macOS, and you'll notice that. In the past weeks I hesitated a lot, because I've used Evernote since 2009.

Today I did try to convince me to stay with Evernote. I worked with it for an hour of so. The memory usage at that point was 1,5 GB. Yes GB!. Also I added tags to some notes, but those notes weren't in the result when I searched for that tag.

I've said it before. The new Evernote is made with the notorious Electron toolset. What you get is a web application in a native shell. Evernote is an excellent example to show people why native is soo much better in every way.

Today I'm finally going to migrate all my notes to Keep It and then close my account. Bye Evernote, I loved you until the new CEO messed it up.

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Just now, wbutchart said:

I hope this goes well for you.

I gotta wholly disagree about electron though, so many apps use this, notion for instance which everyone raves about, discord which I use frequently, no issues at all and the beta app on my PC was now using less RAM than the native app was. Are there bugs, absolutely, have there been mistakes - definitely but I don’t subscribe to this all is doomed because its the worst possible platform and it can never ever be good - when other apps clearly are.

As I said I hope this works out for you, but I felt i had to challenge what you are claiming as I don’t think it’s entirely accurate and it may worry others. 

Electron can never use less memory than a native version. Impossible. Electron uses a number of helper processes, that you'll to take in account. Add them all up then an Electron app uses at least 500-600MB, without doing anything. That's because it's a web app that needs web technology: Chromium, Node.js and some other JS library.

For example the Postman app (for testing API's) also uses Electron. If you install it fresh, without anything loaded, it uses 600MB, which will rise to 1,2-1,6 GB easily when you're actually start working with it.

I can't think of any Electron app that performs ok (= not too much memory, fast as native, not sluggish). That includes Electron apps like Visual Code; compare this one with SublimeText or BBEdit for example. Big difference.

Imho ....

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Just now, PinkElephant said:

Whatever - the EN iOS 10.0.2 app currently takes 129.9MB of storage on my iPhone (app alone, plus 90.5 MB of data).

So either it is not Elektron (and then the whole discussion makes no sense), or it is, and it just needs that little space.

That's disk space, not memory. I don't know if you're a programmer, but you could run it in a simulator and watch the memory usage. It's using a lot, meaning that iOS will, at some point, have to close other apps from the background, which means that the overall user experience is less optimal.

It's not a rule that's in all cases right, but if you see an app that's over 100MB then often it's a web app. In comparison, Keep It is 38MB.

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2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

OK, very bad, requesting apologies etc.

But my wife is running the new EN app on an iPhone 6S+ and on an iPad Air 2. This is the weakest hardware supported by iOS 13 and iOS 14.

EN is running smooth on both, EN iOS 10.0.2.

But again, this MUST be an exception ...

I surely hope that you'll continue to have a good experience.

The only thing I wanted to say is that native is always better, simply because it doesn't have the overhead that web apps have. Native = less memory, fast, real iOS look-and-feel and less battery consumption. Web apps are great for (some lazy) developers, but not for users.

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11 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Just made a test. I shut down my iPAD Pro 10.5, to clean out memory (yes, I mean the RAM).

Opened it, let it set itself up, then activated SystemGuard. That is an app that measures CPU and RAM usage. Then I looked up the RAM usage: 1.270.88 MB. 

After this, I opened the EN app. Again waited until it ran and displayed the current note. RAM usage 1.453. 47MB  - part of which is probably the note itself.

This means opening and running the EN app used up a maximum (because the note itself will take some) of appr. 180 MB of RAM.

And now ? Want to give another lecture ...

You're clearly not a developer. Otherwise you would know that apps are sandboxed and thus apps can't really see what other apps are using or doing. I don't know what SystemGuard does to show a figure, but it clearly can't know it. 47MB can't be right, unless you believe it. As said EN v10 uses Electron which in itself uses Chromium, and that doesn't fit at all in 47MB.

That was my last "lecture" for you. Good luck.

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9 分鐘前, doxb說:

Yeah I am more amazed that they haven’t released any patches to fix at least some of the problems. A downgrade would be nice. 

5 days already. Just wonder what they are doing.

The support team is trying their best to reply as quick as possible (possibly quicker than normal). But where is the product team and management? In the past the former Google CEO had already apologized for the terms and conditions, and version 8.0 had only lasted for less than three days.

Rolling back v8.24.6 on the App Store is the best and easy way. At least some of the customers will appreciate that you are brave to admit and face the big crisis. 

No one response / action is perfect at this moment but doing something is better than nothing. Expect just let the support team address the customers' issues alone.

 

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I’m really concerned about the direction of this release too. It seems like the main focus is on cross platform development and making it exactly the same no matter what device you’re using. We’ve lost the performance and fidelity that past iOS apps have had. I actually kind of miss the app from 5 or 6 years ago. I certainly hope it all comes together though.

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24 minutes ago, mprogram said:

We’ve lost the performance and fidelity that past iOS apps have had. I actually kind of miss the app from 5 or 6 years ago.

This release  has issues, bugs and tbd development    
but I don't agree the direction is a loss in "performance and fidelity"   
When complete we will have definite improvement in The Web and mobile platforms   
I am concerned about loss for the Windows/Mac platforms

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I remember very well the rants about the release before, and EN not moving ahead etc.

Well here is it - and IMHO it is better than comments in the forum make believe. There is a lot of new stuff to be explored, so why do we all not shut up for a week, and use the time to find out what is there to be discovered. If we have bugs, let us issue support tickets.

Personally I have found this to be remarkable new aspects of rel. 10 :

  1. The layout is more logical and leaner. Secondary functions are there, but on a second level, not to interfere with primary functions.
  2. The new formatting allows for much better looking, clearer and more organized notes. I really love the checklist option, with the strikeout.
  3. The most important new function for me is that EN can be opened on iPads  side by side with other apps, even with drag and drop of content.

Probably the EN team will catch up with the issues we all have. But seriously wishing back the old release, with the aged Code Platform, with that many things not working ? Come on, we all deserve better !

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40 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

I remember very well the rants about the release before, and EN not moving ahead etc.

Well here is it - and IMHO it is better than comments in the forum make believe. There is a lot of new stuff to be explored, so why do we all not shut up for a week, and use the time to find out what is there to be discovered. If we have bugs, let us issue support tickets.

Personally I have found this to be remarkable new aspects of rel. 10 :

  1. The layout is more logical and leaner. Secondary functions are there, but on a second level, not to interfere with primary functions.
  2. The new formatting allows for much better looking, clearer and more organized notes. I really love the checklist option, with the strikeout.
  3. The most important new function for me is that EN can be opened on iPads  side by side with other apps, even with drag and drop of content.

Probably the EN team will catch up with the issues we all have. But seriously wishing back the old release, with the aged Code Platform, with that many things not working ? Come on, we all deserve better !

Really???  Surely you're kidding?

You're suggesting that we can actually USE this thing?  For what, exactly?  I can't clip a note from either Safari (or any other browser) or Flipboard, which is a large part of what I use Evernote for.  It simply does not work.  The note never gets to Evernote, not even on the same device.  It just disappears into thin air.  So how can we just get on with exploring it, when it doesn't even work at what it's supposed to do?

We need the previous version - it worked!  That would then buy time for the EN team to sort out the mess of this release BEFORE releasing it again.

 

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1 hour ago, NightStalker said:

Personally I have found this to be remarkable new aspects of rel. 10 :

Access to tag hierarchy is the top feature for me    
Table editing is also big; hopefully we'll see this feature shortly

I'm not as upset as other users;    
My iPad has always been of supplemental use with Evernote.    
If it was my primary device I would not me testing these .0 releases

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3 小時前, NightStalker說:

Really???  Surely you're kidding?

You're suggesting that we can actually USE this thing?  For what, exactly?  I can't clip a note from either Safari (or any other browser) or Flipboard, which is a large part of what I use Evernote for.  It simply does not work.  The note never gets to Evernote, not even on the same device.  It just disappears into thin air.  So how can we just get on with exploring it, when it doesn't even work at what it's supposed to do?

We need the previous version - it worked!  That would then buy time for the EN team to sort out the mess of this release BEFORE releasing it again.

 

I don't see v8.24.6 is the past, and in App Store you can see some app developers keeping both versions until the new one has almost all of the features from the previous.

Especially the case of Evernote that they rebuild an app from zero, every company can't rebuild it bringing all the feature in one time. There should be a transitional period. If Evernote release a update called v8.24.7 and mention that they have another app called "Evernote X" (or Evernote 10 whatever you like) for users who are curious about the new workflow and features. Will people be frustrated and will their business be affected?

I don't think I am throwing back how they could do. I am talking what they can do now: they can upload v8.24.6 back to the App Store while keeping v10.0.1. They can act now and in a few days so that some people can use some features like Apple Watch/web clipper/printing notes... again. Workaround is of course possible but doesn't mean the company can still be silent speeding up bug fix without communication.

I don't mind being called a rant, but only Evernote itself can show me I am totally wrong.

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Why not ? You can measure „completeness“ with different perspectives: Compared to the old release version, compared to what should be there now, compared to a vision of how it should be in the future.

I think our current discussion is primary about content that is there, but not working as it should. I would prefer this to be solved first. It is released software, „ .0 “-count or not.

I do not expect every aspect of the old version to be conserved, although key functions of a note taking app are a must. I count Apple Watch support in this category, because many users of iOS use their watch for exactly this: A device you carry all the time, to grab what crosses your mind and should go to a secure place for later review and action.

Let us talk about visionary stuff another day ...

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I am a Premium Customer. Fortunately I am on vacation from work this week. I use Evernote all day everyday when working. I take notes on my iPad, use it as my task list and information archive on my work PC then round off my day at home on my Mac tagging and filing notes and typing updates to actions.

I do use it at home too, but less so. I have tried to created a note on my iPad. It created around 10 copies, each progressively more complete as if it is saving the note then creating a new one as I continue to type (see screen shot)

Eventually they sync'd to my mac. I deleted the incomplete notes and sync'd back, but the iPad retains the incomplete notes.

If I was at work, I would be in a total mess. This needs to be sorted by Monday for me, or I will have to resort to pen and paper. You absolutely have to trust your note taking app. There isn't time to double check what it is doing.

There are other bugs too. Create a line with a checkbox at the start and press return used to start the new line with a checkbox. This is how you write a list. Not now. Now you have to select the checkbox again at the start of new lines, and to make this even less convenient, it is two clicks away, not just a single click.

I just can't use this. 

Why is it taking so log to correct some of the problems? I need to know when the fixes will be available.

 

 

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Just a few quick ones, to help around some problems:

My impression is that duplicating (mostly ?) happens when the app is running on an iOS device plus a desktop win/Mac client at the same time. No, it should not depend on closing the desktop, but at the moment maybe it helps.

Checkboxes: Use the new checklist item instead, it does create new lines with boxes until you type enter twice. Or type all the lines with the checkbox items, then select them all and choose the checkbox. It will format all selected text with checkboxes.

And take your time if missing stuff. A lot is there, just in another place. Most of it is working, some features are a real improvement.

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# The New Evernote .... BUT...😝
- looks good
- faster

- crash
    - searching, press the yellow lightning bolt in upper right =>> "Oops.... Try again or contact support." but nothing on the screen works. Only option, restart app. 
    - opening screen upper right "Yellow lightning bolt" "Ooops...Try again or contact support." but nothing on the screen works. 
    - Contacting help & support, "In New iOS app, press gear in upper right...." BUT THERE IS NO GEAR! I really hate it when the team doesn't know what their own app looks like!
- checking out plans
    - $100 a year to get offline access and non-trivial size limits???
    - no way to back out of "plans process"
        - press "hamburger"? Nothing happens
        - press Evernote Icon? Nothing happens
        -  (only move fwd to $75 annual Pmt purchase)
New App?  So far? 
- C'MON GUYS!
- pretty f'ing amateurish
- Thbbbppppp!😝 
- so now I'm supposed to trust my life, my plans, my history to Evernote????? Not a chance in hell. Yet. 
- key word in GTD - a TRUSTED system! 

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8 hours ago, Faisal Malallah said:

Did you just say to a premium customer that an officially released software that he paid for is not complete? 

 Confirmed; We are hearing from Evernote that specific functions are in progress,     
as well as fixes for issues/bugs    
imho  I'm not seeing the v10.0 rollout as complete; we will see additional releases

btw  There is no charge for the Evernote software     
          These releases are also no charge  (and optional)

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6 hours ago, SimonU62 said:

There are other bugs too. Create a line with a checkbox at the start and press return used to start the new line with a checkbox. This is how you write a list.

Not a bug, it's a design choice - lists are created with the new Checklist feature   
edit; not great for existing lists created using the checkbox feature

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You can write the items one below the other, then select them all, and hit the checkbox symbol. This will not erase the text and replace it by a checkbox - it will place a checkbox in front of each line of text. Maybe a few clicks more, but a workaround if you really want to stick with the vintage checkboxes (old habits die hard ,..).

With a view to the future, I think it is worth the effort to take the section of text with the old checkboxes and copy it into a new spot. Then use the checklist feature to reformat it to a checklist. IMHO it is much better, and will produce a new line with a check(list)Box when you hit enter.

Personally I think EN did good to rethink the checkbox old style and move on to the better checklist feature as offered now. The why and how was explained in one of the videos earlier this year. I see the checklist as an improvement. What is needed is convert the existing lists one time, and it is done. Or stick with the vintage boxes, it’s a personal choice.

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12 hours ago, IndyScan said:

Except if you already have EXISTING check lists hitting return just gives you a blank line.  It does NOT continue the checklist.  Bad design, broken functionality...

How to convert a checkboxes to a checklist

  1. Select your checkbox items
  2. Convert it to a list by clicking the bullet list or checklist icon     
    After processing, the bullets are hidden
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Hello, couldn't agree more, sync issues on iOS 14, and also iOS are just laughable.   I have tried almost all combinaison : erasing, deconnect, shut down iphone, re-install, you name it.  The notes that appearing now are the ones updated at least 3 weeks ago.  In the meantime, I have been working on evernote web , evernote deskstop (previous version), on two devices, without any sync issue.  Unfortunately since 3 days, Evernote on my iPhone is useless !!!!   Your losing the credibility of the whole "behind the scene circus" :-(

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I totally agree with the general tenor of the first post.

what the company Evernote delivers is a shame and nothing else.

Since years the software became more and more outdated. The redesign took at least 2 years when I remember correctly. And what you finally published is indiscussable in technical terms (so many serious! bugs) as well as product terms (I didn't find a single useful feature except different highlight colors, instead you removed or destroyed a couple of features people where used to, e.g. it is not possible anymore to center images - what is just ridiculous).

I have to say I am strongly disappointed. I was something like a fan of Evernote. I am using it since 2007, a few weaks after release. I am premium user since at least 5 years). If there wasn't this strong lock in effect (~10k notes), I would delete all of your software immidiately and use the product of one of your competitors instead. 

The only thing I can do is to strongly advice everyone who is not a user yet to try something else. And to promise that there will one day be a powerful migration assistant that allows me to transfer my 10k notes to another note taking app...
 

Seriously. I really hope one of your investors will one day have a look at what the users say about Evernote and will find that post. If so, my advice is: Fire your product team. Or completely rethink the processes. What you deliver is far below standard. 

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Anyone found a way to sort a search result?  Without that this release is of no use to me.  Literally can't do what I used to do, 

It's a production release, you think maybe someone would have checked sync and the like extensively?  So many reports re duplicate/conflicted notes from just doing what you do on a day to day basis.  Mind numbing.

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...and...

Could be not that many TIFF attachments across the EN universe.  I guess the more of the features you use that are missing the more you aren't in the target market.  Conscious decisions were made on what to include and exclude.

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7 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Not yet   
Got an acknowledgement from Evernote

A scary quote from the acknowledgement:

Unfortunately  several features in search results were neglected in this new iOS release, including pagination and sort options.

Wow.

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10 minutes ago, CalS said:

A scary quote from the acknowledgement:

Unfortunately  several features in search results were neglected in this new iOS release, including pagination and sort options.

Wow.

I find it reassuring that at least we are starting to see some responses from the Evernote staff and acknowledgment of the sort issue.  

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Just now, aukirk said:

I find it reassuring that at least we are starting to see some responses from the Evernote staff and acknowledgment of the sort issue.  

Sort of.  Problem for me at this point is they intentionally released the app without a sort option.  So not an issue to them.

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3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

It seems the duplicating is gone (for those who had it), and the offline notebooks do download (had this problem before, now solved).

Probably more stuff in the two updates until now, since no change log.

Thanks!  I've been having both problems so this is good news! 👍🏻

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Yeah the app definitely feels more stable. Listened to the interview with @Ian Smalltoo and it looks like we might have a lot of new features coming our way soon too so hopefully that’s us on the upward curve now. Some teething problems getting this out, no doubt but it feels more stable now.  They just gotta go through the same thing now with Mac, windows and android, oh what fun lol. 

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Definitely seeing some improvements from the two updates. I find that I am having to close EN on my iPad to get it to sync.

Another problem discovered today is that sketch is not good. When drawing, if I lift my Apple Pencil off the screen and immediately put it down, the app does not respond. I have to wait about half a second before drawing more. Also when selecting parts of a sketch to move it, the loop is not fully defined and it is impossible to tell if I have selected the correct section. 

All very frustrating on an app that worked reasonably well before the update.

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I have found the latest version 10.0.2 very stable and usable. Still a lot of “features” that are desperately needed (like sorting search results) and improvements around the reminder date selector (can we get a calendar selector it at least indication of the day of week for each day in the scroll wheel.  
 

... but this latest release is closer to where this should have been when released. 

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16 hours ago, SimonU62 said:

Definitely seeing some improvements from the two updates. I find that I am having to close EN on my iPad to get it to sync..

For me it starts syncing right away after closing a note I edited.

If not, I can pull down the notes list a little with my finger, and let it go. The sync wheel shows, and data is moved.

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3 hours ago, bsmservicesgroup@gmail.com said:

Evernote you have taken my business to it knee, I have many employees now with a program we use all day long that now doesn’t work , bring back the old version till you fix this you have a corporation that depends on you serving my company no more fix that dam thing 

I think we are others users that depend on having EN working as well.

Your Post is not very specific (and get this User name fixed, as I told in another thread already). 

If it is still about the offline notebooks, uninstall the EN client, switch the iPad off to clean out memory, switch it on again, and reinstall the app, ver. 10.0.2 or above if available from the App Store.

Open it, log in, let it Sync the initial stuff from the Server.

After This is done, go to Settings, notebooks, offline notebooks and select the notebooks you need offline. Be careful not to select too many at one time, because I experienced the download got stuck when selecting more than 3-4 at any time. Let it download, to assist switch off autolock-screen in the iPad settings and put the iPad to a charger. 

Do not select „All notebooks“ in the offline settings initially, because it will probably get stuck. I downloaded all of my notebooks by picking a few, let it run and pick the next ones, and only then activated the „All notebooks“ option. Now it works and keeps all of my stuff synced to the offline data base on my iPad.

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7 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

For me it starts syncing right away after closing a note I edited.

If not, I can pull down the notes list a little with my finger, and let it go. The sync wheel shows, and data is moved.

I am seeing the issue that is mentioned here too.  If evernote is open in the background and i bring it to the foreground again it doesnt sync.  More so, it cant, pulling down the notes doesnt do anything and even going into settings and sync from there doesnt work.  The major problem with this is I added content to a note on the ipad and it couldnt sync it.  Thankfully i noticed this, i copied the info into another platform, checked the web app - content not there, closed my ipad app, reopened it and then re added the content, then it synced.  This is a dangerous situaton though as if people dont know about this issue much work could be lost.

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1 hour ago, Marc_ said:

For what it's worth:

I'm in the process of migrating to Keep It, which is fully native on iOS and macOS, and you'll notice that. In the past weeks I hesitated a lot, because I've used Evernote since 2009.

Today I did try to convince me to stay with Evernote. I worked with it for an hour of so. The memory usage at that point was 1,5 GB. Yes GB!. Also I added tags to some notes, but those notes weren't in the result when I searched for that tag.

I've said it before. The new Evernote is made with the notorious Electron toolset. What you get is a web application in a native shell. Evernote is an excellent example to show people why native is soo much better in every way.

Today I'm finally going to migrate all my notes to Keep It and then close my account. Bye Evernote, I loved you until the new CEO messed it up.

I hope this goes well for you.

I gotta wholly disagree about electron though, so many apps use this, notion for instance which everyone raves about, discord which I use frequently, no issues at all and the beta app on my PC was now using less RAM than the native app was. Are there bugs, absolutely, have there been mistakes - definitely but I don’t subscribe to this all is doomed because its the worst possible platform and it can never ever be good - when other apps clearly are.

As I said I hope this works out for you, but I felt i had to challenge what you are claiming as I don’t think it’s entirely accurate and it may worry others. 

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3 hours ago, wbutchart said:

I am in the UK and downloaded and installed 10.0.2 days ago.  Not sure why you have not got it? Have you tried refreshing the downloads list?

Thank you.  I download my ios apps manually daily and Evernote has not been listed.  I can't see how I could have missed the update but app settings says 10.0.2 so  I'll start using it again.  Many thanks.

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Just made a test. I shut down my iPAD Pro 10.5, to clean out memory (yes, I mean the RAM).

Opened it, let it set itself up, then activated SystemGuard. That is an app that measures CPU and RAM usage. Then I looked up the RAM usage: 1.270.88 MB. 

After this, I opened the EN app. Again waited until it ran and displayed the current note. RAM usage 1.453. 47MB  - part of which is probably the note itself.

This means opening and running the EN app used up a maximum (because the note itself will take some) of appr. 180 MB of RAM.

And now ? Want to give another lecture ...

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1 hour ago, Marc_ said:

Electron can never use less memory than a native version. Impossible. Electron uses a number of helper processes, that you'll to take in account. Add them all up then an Electron app uses at least 500-600MB, without doing anything. That's because it's a web app that needs web technology: Chromium, Node.js and some other JS library.

For example the Postman app (for testing API's) also uses Electron. If you install it fresh, without anything loaded, it uses 600MB, which will rise to 1,2-1,6 GB easily when you're actually start working with it.

I can't think of any Electron app that performs ok (= not too much memory, fast as native, not sluggish). That includes Electron apps like Visual Code; compare this one with SublimeText or BBEdit for example. Big difference.

Imho ....

Spot on. The issues people are complaining about on the App Store (slow, sluggish, …) are directly related with memory constraints. iOS makes this more apparent because of the limited RAM availability of the devices than a Mac with 32 GB would. Now with iOS 14 and widgets using a lot of memory, the less than optimal framework Evernote chose compunds these problems. 

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OK, very bad, requesting apologies etc.

But my wife is running the new EN app on an iPhone 6S+ and on an iPad Air 2. This is the weakest hardware supported by iOS 13 and iOS 14.

EN is running smooth on both, EN iOS 10.0.2.

But again, this MUST be an exception ...

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3 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

OK, very bad, requesting apologies etc.

But my wife is running the new EN app on an iPhone 6S+ and on an iPad Air 2. This is the weakest hardware supported by iOS 13 and iOS 14.

EN is running smooth on both, EN iOS 10.0.2.

But again, this MUST be an exception ...

Judging by the dozens of negative App Store reviews that mention how slow and sluggish the new version is compared to the older one, my guess is that it could very well be a lucky exception.

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40 minutes ago, Marc_ said:

You're clearly not a developer. Otherwise you would know that apps are sandboxed and thus apps can't really see what other apps are using or doing. I don't know what SystemGuard does to show a figure, but it clearly can't know it. 47MB can't be right, unless you believe it. As said EN v10 uses Electron which in itself uses Chromium, and that doesn't fit at all in 47MB.

That was my last "lecture" for you. Good luck.

Better read before you write. The app took 180MB - nobody said 47 ...

But as you say, it must be running in Shadow RAM, hidden from the eye of any human. Or maybe it is just as it is - I am more in the camp that measures instead of believing.

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Whilst I have newer software, this is an easy one - go check the notion app reviews on the App Store - it uses Electron too - yet these complains of slow and sluggish are not there, why is that? Same with Discord...i get you are ideologically opposed to Electron for whatever reason but the actual ground experience is not holding up to the claims being made here,, otherwise notion would be *****, so would Discord and Microsoft teams and the list goes on, yet they are not getting those reviews.

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Has there been any official announcement from Evernote Co to tell customers what is going on?... This release sounds terrible. I am seeing the same problems myself. How could they have released code this bad? What is their process for quality checking the beta software? It would be hard to believe that there weren’t multiple points of failure that caused this on Evernote Companies part.

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21 hours ago, wbutchart said:

Whilst I have newer software, this is an easy one - go check the notion app reviews on the App Store - it uses Electron too - yet these complains of slow and sluggish are not there, why is that? Same with Discord...i get you are ideologically opposed to Electron for whatever reason but the actual ground experience is not holding up to the claims being made here,, otherwise notion would be *****, so would Discord and Microsoft teams and the list goes on, yet they are not getting those reviews.

The use of Electron is easily the worst thing about Notion and one of the reasons I still use Evernote alongside it. Electron makes cross app development easier, but in terms of the user experience its comfortably worst than a native app.

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Probably nobody (for sure including myself) is happy with a release so buggy as we have experienced it.

But I attribute this to the release decision taken by EN management to go as it was with rel. 10.0 - be it out of bad testing, not listening to QA or a drive to push it aligned with iOS14, at all cost. I think the basic concept of the new app is working (as 10.0.2 shows), and really hope they get it together now step by step, counting still missing functions and remaining bugs.

The Elektron discussion is IMHO misleading. It is AFAIK not supported by facts. I ask myself if somebody wants to prove himself smarter than all the others, or what else may be behind it.

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12 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

The Elektron discussion is IMHO misleading. It is AFAIK not supported by facts. I ask myself if somebody wants to prove himself smarter than all the others, or what else may be behind it.

I've used EN since 2009 and thus have a long history with it. I recommended it to many people in all those years. I have had many thousands of notes in it, so I think I'm a heavy user.

I don't want to prove anything. I have no expertise in a lot of areas, but do have some knowledge in few ones, one of which is development. I'm developing since 1983 and have seen a lot of toolsets. I once also looked at Electron and walked away quickly from it. It's very tempting to use a cross-platform like this. It will save you a lot of time.

But if you want to create an app that is excellent and provides a good user experience then the only way to do this is going the native route.

At my work I *have* to use several Electron and/or web based apps. I hate it. It's embarrassing that I need a PC with 32GB to be able to work a bit comfortable, because:

  • Teams uses between 800-1200 MB memory.
  • Visual Code uses between 600-1000 MB memory (for editing a 2KB html file ....). Opening a 20MB XML file takes 1 minute to load.
  • Power BI starts with 1GB memory and after an hour or so working it raises to 15GB-20GB (not a typo) to work with 200MB of data.
  • Etc.

At home I use a Mac and can choose what I want, so that's only native. Opening a 20MB file takes 3 seconds to load in the native BBEdit.

Native apps also give you the native look-and-feel and are well integrated with the OS. If I work on a Mac I want apps that behave like a Mac app. Same on Windows.

You may see this as a lecture or see me as someone who wants to prove something. Whatever. I just think EN made a big mistake and I just don't want to use a note taking app that uses 1,2 GB of memory (after an hour or so when you have opened several notes).

I hope that EN is doing well and I hope that its users, those who stay with it, are very happy with it. But I'm out.

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9 minutes ago, Escaped to Keep It said:

But if you want to create an app that is excellent and provides a good user experience then the only way to do this is going the native route.

I don't think anyone will argue that a native app can provide the best experience and performance.  Evernote has been doing that for many years and has decided that the multiple development team approach was not sustainable and is hindering them from offering new features so they have decided on this direction.  I'm hopeful that in time the new platform will have acceptable performance and function and enable them to add some long desired features.   This will still involve some level of change and each of us gets to decide whether we are willing to accept that, or move on to another app that better meets our needs.

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By the way, why does swipe left always brings me to "all notes" - it's just ridiculous. I have 40 notebooks and around 6.000 notes in total. I never use the All Notes View as it just makes no sense to me. When you change such fundamental things, where your paying users have used to for 10 years, why don't you just make it as an option. 

 

You managed to make everything worse. I am so pissed.

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I am really disappointed by the update to version 10, it was clearly inadequately managed and tested and is affecting thousands of people that rely on EN for their productivity.
However, more of a concern is the lack of information from Evernote. The response suggests to me a lack of appreciation of the chaos that they have caused and real ambivalence towards their customer base. I am sure that many customers are looking at alternatives. I really don’t want to jump to another platform after using Evernote for many years, but I am busy evaluating OneNote, reluctantly, and Keep It. Some open communication from EN demonstrating that they have understood the bugs reported and that they are resolvable along with detailed notes for the updates that have been issued might just help them hang on to some customers. 

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Updated on 10-02-2020

There are some great new features in IOS version 10.0.3 but there are some serious issues with missing can’t live without features.  
So Far, I’ve experienced two can’t live without features:

1.  Find in note  (notes before update) (IOS)

2.  PRINT!!!!  No way to Print/turn into Adobe PDF document in IOS.  (worked great before update)

Regrets.

EDIT TO CLARIFY : Updated version 10.0.3 on Friday, 10-02-20.

 

 

7B09E8A5-68FA-4672-9E6B-D84AD006FDA1.jpeg

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On 10/1/2020 at 8:13 AM, Escaped to Keep It said:

I've used EN since 2009 and thus have a long history with it. I recommended it to many people in all those years. I have had many thousands of notes in it, so I think I'm a heavy user.

I don't want to prove anything. I have no expertise in a lot of areas, but do have some knowledge in few ones, one of which is development. I'm developing since 1983 and have seen a lot of toolsets. I once also looked at Electron and walked away quickly from it. It's very tempting to use a cross-platform like this. It will save you a lot of time.

But if you want to create an app that is excellent and provides a good user experience then the only way to do this is going the native route.

At my work I *have* to use several Electron and/or web based apps. I hate it. It's embarrassing that I need a PC with 32GB to be able to work a bit comfortable, because:

  • Teams uses between 800-1200 MB memory.
  • Visual Code uses between 600-1000 MB memory (for editing a 2KB html file ....). Opening a 20MB XML file takes 1 minute to load.
  • Power BI starts with 1GB memory and after an hour or so working it raises to 15GB-20GB (not a typo) to work with 200MB of data.
  • Etc.

At home I use a Mac and can choose what I want, so that's only native. Opening a 20MB file takes 3 seconds to load in the native BBEdit.

Native apps also give you the native look-and-feel and are well integrated with the OS. If I work on a Mac I want apps that behave like a Mac app. Same on Windows.

You may see this as a lecture or see me as someone who wants to prove something. Whatever. I just think EN made a big mistake and I just don't want to use a note taking app that uses 1,2 GB of memory (after an hour or so when you have opened several notes).

I hope that EN is doing well and I hope that its users, those who stay with it, are very happy with it. But I'm out.

I’ve been using Evernote since 2008, but I don’t want to use a slow app anymore and I don’t see how this can get substantially better. When the Electron based Mac app comes out I think I’m going to be done (unfortunately I love the current Mac app). I’m seriously considering Apple Notes. Did you switch to something? I have 11,000 notes organized with tags and notebooks so moving is a big undertaking.

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10 hours ago, mprogram said:

When the Electron based Mac app comes out  I think I’m going to be done (unfortunately I love the current Mac app)

We don't have to automatically install every release 
Review the feedback in these forums first

I doubt I'll be installing the new Mac version   
The current version is working well for me

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3 hours ago, mprogram said:

I’ve been using Evernote since 2008, but I don’t want to use a slow app anymore and I don’t see how this can get substantially better. When the Electron based Mac app comes out I think I’m going to be done (unfortunately I love the current Mac app). I’m seriously considering Apple Notes. Did you switch to something? I have 11,000 notes organized with tags and notebooks so moving is a big undertaking.

I've switched to Keep It, which has an import function for Evernote (preserving tags), so migrating doesn't take long.

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3 hours ago, DTLow said:

We don't have to install every release 
Review the feedback in these forums first

I doubt I'll be installing the new Mac version   
The current version is working well for me

At some point in the coming months you'll have to as it will break at some point (due to server changes only supported in latest version).

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9 hours ago, Escaped to Keep It said:

At some point in the coming months you'll have to as it will break at some point (due to server changes only supported in latest version).

The current version should work until they drop support or until they make a change to the server data base.  Speculation at this point but hopefully a ways out based on the raw state of this version. Any server changes would most likely impact all platforms.

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I would recommend anyone that has not updated, don't. I turned off my Automatic App updates from the App Store when I saw 10 was released. So much is broken. I would love it if they would make everyone's live easier and release Evernote Classic on the App store giving people the option to use 8.x until they fix 10. It was released way too soon. 

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14 hours ago, Escaped to Keep It said:

I've switched to Keep It, which has an import function for Evernote (preserving tags), so migrating doesn't take long.

The Keep It posts have been moved to Here

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8 hours ago, SimonU62 said:

Evernote, please talk to us. No more fixes for a week. Does that mean that you have given up and we have to put up with the mess of an app that has been delivered?

There's other priorities
Things were going so well with the IOS rollout, they're rolling out to Windows and Mac

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47 分鐘前, Scott P說:

Long time subscriber, but any more lost note changes and evernote is gone  IOS notes is more functional now.  Freaking Evernote not the first major update that wasn’t properly beta tested

I have been switching to Apple Notes in which notes do not need times to load (already offline), and local notebooks are always on every device. Sketches are not laggy and in high resolution which can be converted into texts and even links if you like. Notes can be printed too. Widgets and Apple Watch are here. Spotlight can show results other than note titles.

Yes, there are only notebooks without tags that Ian Small may think as the most ideal, while Apple can make them into n subfolders. Drag and drop makes moving notes from folder to folder without any steps. 

And these features do not cost you any except for the iCloud depending on your size of contents.

All these features mentioned above are also included on Evernote (especially v8.24.6), but for USD70/year which still does not guarantee you do things faster and better than free Apple Notes, but in the opposite ironically. Not to mention fixing few of the bugs may inevitably lead to other bugs you never think of. Money will buy frustration. Evernote will keep their ears shut when you voice out.

Do you think 98% non power users will keep using Evernote? At least Apple Notes is free. At least Notion can bring a sense of satisfaction when you devote time and energy to create a beautiful dashboard.

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5 hours ago, Alvin C said:

I have been switching to Apple Notes in which notes do not need times to load (already offline), and local notebooks are always on every device. Sketches are not laggy and in high resolution which can be converted into texts and even links if you like. Notes can be printed too. Widgets and Apple Watch are here. Spotlight can show results other than note titles.

Yes, there are only notebooks without tags that Ian Small may think as the most ideal, while Apple can make them into n subfolders. Drag and drop makes moving notes from folder to folder without any steps. 

And these features do not cost you any except for the iCloud depending on your size of contents.

All these features mentioned above are also included on Evernote (especially v8.24.6), but for USD70/year which still does not guarantee you do things faster and better than free Apple Notes, but in the opposite ironically. Not to mention fixing few of the bugs may inevitably lead to other bugs you never think of. Money will buy frustration. Evernote will keep their ears shut when you voice out.

Do you think 98% non power users will keep using Evernote? At least Apple Notes is free. At least Notion can bring a sense of satisfaction when you devote time and energy to create a beautiful dashboard.

if this is the only thing you were using in EN than it's absolute smart to switch to Apple Notes. And, from an EN perspective, only paying users are relevant.

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I'm floored that somebody thought it was okay to release a version of the app that is missing core functionality and a step backwards from the previous version.

This forum has better text options and UI than the latest release.

Sure, I get there are release notes and it says what's "not" there, but what's the thought process behind pushing out a version that, among other things, is absent of basic app preferences?

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I have been a paid subscriber since 2012. I have accumulated over 6,000 notes. I have been skeptical of Evernote’s decision to rewrite such a complex and feature rich application. I dutifully answered the surveys asking for input on desired features. I waited patiently hoping that Evernote could pull it off and live up to the promise of a better app. Unfortunately and sadly, it seems they have turned us all into beta (or should I say production) testers for an app that appears to be a long way from getting back to providing the core functionality of the legacy version. We now all wait like baby birds in the nest waiting for momma bird to feed us the next “dot whatever” release that, hopefully, will make things better. It’s time for me to move on. 

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26 minutes ago, B52Alan said:

I have been a paid subscriber since 2012. I have accumulated over 6,000 notes. I have been skeptical of Evernote’s decision to rewrite such a complex and feature rich application. I dutifully answered the surveys asking for input on desired features. I waited patiently hoping that Evernote could pull it off and live up to the promise of a better app. Unfortunately and sadly, it seems they have turned us all into beta (or should I say production) testers for an app that appears to be a long way from getting back to providing the core functionality of the legacy version. We now all wait like baby birds in the nest waiting for momma bird to feed us the next “dot whatever” release that, hopefully, will make things better. It’s time for me to move on. 

Yep. That's what I also did; move on. I was a big promotor of Evernote, because I really liked it a lot.

Sadly, a new CEO arrived and made a terrible mistake to rewrite it as a web app. Very dumb decision.

The best thing they could do is drop it and go back to the native code base. If you do it wisely, it's not that hard to maintain multiple native targets.

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Is This a Better Experience?

  1. There are now some markdown shortcuts that will be easy once I learn them. 
  2. I do like the look of the editor.
  3. I haven't yet had a chance to test search very extensively but I have noticed some performance issues. 
  4. The iOS version is still an absolute mess. 
  5. I like the new look of  the Editor here, but what does it offer except colors and standardized header sizes?  Text boxes? Mix of handwriting and text?  Ability to view .pdfs in-line?  No, no, no. 
 
Other than a prettier editor, I don’t see any real advantages in the new Evernote.   In fact, there is much more to dislike.  There are lots of cosmetic things they could have done to make Evernote look better without changing changing its base functionality.  This reminds me of when Apple rebuilt iWork.  However, when this was done, they really revamped the workings of the apps and you got a collaborative experience in return.  I don’t see that users get anything here other than some cosmetic changes.   Search is “better”?  Search was already great, this wasn’t a “feature” requested by users.  They wanted, and still want, a more capable and modern application.   Let’s compare Evernote with free Apple Notes:
 
 
Feature 
Apple Notes
Evernote
Comments
Editor
Great
Ok
The Evernote editor lacks shortcuts.  Other than standardizing font sizes, it isn’t much of an improvement over its predecessor, and many features have disappeared.
Handwriting
Great
Horrible
 
Annotation
Great on iOS and Desktop
Ok on desktop, horrible on iOS
Apple annotation includes text, drawing, and signature support.  
Tables
Great on all platforms
Exists only on Desktop.  Evernote is better on Mac. 
Evernote for iOS has a “button” for adding a table but it isn’t actually functional.  Evernote does have colors!
Search
OCR 
OCR
Apple seems to process and index new images faster than Evernote. Evernote retains the advantage of saved searches.  Apple breaks up searches into categories
Drawing
Drawing tools, Scribble, 
Horrible and non-functional at launch. Ugly and difficult.  It apparently aspires to an infinite canvas. 
Why Evernote would launch an app with fundamentally broken features is beyond me.  It is not confidence-inspiring. 
Speed
Fantastic
Ok, but behind Notes
Apple Notes benefits from tight integration with iOS, use of Share Sheet, 
Add to an existing note
Yes
No
This is actually a great feature in real world use when you are adding to an existing note.  Evernote allows for merging of notes, but this is often less desirable than adding to an existing note. 
 
Note Links
Good but a bit hard to get to
Very good, but the new version has made internal links less accessible.
 
Save an email
Yes but not obvious.
Easy, Mail in
This is an area where Evernote is ahead… for now. 
Managing pdfs
Great, inline viewing, annotation
Terrible, images are sometimes wrong size, annotation is bad in iOS, pdfs are hidden unless clicked on
This should be Evernote’s core competency.  It is actually getting worse!
Tags
No
Yes
Although this is an Evernote “win”, inexplicably, rather than improving their tag system a la Bear, Evernote have made it harder to access.  Bizarre: this is one of their key features for paying power users.  They could have further differentiated themselves but instead chose to make notebooks the centerpiece of organization like Apple Notes or OneNote
Outlining
Great in iOS and on Mac
Great on Mac, but no mechanism for moving outline elements in iOS
Again, you would think this should be an Evernote core competency.  Yet, other than now treating outline elements as blocks, Evernote haven't added any features in years.  Each version of Apple Notes keeps adding substantial improvements.  
Note Appearance
Good
Good + Colors
 
 
Password Protect a Note
Yes
No
After a decade of requests to Evernote, nothing....
 

Evernote Should Be Better!

Evernote should win this race easily.  It charges for this service!    It has an enormous  base of committed users.
  • It should have better search.  OCR appears to have gotten worse.  Indeed I am running old and new versions concurrently and, to my shock, I get better search results with the old version! 
  • It should be faster (the new versions have performance issues, software bugs, and you spend a lot of time looking at a spinning circles!!!!!)
  • It should take advantage of the unique capabilities of the platforms it sits on, like Apple Pencil. 
  • It should have lots of  outlining capabilities. This should BE Evernote's core competency:
    • Toggle Outlines
    • Multi-column outlines.
    • Convert from a table to an outline.
    • Some database capabilities.
    • Project outlining
    • mind mapping
    • Kanban boards
  • iOS should be just as capable as desktop!
    • Outlining
  • Evernote should keep up with OS capabilities. E.g., iOS 14:
    • iOS Widgets?
    • Scribble support?  Currently you need to actually disable Scribble to allow the Apple Pencil to function at all. 
  • Evernote should have GREAT export options:
    • The ability to Print!!!! (I didn't know this was a "feature" since the 1980s!)
    • PDF export with ability to see page cutoffs
    • Docx export
    • Convert to PowerPoint
  • Yes, you should be able to password protect a note. 
  • Evernote should enhance the security of note transmission and storage.
  • Evernote should communicate to users what they are doing and what they aren't doing. 
 
None of these features are new requests.  Users have gone for 5 years without nearly ANYTHING being checked off the list.  At least we deserve to hear what their plan is for future development.  Mr. Small's recent statements that features are being eliminated because Evernote discovered that only 5% of users utilize "feature X" probably stems from two main sources:
  1. Non-paying users comprise a large portion of the customer base, and they most likely aren't dependent on the deeper features of the app. 
  2. Some features, like Tags, aren't used that much because, in previous versions of Evernote they have been implemented inconsistently across platforms.  For instance, I would have preferred a tag-based system, but I eventually converted to using Notebooks because a hierarchical view of Tags did not exist in iOS where I do much of my work.  This doesn't prove that the feature wasn't desirable, it just proves that users won't work with a half-assed implementation. Instead, much of what users did do with tags (e.g., color coding) has been disabled.   This update was an opportunity for Evernote to show users a more effective way to utilize tags.... Fail. 
Maybe this will get better over time, however, I don't see the CEO communicating anything but happy talk about how spectacular it is that they have migrated the code base, and that we will be "amazed" next year.   The last time we heard this, the great new "feature" the Company rolled out was the redesign of the "Mads the Elephant" logo, which they have referred to as "rebranding."      Not a good sign. 
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On 9/30/2020 at 6:49 PM, Escaped to Keep It said:

For what it's worth:

I'm in the process of migrating to Keep It, which is fully native on iOS and macOS, and you'll notice that. In the past weeks I hesitated a lot, because I've used Evernote since 2009.

Today I did try to convince me to stay with Evernote. I worked with it for an hour of so. The memory usage at that point was 1,5 GB. Yes GB!. Also I added tags to some notes, but those notes weren't in the result when I searched for that tag.

I've said it before. The new Evernote is made with the notorious Electron toolset. What you get is a web application in a native shell. Evernote is an excellent example to show people why native is soo much better in every way.

Today I'm finally going to migrate all my notes to Keep It and then close my account. Bye Evernote, I loved you until the new CEO messed it up.

my status is so similar to this

now I think the WIn version is getting messed up too, not sure about keep it, but maybe onenote, since they have a collapsible list which is a requested for so many many years along with other requested feature, for a paid users, I see the values is losing... 

apparently the company direction is to get more users by optimizing the mobile app, but the foundation is getting lose...
i have been so loyal for so many years, and tbh this makes me feel sad 

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The latest release has, at least for power users (a.k.a. the folks who pay the bills), been pretty much a disaster:  bugs galore, loss of functionality, change in workflow, entire portions of the App (E.g., Sketch, Annotation, and Tables) that simply don’t function in anything approaching a usable manner.   Yet,  Evernote is the repository for years of notes for many of us.  It would be far better for everyone if Evernote fixed what is wrong rather than forcing us all to leave.  So here, is my list of items that, if addressed would make Evernote a compelling choice in the paperless office space rather than a dust gathering file cabinet for old notes. 

How to Make Evernote Great Again:

  • Restore Internal links. This is/was a HUGE differentiator
  • Allow moving elements in lists in iOS— this is fundamental to note taking. 
  • Better outlining functionality in iOS and MacOS. 
    • Ability to outline elements using keyboard in iPad OS.
    • Toggle outlines
    • Sections
    • Kanban boards
    • Mind Maps
    • OMPL import/export
  • Fix the bugs
  • Get the OCR fixed
  • Fix the drawing system. It sucks.  Make proper use of the capabilities of Apple Pencil. 
  • Fix the annotation system. It is marginally better on Mac. It is impossibly worse in iOS.
  • Create real table capabilities in iOS
  • Incorporate markdown shortcuts in iOS. If this whole crazy “upgrade” exercise is about making the app consistent across platforms, why isn’t it????
  • Restore CMD J, CMD D and other shortcuts. Make them consistent for MacOS and You keep saying this isn’t a web app, if so, then where did the shortcuts go?
  • Allow users to export what they create in Evernote:
    • Printing (who thought that this would need to be an added feature????)
    • PDF export
    • Option to show page lines in document
    • Export to .docx and PowerPoint. 
  • Password protection of notes
  • Better security policy
 
I don’t think this is an impossibly long list. These are not requests based on a “unique workflow”, they are basic things that many competitors have already implemented. Many of the items are small coding changes like keyboard shortcuts that can improve user productivity with little effort.  
 
 If it is to be relevant, Evernote needs to be the best environment to keep, store, reference, and file personal information.  So, it needs to be great at note taking, great at external information capture, great at integrating that information,  great at search, and great at security.   They have many of the elements, but they aren’t there yet.  Unfortunately the last update may have taken them (temporarily I hope) further from this goal.  Unless they start moving rapidly to addressing these issues, users will continue to migrate to Notion, OneNote, Apple Notes, Bear, Nimbus, etc.   Evernote are at the precipice of declining paid users and a death spiral, or launching into a new era of relevance.  The hope of users was that the launch of the new apps was a signal of the latter.  So far, they are unfortunately teetering toward the former.   Let’s hope they improve communication and start knocking some of these items of the list in time to save the Company. 
 
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Worst ... Update ... Ever  (not just for evernote) ...

OMG this is so so so so bad.

I have tag (shortcuts) ... did someone actually try this before releasing it ???

It is UNusable for me (and really screws me since I was just about to travel and do a lot of writing)

Tags - no longer are sortable

Tags - when I click on a tag the friggen UI changes!!   (unlike tapping on a category)

I can go on and on ... but then I'd be doing the QA job that you should have paid someone to do.

I cannot say too little about this update.... except it was unnecessary and self-indulgent to some designer who wants to win some award for "pretty" rather than for usability or productivity.

I'm sorry - I cannot be gracious or even civil to evernote at this point.  Too much lost work. Been paying evernote for this privilege for 10 years too!

 

 

 

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On 10/17/2020 at 1:01 PM, rob24hrs said:

Gawd take a look at comments re EN on IOS App Store.  Enough to scare anyone off. I wonder if EN "management" actually read those comments? ( they obviously ignore this forum).

Right on. I've commented on massive EN (= NEVER note) issues on this forum for years, and "management" don't seem to bother with the HUMANS that PAY for and USE EN as much as they indicate when emailing "support" about the issues.  Unbelievable level of "support"....  

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On 10/23/2020 at 10:45 AM, ingemarsland said:

I have had several instances of data loss since upgrading. That’s the one thing that must not happen. Extremely worrying. 

= Unusable then surely?

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The End....

This morning, after 10 years of subscribership, I finally gave up and moved my database to Apple Notes.  What did I learn?

1. It was amazingly easy (see link at the end of this comment)  I exported my Evernote notebooks, one notebook at a time to ENEX files on my iMac desktop. I then clicked import in Apple Notes and they uploaded almost instantly. I then moved the notes to appropriately named folders in Notes and ... done.  Several thousand notes to me a half hour. It then took another 30 minutes for everything to upload to iCloud so that they are accessible on all my devices.

2.  Notes is way faster than EN (new version)

3. Search is about equal to EN. OCR works well.

4. The share sheet can be used to save web pages into Notes. It isn’t as sophisticated as the web clipper but it is very functional.

5. Attachments are easily annotated from my iPad with Apple Pencil. 
 

6. Note formatting is better and faster than the “updated” Evernote.

7. Tables are viewable and full featured on MacOS and iOS devices!

8. There is full support for handwriting and new shapes tools.  You can write and annotate within the app.

9. It requires an extra step but you can create reliable links to your notes that can be pasted into other notes, your task manager or elsewhere.

In short, if you are an Apple ecosystem person, there is no reason to continue the suffering.  A clean interface, a zero price and great features await.  
 

This may seem disloyal,  and I will miss the Evernote community, but face it folks, this has been an asymmetric dysfunctional relationship for a long time:

—5 years and virtually no new features?

—Remember awaiting the “new” Evernote and discovering that the only new feature was a redesign of the Mads the Elephant logo?

—Remember having prices jacked up?

— Remember getting “chat” instead of any requested features?

—Remember the removal of useful capabilities like Evernote Clearly?

—Remember all of the promised enhancements to security? A decade on and you still can’t password-protect a note! Remember the policy document that indicated that developers might be reading  our notes?  They later retracted this, but what assurance do we really have?

— Remember multiple versions of the virtually unusable Penultimate?

 

And now, after promising a new improved Evernote, they have launched a feature-disabled Mac app, and fundamentally broken Windows and iOS apps.  

They sold us Evernote branded Fujitsu ScanSnap devices— now they have removed scanner support with notice to users.

They released apps that don’t even allow printing???? What???? 

There is no real communication other than marketing spin. There is no documentation of what is supposed to work and what is in development.  The features that used to differentiate Evernote have largely been lost or broken. Ian Small is now talking about all the enhancements in the future, but what are they?  When?  We waited 2 years for this????
 

While Evernote have taken our money, Apple Notes, Bear, Notion, Notability, Goodnotes, Roam Research and OneNote have been advancing forward rapidly. Evernote meanwhile is remaining pretty much the same or getting worse.  Some folks have used Evernote as a filing cabinet.

After exploring a bit, I’m amazed at how far the rest of the world has advanced. Unfortunately beyond the user community itself, there is simply no compelling reason to stay😢

 

 

 

 

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I think you have done a very good job of summing up many of our concerns, thank you bigtelco

I think the very least Evernote can do under the circumstances is take down the threat to disable, destroy, stop from working, stop from syncing the "Classic" "Working version" of Evernote.

Please if there is one request I have, is that they don't pull the plug on Evernote classic before this (Totally Disastrous) Version 10 release is fixed.

At lest until they have fixed it on the desktop. That is where I get most of my work done, not on the mobile phone, iOS but on the desktop.

 

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I have been a big fan of EN. I used to develop custom software at an enterprise level and know something about the complexities of new releases, setting expectations, version control, user experience, design, etc. It is not easy. It is much easier to sit back and complain. Sorry in advance, but I have to complain about the new release. I converted to the latest release and have to say it was a shock. I did like the overall appearance, however once I started to try and enter notes, move notes, update, it became this huge learning curve. I stopped, turned off the system and took a long break. I decided to give it another try when I was fresh. The next day, I had the same result, finding myself searching for little things that I used to fly through taking much longer. Some tasks I was not able to find. Some tasks, like moving a note from notebook to notebook took several extra steps and the memory of the last 3 notebooks used, went away. The last thing I want to do is learn a whole new software product. I have hours invested in EN and have a very effective and efficient method of using it. I do not like the major functional changes. I was happy with the last version. I want to go back. Is there a way to go back?

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On 10/25/2020 at 6:03 AM, bigtelco said:

The End....

This morning, after 10 years of subscribership, I finally gave up and moved my database to Apple Notes.  What did I learn?

1. It was amazingly easy (see link at the end of this comment)  I exported my Evernote notebooks, one notebook at a time to ENEX files on my iMac desktop. I then clicked import in Apple Notes and they uploaded almost instantly. I then moved the notes to appropriately named folders in Notes and ... done.  Several thousand notes to me a half hour. It then took another 30 minutes for everything to upload to iCloud so that they are accessible on all my devices.

2.  Notes is way faster than EN (new version)

3. Search is about equal to EN. OCR works well.

4. The share sheet can be used to save web pages into Notes. It isn’t as sophisticated as the web clipper but it is very functional.

5. Attachments are easily annotated from my iPad with Apple Pencil. 

6. Note formatting is better and faster than the “updated” Evernote.

....

I never thought of Apple Notes until Evernote v10 sucks. Apple Notes is very solid and reliable and fast. Notebooks can be moved and arranged as I like through drag and drop, unlike in Evernote in which renaming is needed.

Unwillingness to communicate with users, just say something through YouTubers' interviews, is a deal breaker for me. They update iOS version to v10.0.4 and stop. They may be working their best insisting on launching the Android version. Nice they have grit like this!

If Evernote is sincere, please issue an official statement through your website about the roadmap as users request and schedules about when which features will be back and when the legacy version will be pulled. Don't just spread words through YouTubers as you can ask them to delete the videos, and users do not have time to check what you said by watching clips again and again. Written words is a must. Would you prefer a contract through a video?

The disaster has been more than a month. Seems that the company feels that is not exciting enough, stepping up to beg free users for money. But they know how to play a game, and they move to Notion to play another game but to make a dashboard satisfying themselves.

Evernote, are you still persisting in this game challenging and betraying users? Will you continue by closing this forum to shut users' mouth? I am really looking forward to it!

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I agree with the reasons for your decision to switch. However, Apple Notes would not be a solution for me. I need a web client to be able to access my notes without the need to install a client application. For a long time I used the old version of the web client when Evernote started to re-create the Web client. They actually used the Web client to test out new features of their new platform like the new search etc. However, it took quite a long time for me to switch to the new version because they remove features from the old version that I needed. But for quite some time now I can use the new Web version, and I am quite happy with it. Currently, I cannot use Evernote on my Mac because the performance is very bad but I hope this will be fixed. I can still use it on my Android phone which is also important. I like that I do not depend on a specific platform and a proprietary format. After all ENEX is XML and many other applications can read it.

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