(Archived) Evernote client(s) direction

[crispinb 8]

A question arises for me from yesterday's announcement that Evernote has raised another fine whack of investment capital. Here's a quote from the announcement:

We’re going to grow Evernote from a solution that helps you remember everything to the global platform for human memory. Our goal is to become the trusted, permanent and ubiquitous destination for all of your lifetime memories.

Now this is nothing exactly new; it's the same emphasis that EN's web page has had for some time. But it still prompts me to ask whether the development plan is to de-emphasize note making in favour of note collection. Not that this would necessarily be a bad thing: EN is currently an excellent collector but a poor to fair note-taker (depending on platform), and sometimes building on your strengths is the smart thing to do. But it happens that note-taking is important for my purposes, so it's a question I have an interest in.

[engberg 89]

No, I don't think this is a real emphasis change, I think we're just trying to use a bit more inclusive language. We're seeing a lot of integrations that cause memories to appear within your account, without you necessarily "making notes."

Probably really minor semantic differences, but the sort of thing that the marketing folks get to think about.

[crispinb 8]

Thanks. I guess you can take this as one user's request for some of that money to be spent on dev time for note editing facilities. Or maybe you can bribe Mr Jobs to put up a rich text editor API for iPad ...

[engberg 89]

Yes, that's definitely on the list. Unfortunately, building a full WYSIWG HTML editor for iPhone is one of the larger items on that list...

[jfwarrior 6]

Yes, that's definitely on the list. Unfortunately, building a full WYSIWG HTML editor for iPhone is one of the larger items on that list...

I'm quite confused on why a WYSIWYG HTML editor is needed for the iPhone - Is Evernote becoming a web-development application now?

Also, the ability to create note-templates would be very much appreciated. There could be a default stock blank note template, perhaps a Cornell-System template (My request here: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=19840), ...

[jefito 5,589]

Yes, that's definitely on the list. Unfortunately, building a full WYSIWG HTML editor for iPhone is one of the larger items on that list...

I'm quite confused on why a WYSIWYG HTML editor is needed for the iPhone - Is Evernote becoming a web-development application now?

Nope. I believe that Dave is talking about the need for Evernote to build rich-text editing facilities for platforms where it's not provided natively, e.g. the iPhone. That's because notes are stored in Evernote in an HTML-based note format.

Also, the ability to create note-templates would be very much appreciated. There could be a default stock blank note template, perhaps a Cornell-System template (My request here: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=19840), ...

Actually, you already can, at least on the Windows desktp (and possibly other clients; Windows is the only one I use). Make a note in the format that you wan to use, and tagged as you like, and export it in Evernote export format (.enex). You can then import this to make a new identical note. Fo rextra credit you can edit the .enex file and tweak the HTML bits to your liking.

~Jeff