Android Play Store Reviews

[niikassim 20]

Very sad that most reviews on the Google play store for the month of January are just a single star. I really hope the developers will get their act together. A lot of people are obviously not too happy with this new "Electron" powered version. Love Evernote too much to see it go under. Thanks.

[Alxa 258]

I totally support this. Very sad. Just compare the speed of capturing documents EN8.13.3 vs EN10.4. From fast to deadly slow. Knowing the slow down is based on the new code foundation I think EN may never be that fluent as we knew it for years. No helpy tool for everyday use anymore.

[ryhol 30]

Yeah, Evernote is pretty much game over. I recommend exporting/moving your notes before it's too late. Who knows what will happen next! 

This version should have never been released. Astonishing decision by management. This was the final nail in the coffin for Evernote. Mark my words. 😒

[ehrt74 140]

Evernote has made enormous progress in the last 2 years. 2 years ago there were 5 different code bases and a thoroughly outdated back-end. None of the apps worked correctly. Now there's a unified code base and a modern back-end. Releases happen regularly and each one makes the app better, with improvements in speed and functionality. This has been pretty obvious for the last few months.

[niikassim 20]

5 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

Evernote has made enormous progress in the last 2 years. 2 years ago there were 5 different code bases and a thoroughly outdated back-end. None of the apps worked correctly. Now there's a unified code base and a modern back-end. Releases happen regularly and each one makes the app better, with improvements in speed and functionality. This has been pretty obvious for the last few months.

You may be right but this view is obviously not shared by most of the users, and again I use the reviews on play store, if this can be termed a true reflection of what actual users, not just the developers, think. Change must be beneficial to the end users. It might be worth finding out what the actual expectations of these end users are and why they believe it is not being met. Like I said earlier, personally, I love Evernote, it has made me more organised and more productive. However, if people don't use it, it might end up going under and that for me is a major concern. 

[ehrt74 140]

5 minutes ago, niikassim said:

You may be right but this view is obviously not shared by most of the users, and again I use the reviews on play store, if this can be termed a true reflection of what actual users, not just the developers, think. Change must be beneficial to the end users. It might be worth finding out what the actual expectations of these end users are and why they believe it is not being met. Like I said earlier, personally, I love Evernote, it has made me more organised and more productive. However, if people don't use it, it might end up going under and that for me is a major concern. 

I'm not sure if most users dislike v10 of evernote, particularly the Android app, which was (in my opinion) better than v8 the day the first version was launched. Play store reviews can be gamed quite easily.

[matej1990 135]

1 hour ago, ehrt74 said:

Releases happen regularly and each one makes the app better, with improvements in speed and functionality. This has been pretty obvious for the last few months.

I'm sure you mean that for Windows/Mac and not for Android. 😛

I mean, I agree that unified code was a good solution, but so many months with barely any progress on Android is a massive fail in my eyes. Why is Android neglected if it's now easy to make changes across platforms because of the unified code?
But I do agree. The work they have done on Windows platform is small but at least regular. I want that on Android.

[ehrt74 140]

2 minutes ago, matej1990 said:

I'm sure you mean that for Windows/Mac and not for Android. 😛

I mean, I agree that unified code was a good solution, but so many months with barely any progress on Android is a massive fail in my eyes. Why is Android neglected if it's now easy to make changes across platforms because of the unified code?
But I do agree. The work they have done on Windows platform is small but at least regular. I want that on Android.

the update to 10.4 happened last month, i think. let's see when the next update comes

[ryhol 30]

58 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

I'm not sure if most users dislike v10 of evernote, particularly the Android app, which was (in my opinion) better than v8 the day the first version was launched. Play store reviews can be gamed quite easily.

That's quite the statement. Have you seen (and read) all the 1-star reviews in the play store? You can't possibly think that v10 is better than V8 after that. Also, a note taking app which takes five seconds to open, is just not competitive. 

[niikassim 20]

Here's to hoping.

[ehrt74 140]

1 minute ago, ryhol said:

That's quite the statement. Have you seen (and read) all the 1-star reviews in the play store? You can't possibly think that v10 is better than V8 after that. Also, a note taking app which takes five seconds to open, is just not competitive. 

Well, I can say it, because that is what i have experienced. v8 was fairly terrible. v10 is (in my opinion) a lot better.

[matej1990 135]

19 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

the update to 10.4 happened last month, i think. let's see when the next update comes

Yeah 1 small update in 2 months? And now it's 1 month since v10.4 release. Compare that to EN Windows version update cycle. Every 1-2 weeks there is an update. Small one for sure, but still...

[ehrt74 140]

19 hours ago, matej1990 said:

Yeah 1 small update in 2 months? And now it's 1 month since v10.4 release. Compare that to EN Windows version update cycle. Every 1-2 weeks there is an update. Small one for sure, but still...

Just got another update for the Android app today  I'm now on 10.5 (1110172)

[matej1990 135]

Same here! I guess Evernote staff IS indeed reading this forum! We should rant more often, it's working!!!  

Joking (or not?) aside, it took them 1 month for new update. V10.4 was released on 14. January.
Release notes for v10.5 (1110172):

Got to test if "squashed many bugs" is true.  

[niikassim 20]

Still waiting for

15 minutes ago, matej1990 said:

Same here! I guess Evernote staff IS indeed reading this forum! We should rant more often, it's working!!!  

Joking (or not?) aside, it took them 1 month for new update. V10.4 was released on 14. January.
Release notes for v10.5 (1110172):

Got to test if "squashed many bugs" is true.  

Still waiting for my update. Hopefully my "annoying" bugs have also been squashed 😆

[ehrt74 140]

1 hour ago, niikassim said:

Still waiting for

Still waiting for my update. Hopefully my "annoying" bugs have also been squashed 😆

mm, one of my annoying bugs didn't get fixed 😕 oh well, maybe in the next version (creating an activity log with language set to german results in the button for "accept" being pushed below the confirmation window and so being unclickable -> workaround: rotate the screen)

[Coffee First Thing 75]

I changed my Google Play Android review from five stars to two stars.

I've been using Evernote for eight years and rely on it. Version 10 for Android is less functional and slower. I hope to be able to revise my rating to five stars again. 

[dbvirago 403]

I just went in and changed my 9 year old 5 star review to 1 star. Unreliable and unusable. Sometimes it opens up in 10 seconds. Other times it takes over a minute of staring at the green elephant. Old version always worked quickly and reliably. 

I don't need my notes on mobile often, but when I do, I need them now. I can't wait for whatever random thing is happening in the background. 

Worst UX I have ever experienced. And that's saying something coming up from DOS 1.0 to now.

 

[niikassim 20]

It's happening folks. Evernote review on the Google play store is now at 3.9!

 

[PinkElephant 2,957]

What is happening ?

Who believes in a 5-star ranking in any of these internet stores probably believes as well that Santa is bringing the presents.

[Alxa 258]

I noticed this too. Well deserved rating... unfortunately

[niikassim 20]

5 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

What is happening ?

Who believes in a 5-star ranking in any of these internet stores probably believes as well that Santa is bringing the presents.

You may be surprised at the number of people that still believe that Santa brings presents, me not included though 😁😂.

I think loads of people out there still make decisions on app choices based on play store ratings. May not be accurate or may be totally hogwash but some still do.

So as suggested in my earlier post, EN may just want to look at the comments on the play store and take a few of them on board. That is if they are not already doing that.

 

[Alxa 258]

7 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

What is happening ?

Who believes in a 5-star ranking in any of these internet stores probably believes as well that Santa is bringing the presents.

I think it directly relates to the bad user experience a lot of users have with EN10 and therefore change their ratings...and write quiete often comprehensive comments on why they changed. Since there a very lot of ratings the decrease is based on quiet a lot of users. I consider this as serious sign to Evernote that it is not yet heading the right direction. Hopefully the will recover sooner than later. 🙏

[ryhol 30]

Well deserved indeed. Hard to believe that they thought releasing rubbish software wouldn't have consequences. 

The crazy thing is that the previous Evernote version was quite all right. 

🤔

[whyisthissohard 3]

On 2/11/2021 at 6:58 AM, ehrt74 said:

Evernote has made enormous progress in the last 2 years. 2 years ago there were 5 different code bases and a thoroughly outdated back-end. None of the apps worked correctly. Now there's a unified code base and a modern back-end. Releases happen regularly and each one makes the app better, with improvements in speed and functionality. This has been pretty obvious for the last few months.

This aged poorly. Here we are in May and the app kills half my battery before it loads. Complete trash.

[ehrt74 140]

2 hours ago, whyisthissohard said:

This aged poorly. Here we are in May and the app kills half my battery before it loads. Complete trash.

Oh, do you have a video of that? On my system Evernote loads in about 2s.

[Alxa 258]

13 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

Oh, do you have a video of that? On my system Evernote loads in about 2s.

Wow I would love to see this in action (2s startup) and am still hoping Evernote will get to this point again. Which hardware do you use? I have middle-class samsung smartphones and tablets. Firing up Evernote on Android lasts between 8-13 seconds for me which is a real struggle when you need it now to scan or what ever. Every other app is up instantly or at max. 3 seconds. PS:  Evernote 8.13.3 did startl instantly on all my devices, as well. I am quiet missing this light weight and fluent user experience.

[ehrt74 140]

3 hours ago, Alxa said:

Wow I would love to see this in action (2s startup) and am still hoping Evernote will get to this point again. Which hardware do you use? I have middle-class samsung smartphones and tablets. Firing up Evernote on Android lasts between 8-13 seconds for me which is a real struggle when you need it now to scan or what ever. Every other app is up instantly or at max. 3 seconds. PS:  Evernote 8.13.3 did startl instantly on all my devices, as well. I am quiet missing this light weight and fluent user experience.

I'm on a Samsung S20. Every release of V10 seems to be a bit faster. 

[ryhol 30]

10 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

I'm on a Samsung S20. Every release of V10 seems to be a bit faster. 

Evernote 8.x starts up in less than a second when NOT in memory. 

The Electron framework used in Evernote 10.x is infamously slow, bloated, and uses up resources, i.e. CPU and RAM like nothing else. Whoever is of the opinion that releasing Evernote before it was ready (and without the capability of having it fixed for months) was a good idea, is most likely the type of person who has not yet realised that Evernote is pretty much 'game over'. Check the Play Store reviews. Lessons can be learnt from this for future projects. For Evernote it's too late though. 

[ehrt74 140]

7 hours ago, ryhol said:

Evernote 8.x starts up in less than a second when NOT in memory. 

The Electron framework used in Evernote 10.x is infamously slow, bloated, and uses up resources, i.e. CPU and RAM like nothing else. Whoever is of the opinion that releasing Evernote before it was ready (and without the capability of having it fixed for months) was a good idea, is most likely the type of person who has not yet realised that Evernote is pretty much 'game over'. Check the Play Store reviews. Lessons can be learnt from this for future projects. For Evernote it's too late though. 

Evernote 10 starts in 2s on my phone when not in memory.

[Alxa 258]

Yes, but you are on top hardware. I wonder how Evernote will ever get to get  EN10 running on older devices with even slower chipsets than one year old middle class devices running Android 11 now, that already take 10 seconds to start Evernote. Btw: I had to deinstall 10 eventually from my Galaxy Tab as it prevented me from getting things done in a reasonable time. Using legay 8.13.3 now feels like you switched from first to fifth gear directly.

7 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

Evernote 10 starts in 2s on my phone when not in memory.

 

[whyisthissohard 3]

22 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

Oh, do you have a video of that? On my system Evernote loads in about 2s.

I don't have a video and there's no need. Take a look around, you're the exception to the majority of user's experiences with this terrible update. Consecutive 1 star reviews on the play store for as long as you can scroll. 

[ehrt74 140]

15 hours ago, whyisthissohard said:

I don't have a video and there's no need. Take a look around, you're the exception to the majority of user's experiences with this terrible update. Consecutive 1 star reviews on the play store for as long as you can scroll. 

I'm not sure I'm the exception. Evernote has hundreds of millions of users. Only a very small percentage are complaining.

[PinkElephant 2,957]

Only EN knows- I would be looking for metrics like subscription renewals and free-to-paid conversions.

Personally I think there is currently a hot spot of discontent with Android users. I don’t want to comment on it, I use no Android devices. There was a similar issue when the first iOS release was pushed on the devices. EN was able to fix this, since EN iOS 10.4 for me the app was usable again. But most iOS devices run the latest OS version, and the hardware is more homogeneous.

So no first hand idea about the Android situation - just that EN is obviously still working on it. On iOS they are already releasing new features the old app never had. From this I think it is possible to make a mobile client that works fine for most users.

[Alxa 258]

Evernote has hundreds of millions of downloads in playstores, yes. But how many use the app on a daily basis or at all (forced installations). The exact real user number is a secret of EN. And I think they have their metrics and are knowing. Since Evernote 10 for Android suffers from the performance issues since the introduction which is now 5 months of time I am not that optimistic that they could do much better with the new framework. Otherwise they would have put all effort in solving the major issues beforehand playing around with new features. For me I think using Evernote on Android without having the latest highend device will not be possible anymore. When you think about what EN Android is offering technically: text notes, audio, pictures - nothing really resource demanding - I cannot understand it. I am one of the average users, having several middle-class devices all suffering from the slowness of EN 10.

But it is the choice of Evernote, leaving behind the average users - maybe these are not often on premium. CEO has gone quiet for a long time again. I am wondering If we will ever get an official statement to this.

[Paul A. 279]

9 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

I'm not sure I'm the exception. Evernote has hundreds of millions of users. Only a very small percentage are complaining.

The Evernote Play Store rating has nose dived in recent years (even before v10 was released but it accelerated since v10). I'm sure lots of people are perfectly happy, but there is plenty of evidence that a not insignificant number of Android users are very unhappy (myself included).

[ehrt74 140]

9 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Only EN knows- I would be looking for metrics like subscription renewals and free-to-paid conversions.

Personally I think there is currently a hot spot of discontent with Android users. I don’t want to comment on it, I use no Android devices. There was a similar issue when the first iOS release was pushed on the devices. EN was able to fix this, since EN iOS 10.4 for me the app was usable again. But most iOS devices run the latest OS version, and the hardware is more homogeneous.

So no first hand idea about the Android situation - just that EN is obviously still working on it. On iOS they are already releasing new features the old app never had. From this I think it is possible to make a mobile client that works fine for most users.

The new Android app already has lots of features the old one didn't have. Working nested tags, table editing, much improved text formatting, working work chat, ... There's quite a long list.

[niikassim 20]

1 hour ago, ehrt74 said:

The new Android app already has lots of features the old one didn't have. Working nested tags, table editing, much improved text formatting, working work chat, ... There's quite a long list.

I think they should have maintained the old features before thinking of adding new ones. My workflow which requires editing of pdf docs in an external app is now completely broken. A workflow I spent countless hours mastering and perfecting. 

It is all well and good adding new features, that may or may not attract new users but I still believe they should have, at the very least maintained the old features when v10 was released.

[Alxa 258]

On 4/28/2021 at 5:20 PM, niikassim said:

It's happening folks. Evernote review on the Google play store is now at 3.9!

 

And by the time being the rating continues to drop. Now on 3.8. I feel sorry for this. But since then I could not see any improvement in quality and reliability. In contrast since may things constantly go worse. The rising problems are well reflected in the comments. Rating again is earned.

I wonder how long product management can still go on this way, until some adjustments are made.

[dbvirago 403]

On 5/4/2021 at 8:46 AM, ehrt74 said:

Evernote 10 starts in 2s on my phone when not in memory.

5s on my mid-level Moto. But sometimes it's much worse and I have no idea the difference.

Or, I forget what I am dealing with an update the software. Then, I'm looking at 20 minutes of being useless. And updates come often.

 

[dbvirago 403]

Just took a picture of something on the phone so I could blow it up on the laptop and take a close look. I do that a lot. 

Took the photo note an hour ago. Still don't have it on desktop.

Please bring back manual sync.

[niikassim 20]

No app comes close to Evernote, at least the old Evernote, and I doubt if any will ever come close, not even the new Evernote, the modern shinny V10.

 

 It has been my go-to-app since 2011, an extension of my brain that helped me get organised both in my personal and professional life. But then came the clamour for change, even from me, wanting something new and beautiful and more "modern".

 

With the challenges that came with V10 I decided to explore other options. It hasn't been easy finding a like-for-like replacement. I don't think I ever will. 

I am however slowly putting together about 4 or 5 separate apps that in the past, could have been done with only Evernote. It hasn't been easy but it sometimes feels like an addict trying hard to get rid of an addiction and the hope that with time, it will get better and I will find the perfect solution.

An email reminder came in last night reminding me about a pending end to my subscription. I haven't actively used Evernote for over a month now, just the odd login as I try getting all my information out, pending the arrival of this day. But It still felt sad, very sad. 

Move on I must, even though it is tearing me apart. Who knows, one day Evernote will end up being the Evernote I got to love and never missed an opportunity to introduce to everybody I came across, as the next best thing, heck, the only thing better than sliced bread. 

So long!