Experiences with Android 10.18?

[lmsergio 7]

How has everyone's experience been so far?

Mine seems actually to be working a bit faster in terms of search, opening notes, Tagging and moving Notebooks.  It's still not snappy and is slow compared to other apps, but I feel as though there has actually been an improvement.  It's almost usable again. 

I'm running Evernote Pro on a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. I've ~30,000 notes, not downloaded offline.  

[DAB12345 0]

My experience with the latest versions of Evernote 10.18 on Android has been a disaster.

1. Notebooks are never available offline, even if ticked as offline in settings.
2. Evernote is no longer able to manage tags properly. The only way to see the correct number of tags is to use a search shortcut, such "tag:French", even then the list of notes may be incomplete.
3. Sending text from other apps to Evernote is broken - text and images are not always saved properly. Also choosing notebook and tags is extremely clunky and unfriendly. 
4. The whole app is slow and awkward to use.

Yes, I have already tried reinstalling it completely and deleting the app cache, etc.

I'm now looking for an alternative to an app that I had been using quite happily for about 10 years.

 

[Alxa 479]

EN 10.18 compared to 10.17 is indeed a slight bit faster - or better to say a bit less slower - on my devices, too. It is still very very far away from the ability to work fluently as needed with a note taking app and to "accomplish everything"

If Evernote would ask me to explain my UX in one word, it would be: "WAITING" 🙄

[lmsergio 7]

It really is kind of amazing.  It seems many of us are long standing, paying Evernote customers, me, since 2008, and to have such ongoing slowness, despite the incremental improvements with 10.18, is very frustrating.

I'm such a fan, and want to use Evernote for all of its capabilities, including tasks, which do make sense to locate within the notes themselves, but it seems that it opens and works quickly only sporadically.

Yes, probably more patience ...

[DianeB 0]

My husband uses an Android -  Samsung Note 9 -- and is on Evernote 10.18.  He is having a horrible experience (and has been for a few months, on 10.18) which is a problem for our whole family because we run our whole lives on this app.  I have an apple iphone 11pro.   

He gets a "note not available" error message at least 50% of the time.  He has also lost about a month's worth of his data.  He has also reinstalled it and that did not help.

We can't afford to be patient on this, please, how do we get Evernote to work on this?  It is literally un-usable for him at this point.  Help!

Diane

 

 

[janndk 495]

On 9/28/2021 at 1:46 PM, lmsergio said:

How has everyone's experience been so far?

Mine seems actually to be working a bit faster in terms of search, opening notes, Tagging and moving Notebooks.  It's still not snappy and is slow compared to other apps, but I feel as though there has actually been an improvement.  It's almost usable again. 

I'm running Evernote Pro on a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. I've ~30,000 notes, not downloaded offline.  

It's maybe just my imagination and hopes - but EN 10.18 feels a bit faster than 10.17 🤔 Still extremely slow though! 😴
 

On 9/28/2021 at 3:18 PM, DAB12345 said:

Sending text from other apps to Evernote is broken - text and images are not always saved properly. 

Same problem here! 😕

[Alxa 479]

1 hour ago, DianeB said:

My husband uses an Android -  Samsung Note 9 -- and is on Evernote 10.18.  He is having a horrible experience (and has been for a few months, on 10.18) which is a problem for our whole family because we run our whole lives on this app.  I have an apple iphone 11pro.   

He gets a "note not available" error message at least 50% of the time.  He has also lost about a month's worth of his data.  He has also reinstalled it and that did not help.

We can't afford to be patient on this, please, how do we get Evernote to work on this?  It is literally un-usable for him at this point.  Help!

Diane

 

 

Sorry to hear that. If you do not need access to the new features of EN 10 (home, tasks) you could roll back to 8.13.3 manually via side loading the apk-file from a website like apk mirror: https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/evernote-corporation/evernote/evernote-8-13-3-release/

Before installing 8.13.3 make sure everything on EN 10 is synced, then deinstall, restart device. Make also sure to disable automatic playstore updates now  (That is the down side). Now you can install the apk.

[agsteele 2,946]

2 hours ago, DianeB said:

My husband uses an Android -  Samsung Note 9 -- and is on Evernote 10.18.  He is having a horrible experience (and has been for a few months, on 10.18) which is a problem for our whole family because we run our whole lives on this app.  I have an apple iphone 11pro.   

He gets a "note not available" error message at least 50% of the time.  He has also lost about a month's worth of his data.  He has also reinstalled it and that did not help.

We can't afford to be patient on this, please, how do we get Evernote to work on this?  It is literally un-usable for him at this point.  Help!

Diane

 

Have you been in touch with support? A ticket seems the way to go 

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Get another iPhone …

Since the new mobile clients were launched, getting them to work was a 2 lane experience: iOS on the fast track, most major bugs fixed with 10.4 (some may argue 10.6). And Android: Crawling ahead, a lot of bad comments and user experience.

Another option could be to install EN Android legacy:

http://evernote.s3.amazonaws.com/android/google-play/com.evernote.google-play.8.13.3.1083330.allArch.6087.apk

[Gazebo 41]

Agreed. Horrible, to the point of unworkable on Android, but OK on iphone.

When I have tried rolling back Android versions they upgrade themselves after a time.  I have given up trying on Android and have moved fully to MS Onenote for work, so now only using EN for personal stuff.  

I'd love to use EN for everything but we use Android phones and tablets for work, and the experience is just too slow.

 

 

[niek 0]

Unfortunately, this version of the android app does not make sharp photos nor sharp document scans. So I cannot scan a bill, letter, page, etc. The quality is horrible: blurred, vague. Unsuitable to send to my accountant, or to use for record keeping. Now the process is frustrating, i have to make normal camera pictures and link them into evernote, ... very very cumbersome. 

How are other user's experiences?

Please improve this ASAP. The feature to scan any document with the app and add it into Evernote is a unique selling point.

If this does not improve, i have to face difficult decision: move towards another app and stop my 8+years subscription. 

OnePlus 6. Android 11, Evernote 10.18 (1118144)

[Lolinda 7]

On 9/28/2021 at 3:18 PM, DAB12345 said:

My experience with the latest versions of Evernote 10.18 on Android has been a disaster.

1. Notebooks are never available offline, even if ticked as offline in settings.
2. Evernote is no longer able to manage tags properly. The only way to see the correct number of tags is to use a search shortcut, such "tag:French", even then the list of notes may be incomplete.
3. Sending text from other apps to Evernote is broken - text and images are not always saved properly. Also choosing notebook and tags is extremely clunky and unfriendly. 
4. The whole app is slow and awkward to use.

Yes, I have already tried reinstalling it completely and deleting the app cache, etc.

I'm now looking for an alternative to an app that I had been using quite happily for about 10 years.

 

precisely these are my experiences too. right now looking for EN alternatives. the most painful is the tag issue: when looking into the Android app I see for example 1 note belonging to a tag. when I look into the web client, I see all 43. all my life has been organized by tags. I fully trusted evernote. even such simple things as whom I should call for what is an Evernote tag. and I do not see the notes anymore belonging to that tag and to the others neither...

[Lolinda 7]

if anyone interested, the problem with the 10.18 version unable to handle tags correctly can be resolved by reinstalling the app. on my phone (Samsung fold 3) it then works correctly for a few days. reinstalling the app does not take really much time.

 sadly but necessarily I will look for Evernote alternatives. the reason is a lot of unfortunate design decisions inthe new EN. as an EN alternative, Notion looks promising to me, but I did not find a good comparison of features..

 

[Tim Kowal (b) 43]

Same awful android experience described by others. But no one has mentioned web clipping. First principle of upgrades is So No Harm. Don't make a thing worse. Web clipping is worse in every way. First, it doesn't work: you have to clip a thing twice just to get the EN interface to come up. The interface is clunky and terrible. Basically don't bother tagging or assigning a notebook in the interface, just switch to the app after and do it there. But then you see it takes close to two minutes before you can edit those basic things. So a simple clip now takes close to 2 full minutes.

 

 Does anyone at Evernote actually use this android app? Someone might want to check to see if he's okay.

[Tim Kowal (b) 43]

On 10/4/2021 at 1:24 PM, Alxa said:

you could roll back to 8.13.3 manually via side loading the apk-file from a website like apk mirror: https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/evernote-corporation/evernote/evernote-8-13-3-release/

 I was very happily using the Legacy version until last week. All of a sudden Evernote force updated itself. Now when I reinstall the legacy, it will not sign in. I have tried uninstalling and restarting my android phone multiple times. No luck. I am stuck with the terrible 10.x.

[Lolinda 7]

I want to see the face of Tim Cook using his own *****. take away from him his iPhone and give him an Android so he learns.

maybe, he has invested in a) OneNote or b) Notion and happily looks the shares to go up. ?

I just evaluated Notion : it does not have offline editing, except for the last note you opened when still online. that kills it for me.

is there any problem with OneNote? on paper, they have it all. all the important features. does anyone have had negative experiences recently that deterred him or her from onenote?

[agsteele 2,946]

I wish I knew why some users have an apparently poor experience and others, like me, are working happily with Android in the latest version. I don't doubt that the issues exist for some but I would dearly like to be able to put a finger on what is actually going on. Anyway, to respond to specific issue mention by @Tim Kowal (b) my experience is that the sharing of web content in Android is better for me with the new Evernote than legacy ever was. It is also worth noting that this sharing function (I don't call it clipping since it isn't called that in the app) relies upon the underlying Android functions. Since the arrival of Evernote v10 I've found that the underlying sharing transfers the content to Evernote more reliably and with a consistently positive (for me) experience.

As for the issue with logging using the previous v8.13 for Android, I see no reason why you would not be able to sign in with it. I presume that you have uninstalled v10 before reinstalling v8.13 I'm assuming that you are a subscriber and not subject to the device limitations that Free users have. I'm sure that the v10 software will count as a separate device to v8.13.

[Tim Kowal (b) 43]

1 hour ago, agsteele said:

my experience is that the sharing of web content in Android is better for me with the new Evernote than legacy ever was.

I've shared my experience before, but here are the problems I experience:

1. when sharing content, the only effect is to open Evernote. Nothing further happens.

2. I then have to switch back to the original application, and then share again. This time, when Evernote opens up, the sharing interface pops up.

3. the sharing interface assumes I want to use the same notebook and tags as specified in my previous share. It is very difficult to uncheck tags, particularly since I have many tags in my database: the app makes me scroll through all of my tags, find the tags previously selected, and uncheck them. this adds many unnecessary seconds to the sharing process, even minutes. I cannot conceive how this structure in the interface benefits anyone. For this reason, I have stopped using the sharing interface to specify any tags at all.

4. once I have completed the share in the interface, now the wait begins. I watch the synchronize feature for the new note spin round and round for several seconds in the Evernote app. This often takes 30 seconds to a minute before I can change the notebook, tags, or read or edit the note.

5. even assuming all of these problems were resolved, I have detected no benefits in the new Evernote app over the Legacy version. 

[Alxa 479]

I experience exactly the same - every each step - crippled sharing to Evernote experience as Tim Kowal on all my different Android devices (Samsung topsellers). I once tried to issue this with support but they said they could not reproduce. I think they really do not put much effort on the Android platform. Since EN10 quality and performance was iOS first (and only) from the very beginning. Not being able to get standard functions like "sharing to" right in 10 months says everything about Evernote's priorities.

[agsteele 2,946]

@Tim Kowal (b) I understand your frustration but simply cannot reproduce it on my device and usage. I am fortunate, and you less so. My point is to say that I wish we could identify the commonalities in the experiencees of those who do face these problems. Perhaps they would point us to a solution.  As it is, it seems that almost everyone has different experiences and identifying the cause/solution becomes amazingly challenging.

I wish you well as you seek out an answer or pursue an alternative application for your workflow.

[Lolinda 7]

EN are currently hopelessly overloaded with all the people reporting bugs. - one can infer this from the response times: my bug reports were escalated to the top guy in the support team. he is well familiar to me because he always handles the difficult issues. under normal circumstances his response time is ~3 days. currently he is able to respond once a week. 

[Tim Kowal (b) 43]

 That is ironic because I understand the entire point of this upgrade was to create uniformity. Whatever else may be said, it appears as agree Evernote has failed in this, its ultimate objective.

[Lolinda 7]

@Tim Kowal (b) @DAB12345@Alxa @Gazebo@agsteele@lmsergio @janndk @PinkElephant

and everyone else: would you mind sharing:

- Android device

- Android version

- if you use offline folders

- number of notes

-> so maybe we see some pattern What affected people and what unaffected people have in common

I start myself:

Samsung fold 3; Android 11, all folders offline; 8761 notes

bugs:

- tapping on a tag in the app shows only a small fraction of notes belonging to it (uninstalling and reinstalling fixes the issue for a few days)

- web clipping is haphazard

- offline folders I needed only once, but then they were not available

 

[ehrt74 240]

my experience of 10.18 has been good, but then i haven't had any real problems with evernote 10 on android. It's snappy and reliable for me, and i appreciate the added functionality over v8.

the one problem i do still sometimes get is sharing content. for some reason evernote doesn't read the shared content if it isn't already running, which requires either a/ starting evernote before sharing content or b/ sharing content twice.

other than that i don't think i've run into any bugs.

[DAB12345 0]

On 10/9/2021 at 7:17 PM, Tim Kowal (b) said:

I've shared my experience before, but here are the problems I experience:

1. when sharing content, the only effect is to open Evernote. Nothing further happens.

2. I then have to switch back to the original application, and then share again. This time, when Evernote opens up, the sharing interface pops up.

3. the sharing interface assumes I want to use the same notebook and tags as specified in my previous share. It is very difficult to uncheck tags, particularly since I have many tags in my database: the app makes me scroll through all of my tags, find the tags previously selected, and uncheck them. this adds many unnecessary seconds to the sharing process, even minutes. I cannot conceive how this structure in the interface benefits anyone. For this reason, I have stopped using the sharing interface to specify any tags at all.

4. once I have completed the share in the interface, now the wait begins. I watch the synchronize feature for the new note spin round and round for several seconds in the Evernote app. This often takes 30 seconds to a minute before I can change the notebook, tags, or read or edit the note.

5. even assuming all of these problems were resolved, I have detected no benefits in the new Evernote app over the Legacy version. 

Very well put. This describes my problems exactly

[lmsergio 7]

for me:

• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
• ~30,000 Evernotes
• 10.18
• I do use offline folders.
• 50% of folders synced offline.

 

Bugs:

1. all the clipping problems - having to fire up Evernote separately first, then clip
2. syncing of clips takes 1 minute each
3. search is super slow
4. opening notes is super slow
5. intermittent crashing when creating a new note
6. adding in tags is super slow
7. Tasks (LOVE the concept and most of the implementation) but sooooo slow to load ... too many clicks to change dates and also super slow

 

I've tried deleting and reinstalling multiple times.  No difference.

I've tried no offline folders, and then mostly offline folders.  No difference.

10.18 feels like a slight performance improvement from 10.17, but again, super slow.

[Gazebo 41]

On 10.18 (which is better than 10.17), using on Samsung A21 mobile and Samsung Galaxy Tab A tablet.

About 3035 notes.

I don't use offline folders. I use Legacy on my pc, bur mainly use Web day to day.

Issues on Android

- very slow input of notes on wifi or 4g

- loss of notes when typing 

- camera input terrible - range of problems either takes multiple images or none at all, vague on saving images to a note.

- slow to open

- slow to sync

- search  nowhere close to as good on ios in terms of speed.

I've been on EN since 2013, and am not keen on switching horses, but Onenote on Android wins at present.

[Marnette 10]

On 9/28/2021 at 9:18 AM, DAB12345 said:

My experience with the latest versions of Evernote 10.18 on Android has been a disaster.

1. Notebooks are never available offline, even if ticked as offline in settings.
2. Evernote is no longer able to manage tags properly. The only way to see the correct number of tags is to use a search shortcut, such "tag:French", even then the list of notes may be incomplete.
3. Sending text from other apps to Evernote is broken - text and images are not always saved properly. Also choosing notebook and tags is extremely clunky and unfriendly. 
4. The whole app is slow and awkward to use.

Yes, I have already tried reinstalling it completely and deleting the app cache, etc.

I'm now looking for an alternative to an app that I had been using quite happily for about 10 years.

 

I have 34,000+ notes on a Samsung Note 20 Ultra.  I agree, it is awful.  Crashing 95% of the time.  And just now, I finally had to uninstall and reinstall... And within 10 minutes, crashing again.  My pinned note repeatedly appears as the content of my notes. ... Sooo, I run a Device Repair, can open the note correctly... But within 1 or 2 notes, it's happening again!! 😭

[ehrt74 240]

i'm on a Samsung S20 plus (Exynos).

Just 1300 notes

10.18

2 offline notebooks. both work well. the list of notebooks is however buggy.

sometimes have to start evernote before sharing content to it (or share the content twice).

Otherwise snappy. Starts in about 2 seconds. All operations pretty much instantaneous. 

 

[Marnette 10]

I wonder if it just can't handle 30,000+ notes...?? 🤔😒

[lmsergio 7]

Let's see if 10.20 resolves these problems. 

[Tim Kowal (b) 43]

53 minutes ago, lmsergio said:

Let's see if 10.20 resolves these problems. 

I have seen no hints Evernote has any interest in core performance. Every indication is that Evernote is only concerned about new features.

[Alxa 479]

5 minutes ago, Tim Kowal (b) said:

I have seen no hints Evernote has any interest in core performance. Every indication is that Evernote is only concerned about new features.

+1 , otherwise we would not still have that extremely sluggish EN10 app on Android after 11 months...

It is just a means of directing the resources. EN decided to prioritise features way before bugs or performance. 😒

[ehrt74 240]

47 minutes ago, Tim Kowal (b) said:

I have seen no hints Evernote has any interest in core performance. Every indication is that Evernote is only concerned about new features.

Many report that performance has improved markedly since the first release of v10. 

Not that i've noticed, v10 has always been quick and snappy for me.

[Lolinda 7]

On 10/14/2021 at 2:47 PM, Marnette said:

I have 34,000+ notes on a Samsung Note 20 Ultra.  I agree, it is awful.  Crashing 95% of the time.  And just now, I finally had to uninstall and reinstall... And within 10 minutes, crashing again.  My pinned note repeatedly appears as the content of my notes. ... Sooo, I run a Device Repair, can open the note correctly... But within 1 or 2 notes, it's happening again!! 😭

yes, my pinned note appears as the content of my notes, often in newly created notes.. it is really frightening when you see this bug the first time...

[lmsergio 7]

I had this bug as well.  Seems to have quieted down.

[lmsergio 7]

I have to say that Android 10.20 seems to have resolved almost all of the speed and jankiness problems I was experiencing. I hope this remains the case. 

 

[Surya Halim 5]

10.20 fixed the infuriating issue of "swipe right
to go back" that broke the ability to scroll right and being unceremoniously kicked out of note 
view due to misinterpreted swipe movement.

Suggested filters also seems to fix broken tag search that had been on-going since debut of V10. Crossing my fingers on this one.

[Tim Kowal (b) 43]

34 minutes ago, Surya Halim said:

10.20 fixed the infuriating issue of "swipe right
to go back" that broke the ability to scroll right and being unceremoniously kicked out of note 
view due to misinterpreted swipe movement.

Suggested filters also seems to fix broken tag search that had been on-going since debut of V10. Crossing my fingers on this one.

Remove all the rest of the "improvements" and it'll be perfect.

[robotii 16]

This is completely anecdotal, but I've noticed (from my own experience, and a straw poll of friends who use Evernote) that Samsung devices seem to be a lot more sluggish and beset with problems than other brands. v10.20 seems to be the best version so far, so it is improving for me. 

I recently switched from a Samsung phone to another brand, and 90% of the slowness and problems went away. I don't think it was entirely down to the improved specs, as it was quite a dramatic difference.

I still have a Samsung tablet, and that is sluggish and prone to not syncing in the background unless the app is opened and left open for a while.

Perhaps there is some kind of power management that is being done that adversely affects Evernote on Samsung devices? I don't know, but I have seen some options to mess about with background processing that I don't want to play about with, as I don't understand what they are supposed to do (or if they will fix the problems).

If anyone has any further ideas I would be interested to know if this theory has any merit, or if there is anything that can be done to reduce the impact.

[Surya Halim 5]

Recently auto-updated to Android 12 and I noticed significant improvement to Evernote in terms of responsiveness. Feels like Android 12 brings major performance improvements to Electron-based app in general where Evernote is one.

10.20 feels like the version that is actually somewhat going in the right direction for me. Crossing fingers here.

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Good if it improved performance. Just for the sake of it: AFAIK only the desktop app is based on Electron - the mobile app is based on another framework.

One possible explanation: At least on iOS all browsers have to use the Apple WebKit engine, independent from their user interface. A Chrome(ium) based approach would simply not execute.

[Graham Gott 17]

On 10/9/2021 at 3:42 PM, Lolinda said:

I want to see the face of Tim Cook using his own *****. take away from him his iPhone and give him an Android so he learns.

maybe, he has invested in a) OneNote or b) Notion and happily looks the shares to go up. ?

I just evaluated Notion : it does not have offline editing, except for the last note you opened when still online. that kills it for me.

is there any problem with OneNote? on paper, they have it all. all the important features. does anyone have had negative experiences recently that deterred him or her from onenote?

I started out with OneNote and I would go back to it in a heartbeat if they had a decent tagging system. That is the only thing that is a deal breaker for me...

[Lolinda 7]

4 hours ago, Graham Gott said:

I started out with OneNote and I would go back to it in a heartbeat if they had a decent tagging system. That is the only thing that is a deal breaker for me...

I'm curious: how was the import to Evernote? did it go automatically by pressing some import button or did you have a lot of manual work to do?

if tags are the only big issue, they could be replaced: just write all the tags into the note titles, each preceded by some rare Unicode character that you never use otherwise in your notes. the only downside that comes to my mind is that renaming tags would not go as smooth as in Evernote. 

[Graham Gott 17]

4 hours ago, Lolinda said:

I'm curious: how was the import to Evernote? did it go automatically by pressing some import button or did you have a lot of manual work to do?

if tags are the only big issue, they could be replaced: just write all the tags into the note titles, each preceded by some rare Unicode character that you never use otherwise in your notes. the only downside that comes to my mind is that renaming tags would not go as smooth as in Evernote. 

I did end up with a load of duplicate notes - which I'm still deleting 8 years later...

I've got about 47K notes so editing the note titles is not an option for me...

[PinkElephant 8,103]

This #mytag approach has one big downfall: It is practically impossible to keep the tags organized. You make typos, you use synonyms - this is why I think some tag housekeeping is necessary. And it does not work when the tag is embedded into the title.

[Lolinda 7]

I actually use this #mytag approach (good name @PinkElephant) myself, in parallel to the Evernote tags. it does have a distinct role for me: my note titles start with such a my tag type of thing. these are a very few very basic mutually exclusive categories, and hence, when sorting notes alphabetically, I get first some notes belonging to mytag1 and then to mytag2, etc. these mytags indicate the nature of content in the notes such as:

-- mytag1: note contains lists of helpful resources such as lists of good books on the subject, list of websites where I can download things, or people whom I can ask, or good vendors.

-- mytag2: how to measure something

-- mytag3: how to produce an outcome, how to get something done

-- mytag4: an individual piece of a resource, such as a scientific paper or a book.

while originally, these mytags came out of my work as a researcher, I found they apply wonderfully also to private life. for example gardening: One note can contain how to measure the pH value of soil (note title starts with mytag2) while another note may contain my experiences how to care about a certain species of beautiful or tasty plants 🙂(note title starts with mytag3), and another one may contain as an individual resource (note title starts with mytag4) a research paper on plant diseases

[Lolinda 7]

2 hours ago, Graham Gott said:

did end up with a load of duplicate notes - which I'm still deleting 8 years later

such experiences are so valuable to know! I imagine one could earn money by writing a software that helps people migrating 🙂 it's not so difficult to do, because the database structure for note-taking apps is not frequently changed: for example the old Evernote and the new Evernote uses the same database structure.

[Graham Gott 17]

I think that it's possible the duplicates were caused by my error more than a fault of the software but I can't be certain.

It was a long time ago and I've been asleep since then...