For the love of gods, stop updating the app every 5 seconds

[HailAlistair 6]

The best apps in the world get by updating once in a few weeks. Stop this madness. No, really: Dear Evernote, STOP IT.

It is wasting everybody's time. Spamming the iOS App store Updates section, and constantly interrupting me with "Update Available" popups on Windows and macOS.

I've been with Evernote for more than a decade. I will switch if this continues.

[Paul A. 621]

I get an update every three to four weeks, on average. 🤷‍♂️ Not a big price to pay for new features and bug fixes IMO. Not sure about iOS, but on Android the update process doesn't interrupt anything. On macOS there is a popup informing of a new update, but you're free to ignore it if you're not ready to update that exact moment.

[Boot17 1,449]

Hrmm.. No - please continue with them Evernote. Doesn't seem too frequent to me at all. I never notice on iOS since I have auto-updates turned on -- it just gets them while I'm sleeping. On MacOS and Windows... hrmm. doesn't seem to frequent either and it only takes a couple of minutes anyway (unless you have a way slow internet connection I guess).

[agsteele 2,948]

8 hours ago, HailAlistair said:

The best apps in the world get by updating once in a few weeks. Stop this madness. No, really: Dear Evernote, STOP IT.

 

Whihc is it? Every five seconds or every few weeks? Once every few weeks seems quite reasonable given the continuing development process.

If you prefer no updates you could use the Legacy application on the desktops. The mobile app stores are always updating apps and, from my experience, hardly ever intrude.

[PinkElephant 8,107]

If in iOS automatic updates are enabled, no notifications. If notifications are enabled, I first ask „why“ ? And then I ask „why immediately“ - it is easy to set them to „twice a day“.

So what a user declares as „madness“ could be solved by taking a basic course in iOS. YouTube university is open 24hrs …

On Desktop the update notification can be delayed with a simple mouse click. Opening EN early takes away the risk the notification may pop up in an inconvenient moment.

[Jon N 1]

The frustration for me is that it literally interrupts me while I'm working in another application. No other app on my mac does this. And I can't figure out how to turn it off. 

I often use Evernote in conjunction with other apps, so I don't want to quit it every time I'm not using it for awhile. But I think I'm going to have to. 

Please advise if you know there's a way to shut off the update interruptions. thanks! 

[PinkElephant 8,107]

It usually shows when the app is started, so starting the app early allows to react to the popup.

No further ideas, you may ask support.

[PammW 1]

I'm with you!  The freaking thing managed to sneak an update by me and now I cannot see my notes other than on the webpage!  Evernote, STOP IT NOW!! Let us opt OUT of updates by default!

[PinkElephant 8,107]

10 minutes ago, PammW said:

... Let us opt OUT of updates by default!

And then the next months the forum is full of "this does not work, that is a bug", answered by "what is your update status". 

Ooooops

Keeping software up to date is not an "opt out" thing. If you start EN in the morning (if you decide to close it for the night), you usually get the update notification then. Run it, and you are good to go.

[TMSK 0]

On 5/11/2022 at 8:29 PM, HailAlistair said:

The best apps in the world get by updating once in a few weeks. Stop this madness. No, really: Dear Evernote, STOP IT.

It is wasting everybody's time. Spamming the iOS App store Updates section, and constantly interrupting me with "Update Available" popups on Windows and macOS.

I've been with Evernote for more than a decade. I will switch if this continues.

Agree 100%! I've been a long time Evernote user, but I'm ready to switch because it makes me want to punch a wall when it takes over whatever I'm doing ALMOST EVERY DAY with an update notification. With no way to turn off. This is madness! I'm sad I'm so frustrated with the app now after having been a loyal user for over a decade. 

[PinkElephant 8,107]

Hope you are not always that „creative“ when discussing facts: EN v10 was released in autumn 2020. 38 updates for desktops, 33 for mobile, which means appr. an updated every 2-3 weeks, not every other day.

Every update improved the software, by new features or bug fixes.

Maybe you just got used to legacy, the version that would never update (even if it would have been necessary). Didn’t you ask yourself where your subscription money went in these years ?  Today we know: We have received more innovation in less than 2 years than in the 5 years before.

[Nicolina 0]

A little off topic, but when I use Evernote on my laptop (Windows 10), I am always getting a note stating there is a newer version, do I want to update.

In a normal world, not a problem. But it has been happening every time for a few weeks.

And today (6/13/22) I ran the update around 9:30 am, reopened at 5:30 pm, and it asked me for the SAME update. (I saved snapshots of the Versions.)

Thankfully, my Android App is not doing this.

Is anyone else having this "repeated update" issue? 

Thank you 

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,107]

And now for the beef: On which version are you currently running ?

[Nicolina 0]

Thank you for getting back to me. When I wrote this on 6/13/22, I had updated to V 10.38.

When I opened Evernote on my laptop today, I had V 10.34.4 with a message saying there is a newer version available. 

Is anyone else having this problem? I can submit this question to a Tech Forum. I was just curious.

Thank you

 

[PinkElephant 8,107]

It is not impossible to install a prior version on a desktop OS - you just need to keep the installer file.

But from alone I don’t think it can possibly fall back to an earlier version.

If on 10.34 on one device when 10.38 was on the other means that 4 regular releases were not installed.

[estevancarlos 30]

I understand what you're saying. Some companies have different update strategies. For example Microsoft has been very aggressive for years now which is partly due to their messy Windows XP/Internet Explorer days. 

I would suggest that Evernote should consider some less pushy updates. Some software companies offer small update reminders. I've attached a screenshot of Ableton Live displaying a very discreet update reminder.

In my opinion, Evernote does not need pop-ups every few weeks.

[PinkElephant 8,107]

EN needs to inform about updates. As a user I have a right to run on the latest software. If a popup is the best way, who knows.

• If you start EN right away in the morning, and if you update after receiving the message, you will hardly be annoyed.
• If you start EN at the last moment before a meeting or a presentation, and if you don’t update, the popup will be there as a reminder.

It is not as if there would be no choice.

To comment to EN directly you can use the feedback function.

[estevancarlos 30]

24 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

EN needs to inform about updates. As a user I have a right to run on the latest software. If a popup is the best way, who knows.

• If you start EN right away in the morning, and if you update after receiving the message, you will hardly be annoyed.
• If you start EN at the last moment before a meeting or a presentation, and if you don’t update, the popup will be there as a reminder.

It is not as if there would be no choice.

To comment to EN directly you can use the feedback function.

Well, what I'm saying doesn't contradict what you're describing. The designers of any software have to manage what counts as an important notification and what is a less important notification. For example, major updates may require a pop-up. Minor updates could be a more discreet message.

[PinkElephant 8,107]

If I look at the updates, every regular update 10.XX -> 10.XX+1 is relevant, because it will contain significant changes and often delivers new functions. EN can‘t decide if this update is relevant for a specific user, because everybody has his own use cases.

Take 10.38 -> 10.39: It contains improved linking of notes, and it contains improved keyboard shortcuts. A user who doesn‘t link and who does everything with the mouse will think „WTF“, other were waiting for these functions to emerge - but it is not EN who can decide if it is relevant for a specific user.

And the smaller releases (like iOS 10.34 -> 10.34.1) may contain only little changed code - but they are only released to fix a significant bug earlier than the regular release cycle would allow. So it may be little, it may be that most users never encountered that bug - but again, how can EN decide which user will need it, and which don‘t ?

I don‘t think that holding update information back is by any means a viable method. If it needs to be an popup - drop you opinion about it with feedback to the inbox of EN PM. I did - already a while ago.

 

[Nicolina 0]

It's still doing it. It reverts back to 10.34. So frustrating.

I will submit this question in a Tech Forum.

Thank you!

[PinkElephant 8,107]

If on a subscription, you can ask support as well.

[agsteele 2,948]

33 minutes ago, Nicolina said:

It's still doing it. It reverts back to 10.34. So frustrating.

You have previously said that you have a Windows laptop.

The most likely cause of this issue is a broken installation of Evernote.  So you should completely uninstall and then reinstall Evernote.

Use an unistaller program such as Revo Uninstall since the standards Windows uninstall often leaves remnants of the broken data behind.  Once you have completed the Revo Uninstall, download the latest version of the Evernote program from the website and install.  Once you have logged into you account the data will be rebuilt and you should be good to go.

[HailAlistair 6]

Done, I have switched to Upnote. It is so much better.

Evernote lost a paying member since March 2011. Goodbye, old pile of junk.

[PinkElephant 8,107]

Farewell, I don't see any loss.

[Boot17 1,449]

7 hours ago, HailAlistair said:

Done, I have switched to Upnote. It is so much better.

I have been using UpNote for about a year or so (I have paid for the lifetime subscription) and at least a couple of people that I have recommended it to have switched to it.

There are a lot of features (mostly note taking features like back-linking, table of contents, linking to specific header) that UpNote has that I hope Evernote will implement one day but those don't make up for the many more features that Evernote currently has that UpNote does not and/or Evernote implements them better.

UpNote may be better *for you*, but I don't believe it is better *in general*. It's definitely not better for me and that is why I continue to only dabble in UpNote but don't see it replacing Evernote for me.

Also, coincidentally, it looks like UpNote has pushed out 7 updates to the Mac App Store in the last month or so compared to Evernote's 2 updates. So in regards to your original comment that:

On 5/11/2022 at 7:29 PM, HailAlistair said:

The best apps in the world get by updating once in a few weeks. Stop this madness. No, really: Dear Evernote, STOP IT.

Upnote has pushed out 3 times as many updates in the last month or so as Evernote. Kind of ironic timing really. (But note that I personally appreciate frequent minor updates and/or they don't bother me in the slightest.)

[estevancarlos 30]

9 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

There are a lot of features (mostly note taking features like back-linking, table of contents, linking to specific header) that UpNote has that I hope Evernote will implement one day but those don't make up for the many more features that Evernote currently has that UpNote does not and/or Evernote implements them better.

Are those the primary differences? Or do you know of other major differences between the two softwares? Based on what it looks like, they seem like nearly identical paradigms. Is that the case? Just curious.

[Boot17 1,449]

26 minutes ago, estevancarlos said:

Are those the primary differences? Or do you know of other major differences between the two softwares? Based on what it looks like, they seem like nearly identical paradigms. Is that the case? Just curious.

UpNote is, by far and away (IMO), the most Evernote-like of all the other note-taking (archiving) apps that I have tried (apps like OneNote, Craft, Bear, Apple Notes, Ample Note, NoteJoy, Obisdian, Dendron, Joplin, etc, etc.).

There are still a ton of differences though.

UpNote has better markdown support, better thumbnail support, quote block, syntax coloring in code blocks, can hyperlink to searches, can center and right-align images and is way less expensive. ($1 per month, or $20 lifetime subscription, but I don't see how that pricing can hold up.) The tagging and notebook system is very functional and also quite different.

But UpNote's search and filtering isn't near as good, doesn't have OCR, doesn't display PDFs inline, doesn't highlight text in images (cause no OCR), file sizes are way more limited (max 20 MB per note), can't open multiple notes in new windows (this one is *huge* for me), attachments don't look as good in the editor, table support not as good, no web client, can't drag and drop bulleted lists, no tasks features, no internal audio playback, no email to note, etc, etc (there is surely a lot more that I am leaving out)

Also UpNote is also built on Electron. It does feel a bit snappier than EN -- especially on mobile, but I don't have many notes in it, so I could not say how it scales. EN also has history, company size and user base size on its side.

I also prefer the whole overall look and feel of Evernote better - but that's just personal preference.

[estevancarlos 30]

30 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

UpNote has better markdown support, better thumbnail support, quote block, syntax coloring in code blocks, can hyperlink to searches, can center and right-align images and is way less expensive. ($1 per month, or $20 lifetime subscription, but I don't see how that pricing can hold up.) The tagging and notebook system is very functional and also quite different.

But UpNote's search and filtering isn't near as good, doesn't have OCR, doesn't display PDFs inline, doesn't highlight text in images (cause no OCR), file sizes are way more limited (max 20 MB per note), can't open multiple notes in new windows (this one is *huge* for me), attachments don't look as good in the editor, table support not as good, no web client, can't drag and drop bulleted lists, no tasks features, no internal audio playback, no email to note, etc, etc (there is surely a lot more that I am leaving out)

Great comparison. Thanks.

I would add though that Evernote's task feature is probably _blegh_. I can't take it seriously so I don't consider that a selling point. If you're looking for tasks, I recommend Todoist in that it has baseline/minimum task features most of us would need. Maybe Evernote will get to that point eventually.

[PinkElephant 8,107]

Luckily all users have their own use cases, and many are happy about new features. 

It appears as a quite egocentric view that only new features have value YOU want to use. Belittling everything YOU don’t want to use is IMHO just an aspect of this selfish way of looking at the world.

That the approach of EN tasks is very different to dedicated task managers should only be mentioned - EN makes notes actionable, what task managers won’t do. 

[WilliamL 654]

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Luckily all users have their own use cases, and many are happy about new features. 

It appears as a quite egocentric view that only new features have value YOU want to use. Belittling everything YOU don’t want to use is IMHO just an aspect of this selfish way of looking at the world.

That the approach of EN tasks is very different to dedicated task managers should only be mentioned - EN makes notes actionable, what task managers won’t do. 

This! Evernote tasks is a game changer for folks who are using Evernote to get things done. To be in a meeting and add a task knowing it then shows in the central tasks tab is brilliant. It means, for folks like me who forget everything that happened at a meeting within about an hour of it ending, I’ll actually do the things I’m meant to cause they are there listed and I would forget to check the note otherwise. 

[estevancarlos 30]

27 minutes ago, WilliamL said:

This! Evernote tasks is a game changer for folks who are using Evernote to get things done. To be in a meeting and add a task knowing it then shows in the central tasks tab is brilliant. It means, for folks like me who forget everything that happened at a meeting within about an hour of it ending, I’ll actually do the things I’m meant to cause they are there listed and I would forget to check the note otherwise. 

The integration is good but it's a less developed task tool for obvious reasons. It's very new. There are better tools for the price point out there.

[WilliamL 654]

1 minute ago, estevancarlos said:

The integration is good but it's a less developed task tool for obvious reasons. It's very new. There are better tools for the price point out there.

Better developed tools that sit within my Evernote meeting note? I don’t think there is. Having it integrated works really well for me personally. 

[PinkElephant 8,107]

Beside EN does not need to sell itself as a task manager at all.

You buy a top ranking note app, and you get the task manager as a free bywork. You even get the basic functions without buying anything, by their integration into the Free plan. On the other end, you can get a task manager that allows to delegate tasks to other people (EN users or not), but staying in full control at the same time.

Delegating tasks to others is something not even full fledged task managers are able to do, in some cases. This ability (of the Professional and Teams plans) points into the direction of project management tools, exceeding the scope of task managers.

But I agree: Most task managers go deeper, than the EN solution does. Which is good, room for improvement for everybody.

[nippit 0]

this post is from 2022.

I am holding and giving way thinking app is improving.

I am a PAID user of EN for 12 years, I AM DONE with this

BUT for the love of gods PLEASE STOP upgrading evetime I open the APP.

I just log in to check a single item need to wait for the upgrade so i can check my NOTE bot even a skip option for me.

 

[AgileanaSean 0]

Agreed. It's quite annoying that the app needs to restart every day when I open it because it updates so frequently.

[PinkElephant 8,107]

If it’s every day, you have a broken installation.

Thats something even the slickest updater can’t fix for you.

[JohnPC 0]

Totally agree every time I use Evernote on Windows I am halfway through creating a note and the bloody thing disappears and starts updating AT least ask the user!

Almost enrages me as much as Clippy did years ago

[PinkElephant 8,107]

This does NOT happen at all on the direct download !

You get an update message when an update has been loaded in the background. You can then decide to run it, or to postpone it until you restart the app the next time.

If this is different for you, you are probably running the Windows store version. Updates of the store version are controlled by Windows - if you have a grief with it, you can either talk to MS Support, or switch to the EN direct download.