Evernote's "exciting news"

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

If you haven't yet clicked a green banner at the top of your forum page, here's the link: 

Following links from there, and checking Wikipedia, I learn that Bending Spoons is a very fast-moving, highly regarded company (they have a manifesto, so, yay, I guess). They developed Italy's COVID contact tracing app. Their focus is on mobile iOS apps, e.g., for video and photo editing.

Please chime in with any data or experience you have concerning Bending Spoons. And this forum being this forum, go ahead with your anxious and maybe baseless fears too. Here are mine:

1. A company focused on mobile apps for iOS makes me worry that Evernote for Android will never be gotten right, and Evernote for Windows may not develop beyond where it is now. Which is actually pretty good for me, but I know lots of people want to see lots of other stuff in it.
2. One corporate and tech development culture is going to be swallowed up by another. Please respond with any known examples of this going well for the culture being swallowed.

I'm not jumping ship till I see what happens. This is probably way, way better than Evernote being bought by Google or Microsoft. It will probably at last shift Evernote off its U.S.-centric approach to languages and keyboards. But I don't quite trust Ian Small's assurances that it will be full steam ahead with the current beta and near-beta developments Evernote has going. What new owner is not going to say, "Well, hmm, let's take a look at that"?

Let the paranoia unroll!

[gazumped 11,664]

I already said elsewhere - initial reaction was a major WTF??,  but slightly more nuanced view says - treat this like all the other software apps that have been sold / 'improved' / crashed in the past - as long as it continues to deliver;  I'm fine. 

I have some backups / exits in place 'just in case' and they'll still be available if everything goes south.  I'm content to wait and see...  NB the deal is not ratified until at least next year,  and big deals can be adventuresome (looking at you,  Elon)

And just on the flip side - if you're inclined to immediate panic and frantically look around for somewhere else to be - you'll waste 50% or so of your productive time in the next 6 months trying to find an alternative solution,  and at least that for another year getting everything in place with a new provider - which could turn out to be the biggest mistake you made this decade... 

Breathe,  people - be calm;  stuff happens.

[sadfasdfsdf 12]

Guess it's time to start playing around with Obsidian.

I'll consider sticking around if the new owner can manage to get anchor link functionality in a "note taking app".

Tech platform acquisitions very rarely do anything good for the "loyal userbase". 

[Alvin- 4]

3 minutes ago, gazumped said:

I already said elsewhere - initial reaction was a major WTF??,  but slightly more nuanced view says - treat this like all the other software apps that have been sold / 'improved' / crashed in the past - as long as it continues to deliver;  I'm fine. 

I have some backups / exits in place 'just in case' and they'll still be available if everything goes south.  I'm content to wait and see...  NB the deal is not ratified until at least next year,  and big deals can be adventuresome (looking at you,  Elon)

And just on the flip side - if you're inclined to immediate panic and frantically look around for somewhere else to be - you'll waste 50% or so of your productive time in the next 6 months trying to find an alternative solution,  and at least that for another year getting everything in place with a new provider - which could turn out to be the biggest mistake you made this decade... 

Breathe,  people - be calm;  stuff happens.

The fact is, many people have been preparing that for two years or more (issues of EN for these years like privacy, news of financial difficulties, price increase, v10 launch...). Most of them may still keep using Evernote for most of the time but they can have a rough idea about their new ways of the second brain. It's not the first time Evernote has issues but the determination to go can accumulate although it can be slow and gradual.

Acquisition may not be bad news and Bending Spoons may do a better job. But for me I am in between plain text note taking and EN task management. I don't need to spend six months now to look for an alternative. Plain text may not be exciting and convenient but allow me to focus on writing and developing my own ways and tools which cannot be affected by companies.

[Boot17 1,449]

The announcement alone doesn't make me want to find something else -- this could be a same, good, or great thing! I might be putting a little more effort into my own personal data exports just in case though.

I saw this on https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bending-spoons with regards to the name:

"Bending Spoons. It’s a curious name, right? It’s from The Matrix, where the hero discovers that what seems impossible often isn't so. In 2013, when we were a punchy little start-up, the parallel was fitting."

Maybe they can work that 'overcoming the impossible' mentality to finally give us the ability to control which image shows in the thumbnail: https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/80084-control-which-image-shown-in-a-notes-thumbnailsnippet-view/ (joking!)

 

[eric99 980]

26 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

1. A company focused on mobile apps for iOS makes me worry that Evernote for Android will never be gotten right, and Evernote for Windows may not develop beyond where it is now. Which is actually pretty good for me, but I know lots of people want to see lots of other stuff in it.

Why do you think the company is focused on mobile for IOS:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.splice.video.editor

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigwinepot.nwdn.international

[eric99 980]

Integrating the Remini AI photo enhancer technology in evernote's camera would be a tremendous improvement (quality and performance)!

[WilliamL 654]

I’m kinda wait and see….the current Evernote ethos works for me, if that changes I’ll need to find an alternative (again lol), I guess first alarm will be if Ian Small is fired for me as that would be a hint that the approach is changing. Don’t get me wrong, there’s issues and all that but the tasks and home etc I find really helpful. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

45 minutes ago, eric99 said:

Why do you think the company is focused on mobile for IOS:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.splice.video.editor

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigwinepot.nwdn.international

Thanks for this. I went purely by the Wikipedia article: "The company is known primarily for iOS mobile apps." But yes, Bending Spoons' products page does indeed have Google Play links: https://bendingspoons.com/products.

[janndk 495]

1 hour ago, eric99 said:

Integrating the Remini AI photo enhancer technology in evernote's camera would be a tremendous improvement (quality and performance)!

Almost any other camera app is better and faster than Evernote camera 😕😉

However, this Spending Spoons camera app Remini seems to be quite pricey: about $160 per year, just for the mobile app (mobile + web about $500 per year). 
So, I guess we can expect Evernote subscription price going way up soon? 😨

[lost_gweedo 73]

My jury will remain out until the end of my billing cycle in 4 months.  Their site is annoying, spent a ton of time scrolling just to see what the he** their apps did.  I know graphics and video folks and their phones are not their primary editing devices.  Would be curious how financially healthy bending spoons actually is when you remove the government cash influx they likely received to create Italy's covid tracking tool.  At least they don't already have a product that competes against Evernote, so they probably won't play the game of buying/gutting and using purchased intellectual property to improve their own offering.

[Alxa 479]

I am in the WTF phase. Being owned by a european company could at least lead to better privacy rules for our data. Maybe the US, english language and iOS centric development gets more open minded to the world out there. We will see, the blog post of Ian to me in general was not very convincing about the benefits. They will be acquired that's it. And the two beta outlooks even disappointed me. Still nothing about the awaited sync revamping. Hoped there would come something about that at the second birthday of EN10. Would have been a huge step forward. Now there could be a phase of stagnation again with new owner looking into things... hope the best for Ian's vision.

[eric99 980]

2 minutes ago, Alxa said:

I am in the WTF phase. Being owned by a european company could at least lead to better privacy rules for our data. Maybe the US, english language and iOS centric development gets more open minded to the world out there. We will see, the blog post of Ian to me in general was not very convincing about the benefits. They will be acquired that's it. And the two beta outlooks even disappointed me. Still nothing about the awaited sync revamping. Hoped there would come something about that at the second birthday of EN10. Would have been a huge step forward. Now there could be a phase of stagnation again with new owner looking into things... hope the best for Ian's vision.

I think there is a lot of synergy. Wait and see...

They had to revamp the underlying syncing mechanism completely in order to achieve the collaborative editing. So, I'm hopeful that syncing problems are history soon.

[BonskY 79]

I'm in the wait and see mod...and far to cancel my subscritpion for now...

I work for an Italian founded company, the work culture is good and doesn't fears innovation and be "out of the box" 

It's possible to beleive that Evernote can get a second life...

At worst of the worst case scenario, I have a backup plan.

[PinkElephant 8,103]

👍

A little more Dolce Vita and less agitation against the app, it’s developers and management in the forum would do a lot of good here as well.

[jmckimm 17]

I am a fan of Ian Small as well as Evernote's mission of "remember everything and accomplish anything." Hopefully Ian stays around for a while.

A quick look at Bending Spoon's Glassdoor employee rating suggests most people are happy to work there. 

I am cautiously optimistic for the future. 

[Frki2 76]

For me that is end of the road ...when company that has zero productivity tools or background acquire company that has Evernote background for me is bad sign..time to move slowly and find a new app  maybe i am wrong, but just have bad hunch about it.

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,103]

LOL 

EN was always privately held - so what, it is another software house investing, not a troll building e-cars and rockets.

[Frki2 76]

Just now, PinkElephant said:

LOL 

EN was always privately held - so what, it is another software house investing, not a troll building e-cars and rockets.

It was...but it always had sense with owners/investors..now EN is going to portfolio of apps ( including fitness app ) that have zero connection to it. Like i said maybe i am totally wrong but my hunch tells me to move. It is more trust thing. 

[PinkElephant 8,103]

I like the fitness stuff - always good to keep the devs lean and mean, while coding on pizza and Diet Coke.

What I like even more is the experience with AI. AI is all about pattern recognition - be it in pictures, or in a large volume of data. If properly applied, it can boost search performance. Up to now I wouldn't call the EN experience stellar on AI - I turned off the "automatic filing" options for notebooks and email quite a while ago, since I had to find and move my new notes from all over the place to their correct location.

Better search (measured in the ratio between Total Hits / What I really searched) would be a big boon.

[DTLow 5,736]

7 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

What new owner is not going to say ...

No idea what the new owners are going to say,   
just as I have no idea what the previous owners say   
Did we even know or care who the previous owners were?   
I'm more interested in what Evernote's management team says.  So far, I've only seen the blog post from Ian Small

[dbvirago 502]

I wonder how of this was Bending Spoons (anybody remember Uri Geller?) looking for a major(ish) player to acquire, or Evernote throwing in the towel and admitting they are over there head.

In any case, I've had one foot out the door for over a year and my data is fully in two different apps. As always, I hope EN pulls it out as overall, it is the best at most things but IMO, at this time, mobile, specifically Android is a major weakness. I hate to think this means they are starting over again.

[Coffee First Thing 112]

Evernote for me just got good again on both Windows and Android, and I have no plan to change note-taking apps. At least not unless something important breaks. After Evernote 10 arrived, I tried many different note-taking apps, and they all failed for me.

I hope we hear more from Evernote and Bending Spoons soon. 

[eric99 980]

22 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

What I like even more is the experience with AI. AI is all about pattern recognition - be it in pictures, or in a large volume of data. If properly applied, it can boost search performance. Up to now I wouldn't call the EN experience stellar on AI - I turned off the "automatic filing" options for notebooks and email quite a while ago, since I had to find and move my new notes from all over the place to their correct location.

Better search (measured in the ratio between Total Hits / What I really searched) would be a big boon.

I couldn't agree more, both companies have complementary products and technology. A semantic image search would really enhance the search experience. As an example, in the Google Photo app, you may already search for specific objects, emotions, concepts, abstractions etc.  This would be great for note retrieval since images may have very powerful associations with specific data.

[paperboyitalia 1]

I hope that this Italian company can take Evernote to the next level, but also that it can review the pricing policy by setting them on fair thresholds. Currently a new user has no convenience to choose Evernote instead of Microsoft OneNote (60€ for personal purpose is quite overpriced). Forza Italia...

[gazumped 11,664]

17 hours ago, Boot17 said:

It’s from The Matrix, where the hero discovers that what seems impossible often isn't so.

There's also a quote from there - "There is no spoon" - which sums up my attitude until I see evidence otherwise! 

[RJLUK 307]

13 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

👍

A little more Dolce Vita and less agitation against the app, it’s developers and management in the forum would do a lot of good here as well.

Maybe...just maybe some at Bending spoons are Evernote users and the change of ownership may result in the new owners listening to customers- rather than telling them what they think they want.

I renewed for a year a week ago - I now regret that- I wish I had gone for a monthly subscription. But there are no viable alternatives IMHO.

I will monitor developments.

Where will data be stored? 

[RJLUK 307]

4 hours ago, Coffee First Thing said:

I tried many different note-taking apps, and they all failed for me.

Same here

[RJLUK 307]

10 hours ago, dbvirago said:

I wonder how of this was Bending Spoons (anybody remember Uri Geller?) looking for a major(ish) player to acquire, or Evernote throwing in the towel and admitting they are over there head.

In any case, I've had one foot out the door for over a year and my data is fully in two different apps. As always, I hope EN pulls it out as overall, it is the best at most things but IMO, at this time, mobile, specifically Android is a major weakness. I hate to think this means they are starting over again.

Care to share which apps? I think we all need to consider a "plan B" just in case.

[RJLUK 307]

13 hours ago, jmckimm said:

A quick look at Bending Spoon's Glassdoor employee rating suggests most people are happy to work there. 

Similar to Twitter a month ago lol

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Just should have asked the people at Tesla instead - not really known to be a really great place to work (couple of lawsuits going on).

[Myztique 5]

14 hours ago, Frki2 said:

For me that is end of the road ...when company that has zero productivity tools or background acquire company that has Evernote background for me is bad sign..time to move slowly and find a new app  maybe i am wrong, but just have bad hunch about it.

 

 

I’d love to know what app you find. I have been looking but haven’t found anything. Recently I have had many issues with this app and read a lot of people had similar issues that had not been resolved for years. I just got notified of a rate increase and discovered the change in plans I had not known about as I was grandfathered in as a premium subscriber. I can’t justify staying with a company that increases its rates but fails to technically keep up with user improvement suggestions and the basic functionality that brought me to EN in the first place. 

[Boot17 1,449]

Evernote is where it's at for me still. However, despite assurances that pricing won't increase with this acquisition, there is no guarantee that they won't introduce new plans and only add new features to those new plans. For example -- the real-time multi-user editing that Ian mentioned is in beta testing along with the Bending Spoons announcement? Well, it's only going to be available to "Spooner Level 3" subscribers at $14.99 USD per week!!!

I'm good with Evernote for now. I love the product and love the direction that things were going. However, now some uncertainty has been introduced. Things could stay on the same path or get better (hopeful!), but if they don't -- I'll have had enough time to improve my (somewhat already existing) exit strategy.

1 hour ago, Myztique said:

I’d love to know what app you find

Different tools for different folks. What tool you might migrate to if that time comes will depend on your usage of Evernote. For example, I don't use the web clipper *at all* -- so I don't need a tool that has that. I spent about 50 hours researching other tools in Evernote's same space over a year ago. The only one that really stuck for me personally was UpNote. In some ways it is better for me than Evernote. In other ways, it's not quite there yet but they have been putting out a lot of new features at a rapid pace.

[Frki2 76]

2 hours ago, Myztique said:

I’d love to know what app you find. I have been looking but haven’t found anything. Recently I have had many issues with this app and read a lot of people had similar issues that had not been resolved for years. I just got notified of a rate increase and discovered the change in plans I had not known about as I was grandfathered in as a premium subscriber. I can’t justify staying with a company that increases its rates but fails to technically keep up with user improvement suggestions and the basic functionality that brought me to EN in the first place. 

That is the problem, still didnt find that app :):) On the end i always come back to EN, and main reason is ease of capture, than i start to work with EN and see how actually EN is behind all new apps: no referenced backlinks, no easy linking between notes, still no pin, no markdown, lost alfred connection on Mac and so on...and than i start to look for new again..and so it goes in circle

 

[gazumped 11,664]

9 minutes ago, Frki2 said:

no easy linking between notes

Hi. Drag and drop is too hard?

- Couldn't really comment on the rest because I don't use Mac,  but if you have specific needs someone else can usually suggest useful work-arounds...

[Frki2 76]

6 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Hi. Drag and drop is too hard?

- Couldn't really comment on the rest because I don't use Mac,  but if you have specific needs someone else can usually suggest useful work-arounds...

Yes if i have it in other notebook folder as i dont see it so i cannot drag and drop it. I would like that i enter [[ and than see when i add first few letters all notebooks with that name and just add it. Like others do.

 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

15 hours ago, dbvirago said:

I hate to think this means they are starting over again.

There really wasn't any hint of that in the announcement. It seems to me that a company wouldn't buy another company if they thought they'd have to rebuild everything right away. Unless, of course, they like doing that sort of thing....

5 hours ago, RobertJLee said:

Where will data be stored?

That's a really good question. I've never had any doubts about Evernote's privacy and security. But storing the data under stricter European conditions could only be good.

[CalS 5,280]

The thing I found most interesting in the announcement was $100 M in revenue.  Using $50 as an average (use what you like but the arithmetic is easier) that's about 2 M paid users of 250 M claimed. Mox nix end of the day but telling re conversion rate.  Wonder what the valuation is, enquiring minds and all that..

No horse in the race as I've been converted and off EN for almost a year now in my bespoke system.  Will be interesting to see how a company with a portfolio like Bending Spoons integrates EN into the fold.

[RustyC 7]

I want to be hopeful, but this really reads like significant shareholders and investors think they can’t do much more with EN and the only way to get a “big payday” is to sell. We’ll probably never know what EN was sold for, but it’s likely cheap enough that it indicates Bending Spoons was really just after some of the underlying technology with no intention of carrying EN forward. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

20 hours ago, RustyC said:

I want to be hopeful, but this really reads like significant shareholders and investors think they can’t do much more with EN and the only way to get a “big payday” is to sell. We’ll probably never know what EN was sold for, but it’s likely cheap enough that it indicates Bending Spoons was really just after some of the underlying technology with no intention of carrying EN forward. 

Like I said...

Quote

And this forum being this forum, go ahead with your anxious and maybe baseless fears too. Here are mine:

 

[gazumped 11,664]

<Sigh> - there seems to be general panic across several forums.  I thought I'd change my profile pic accordingly...

[PinkElephant 8,103]

What about „Keep calm - arrrgh - could you help me with the shortest route to the lifeboats ?“

OK, wouldn’t fit into the badge.

[CalS 5,280]

Or...  "The RMS Carpathia is on the way so hang in there for a while"  

[jefito 5,589]

Geez, guess I gotta come up from outta the weeds to comment on this news.

So, longtime, since 2008 -- and still current -- Evernote user, ex- forum busybody (when you post count's in the 5 digit range, sometimes you need to assess where your time's going). Anyway, I take this news with equanimity. Acquisitions aren't necessarily all bad, nor do they mean that the acquirer will necessarily change the acquiree's overall strategy / focus (i.e., speaking to the fears that Bending Spoon's iOS's predilection will necessarily harm Evernote's Android progress).

My experience: I work for a 20+ year-old software development company that had its roots as a niche producer of software to perform mapping coordinate conversions. The original company kept chugging along at a relatively low level of growth, with a small number of employees, but eventually the founder wanted to pursue other goals, so sold the company to a 3rd party. That was fine, but the new owners wanted to grow more aggressively, and started looking for some other company to acquire, in the same realm of mapping. They found a very small (single person) but highly regarded general mapping company, and negotiated to buy it. The product that this company offered had overlap with that of the original company, but was otherwise much larger in scope, and hence had more potential for growth (note that this was a couple of years before I joined, nearly 10 years ago). Since then, they've continued to grow their original product, and add new staff -- including me -- by about 6- or 7-fold -- still a small company in the grand scheme of things -- and also grow the acquired product to the point where it's now the major revenue producer for us by far. Oh, and they kept on the original owner

Moral: not all acquisitions are for the purposes of gutting the acquiree for talent in order to improve ones' current offerings. Sometimes the idea is to find a company that is going to help you to grow into new markets with new technology, which hopefully has synergy with your current line. 

The above being said; I had never heard of Bending Spoons or their products (and missed the reference, too), and the scale of my experience is smaller than that of the Evernote acquisition, but hey, maybe some good Italian espresso will help things along for the Evernote crew. I wish them all well.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

Thanks for the perspective, @jefito.

[Paul A. 619]

On 11/17/2022 at 7:28 AM, gazumped said:

Hi. Drag and drop is too hard?

Yes. Drag and drop is fine (I like dragging and dropping!) but compared to the convention that many (admittedly smaller) note-taking apps seem to be settling on, it's pretty basic. For example, take a look at the animated gifs and associated explanation on this page that I randomly searched for:

https://notejoy.com/help/note-links

 

On 11/17/2022 at 12:19 PM, RustyC said:

I want to be hopeful, but this really reads like significant shareholders and investors think they can’t do much more with EN and the only way to get a “big payday” is to sell.

I doubt they got a big payday. Bending Spoons raised about $300M in funding a month ago, and it's doubtful it all went to Evernote (let's see if Bending Spoons announces any additional acquisitions next year - if they do, that's a pretty good indication that they paid less than $300M for Evernote.) Evernote was once valued at over $1B, so at least one round of investors took a major haircut.

Completely unsubstantiated, but the $300M number could be significant in another way. Someone in the anonymous Blind forums claimed to be a former Evernote employee and at the time they left, employees wouldn't see a cent if Evernote ever sold for less than about $300 - $350M. Perhaps this was adjusted to be more favorable to employees since then, or perhaps it was made more favorable as a condition of the sale, but either way I doubt many employees are getting a big payday.

As for why the major outside investors voted to accept this deal? That's a bit puzzling, to me. I can hypothesize two overlapping scenarios:

1. With the massive tightening of the easy money spigots worldwide, investors wanted to unlock some of their money (which has been locked up for many years) for use elsewhere
2. Despite the strides Evernote has made over the last couple of years, the investors didn't believe that a valuable IPO would be attainable anytime soon.

 

On 11/17/2022 at 12:19 PM, RustyC said:

We’ll probably never know what EN was sold for, but it’s likely cheap enough that it indicates Bending Spoons was really just after some of the underlying technology with no intention of carrying EN forward. 

I imagine we'll know roughly how much, someday. It will leak, or Bending Spoons will have to file some obscure financial disclosure somewhere in Europe which will be discovered.

That said, I don't see why anyone would purchase EN for their underlying technology and with no intention of carrying the service forward. Evernote uses Google Cloud infrastructure and licenses many other many components of technology. They don't seem to have any highly sophisticated technology. What they have is millions of loyal paying users, and millions more of non-paying users who nonetheless use Evernote enough that they might be convinced to pay*. That's only worth money if they keep the service active.

*For what it's worth, my biggest short-to-medium-term concern related to the acquisition is that the new owner will be very aggressive about monetizing the service with new, more expensive tiers, and perhaps a substantially reduced "free" tier.

[jefito 5,589]

I will note, with a somewhat ironically raised eyebrow, that the landing page of Bending Spoons (https://bendingspoons.com/) says the following:

At Bending Spoons, we create our own cutting-edge technologies and products.

Yeah, lots of marketing blah-blah-blah lies thereabouts. I'll be curious to see how this plays out. 

Cautiously curious...

[janndk 495]

6 hours ago, Paul A. said:

*For what it's worth, my biggest short-to-medium-term concern related to the acquisition is that the new owner will be very aggressive about monetizing the service with new, more expensive tiers, and perhaps a substantially reduced "free" tier.

That's my main concern as well. Bending Spoons' apps seems extremely overpriced.

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Mac users can keep their calm: For 2 subscription fees there is DEVONThink for purchase. Or Apple Notes, for free.

Sorry Windows guys …

[gazumped 11,664]

8 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Sorry Windows guys …

We have some options too...  but again subscribers have until the end of their current contract as a buffer,  plus a downgrade to Free as a continuing look-up.  I can't see existing users (paid or free) ever losing access to their content,  though maybe adding or editing would be subscription only.  Pointless to speculate though - we'll only know when there's a formal announcement.  Meantime there'll be lots of panic headlines from journos selling their content and third parties looking for new customers. Somewhere along the way there might be some interesting new deals to be had too... 

[Metrodon 2,184]

11 hours ago, jefito said:

Geez, guess I gotta come up from outta the weeds to comment on this news.

So, longtime, since 2008 -- and still current -- Evernote user, ex- forum busybody (when you post count's in the 5 digit range, sometimes you need to assess where your time's going). Anyway, I take this news with equanimity. Acquisitions aren't necessarily all bad, nor do they mean that the acquirer will necessarily change the acquiree's overall strategy / focus (i.e., speaking to the fears that Bending Spoon's iOS's predilection will necessarily harm Evernote's Android progress).

My experience: I work for a 20+ year-old software development company that had its roots as a niche producer of software to perform mapping coordinate conversions. The original company kept chugging along at a relatively low level of growth, with a small number of employees, but eventually the founder wanted to pursue other goals, so sold the company to a 3rd party. That was fine, but the new owners wanted to grow more aggressively, and started looking for some other company to acquire, in the same realm of mapping. They found a very small (single person) but highly regarded general mapping company, and negotiated to buy it. The product that this company offered had overlap with that of the original company, but was otherwise much larger in scope, and hence had more potential for growth (note that this was a couple of years before I joined, nearly 10 years ago). Since then, they've continued to grow their original product, and add new staff -- including me -- by about 6- or 7-fold -- still a small company in the grand scheme of things -- and also grow the acquired product to the point where it's now the major revenue producer for us by far. Oh, and they kept on the original owner

Moral: not all acquisitions are for the purposes of gutting the acquiree for talent in order to improve ones' current offerings. Sometimes the idea is to find a company that is going to help you to grow into new markets with new technology, which hopefully has synergy with your current line. 

The above being said; I had never heard of Bending Spoons or their products (and missed the reference, too), and the scale of my experience is smaller than that of the Evernote acquisition, but hey, maybe some good Italian espresso will help things along for the Evernote crew. I wish them all well.

 

I mean that's obviously way too long to read but I'm very happy that @jefitois still alive!!!

 

[eric99 980]

9 hours ago, janndk said:

That's my main concern as well. Bending Spoons' apps seems extremely overpriced.

Maybe because most users just pay for a short time when they need it ? There is always the free (advertised) version as well...

[AlbertR 531]

On 11/17/2022 at 9:19 PM, RustyC said:

... it’s likely cheap enough that it indicates Bending Spoons was really just after some of the underlying technology with no intention of carrying EN forward. 

Oups - if I would a member of Bending Spoon's board, I should search for ideas and technologies to carry me forward. EN offers both and a well known product that can be processed on. There are many users who where looking for alternatives - and found none. That proofes the good idea and the outstanding technology.

[gazumped 11,664]

I'd think that both sides saw advantages here - BS (and there's a hidden joke for UK speakers in there somewhere) reputedly have 500M users and lots of mobile / image handling expertise.  EN have 250M users and only recently (last 4 years or so) started their Electron involvement.  There are going to be overlaps in users,  and in expertise,  but I think there's a lot of mutual benefit in there in adding features and expanding markets.  Both sides would be crazy not to go forward constructively.

(Back to the Twitter comparisons though - with great opportunity comes an equally huge chance to permanently fudge things up!)

[janndk 495]

1 hour ago, eric99 said:

Maybe, because most users just pay for a short time when they need it ? There is always the free (advertised) version as well...

Maybe so. But quite a scary future vision for Evernote 😨

Anyway - let's hope for the best. Evernote sure needs some new resources and a push forward. Actually just a little push would be enough: If they just fix the sync, camera and widgets in EN android, I’ll be somewhat satisfied 🤔 And getting Evernote in European hands isn't a bad thing 😉

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

5 hours ago, gazumped said:

Pointless to speculate though - we'll only know when there's a formal announcement.  Meantime there'll be lots of panic headlines from journos

Dude, there's panic headlines in this thread. Well, I started this with the intention of letting people share their concerns, thoughtful, panicky, and both at once.

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Sure there is: If the Chinese would gave taken over, no worries, a free backup for everybody, hosted on high security servers in mainland somewhere. 

But Italians …

(just to mention, 3rd largest economy in the EU, very innovative „by design“, top notch brands, and the country that gave the world Pizza, Pasta and the best coffee, beside others. So calm down, everybody. Chinese owners, THAT would have been scary).

[gazumped 11,664]

7 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Dude, there's panic headlines in this thread.

True,  but I have a special disdain for someone who understands all the angles but starts off a piece with a scare headline to suck people in,  then puts the arguments reasonably coherently and eventually admits they have no more information than anyone else.  I'm not particularly protecting "journalistic integrity" - but the headlines get me to read it too,  and they're usually on top of something I wasted several minutes of my life wading through!

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

Oh yeah.

Quote

 

MAN BITES DOG!

Yesterday about noon a man in Oregon went into a sandwich shop and bought a frankfurter. According to his Facebook page, it was pretty good. The Pitchfork Tines has not been able to independently confirm this report.

 

 

[CalS 5,280]

What the internet can give you re reviews

[RJLUK 307]

6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

DEVONThink

Yes I have been looking closely at this

[PinkElephant 8,103]

One most know that DEVONThink is self hosted. iCloud can be used, but not for the primary hosting. It needs to be installed and run on a Mac, period.

So it’s completely different to EN as a cloud based solution.

And only clients for the Apple world, nothing else, not even a reader on other platforms. The (small) DT team has made it very clear there is no Windows or Android client in the making.

[Paul A. 619]

8 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Mac users can keep their calm: For 2 subscription fees there is DEVONThink for purchase. Or Apple Notes, for free.

Sorry Windows guys …

Not just Windows, folks on Android and Linux as well. I'm a very happy Mac and Android user, personally. Cross-platform support is a critical feature for me. Actually, the reason I switched to Evernote in the first place > 10 years ago is because I switched to Mac and EverNote didn't have a Mac version at the time. 

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

One most know that DEVONThink is self hosted. iCloud can be used, but not for the primary hosting. It needs to be installed and run on a Mac, period.

So it’s completely different to EN as a cloud based solution.

And only clients for the Apple world, nothing else, not even a reader on other platforms. The (small) DT team has made it very clear there is no Windows or Android client in the making.

I like what I've see of the product, but sadly, Apple-only software isn't a good fit for me.

Like I wrote further upthread, I have some concerns about the acquisition, but I'm going to wait and see how it plays out. For all its faults and flaws, Evernote has a combination of features, capabilities, and scale that's proven difficult for other companies to replicate.

[DTLow 5,736]

On 11/19/2022 at 10:24 AM, PinkElephant said:

DEVONThink is self hosted ... It needs to be installed and run on a Mac, period.

No, Devonthink provides both Mac and IOS client apps (Apple only)
and data sync between devices   
I use the product on my Mac Mini and iPad

>The main database AFAIK needs to be hosted on a Mac

No, databases are independent and can be located on any device

Either app/platform can be used independently.    
It's true that the Mac app is more full-featured than the IOS app

[jefito 5,589]

9 hours ago, Metrodon said:

 

I mean that's obviously way too long to read but I'm very happy that @jefitois still alive!!!

 

Now all we need is @BurgersNFriesand we can have a real party!

[PinkElephant 8,103]

40 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Devonthink provides both Mac and IOS client apps (Apple only)
and data sync between devices

DEVONThink needs to be installed on a Mac. It is deeply interwoven with MacOS abilities and uses the computing power for tasks like OCR and building the (excellent) search. Many tools founded in MacOS like scripting or spotlight search work seamlessly with Devonthink, as do apps available on the Mac, for example for the automation of jobs. The main database AFAIK needs to be hosted on a Mac - I think there is even no option to run it installed on a NAS.

DTTG (Devonthink To Go) is the iOS client. It draws from the Mac database, allowing to sync through iCloud, and other services as well. But it is not cloud based, in the way EN is cloud based, running the master copy of the data and major software functions on a cloud server. The main computational job is always on the „master“ Mac where Devonthink is installed.

The standard Devonthink install is for one user, like an EN account. There is a server version as well, allowing several users to share a database.

One other major difference: It is purchased software, covering the initial install and all releases within a major release cycle. If I am not mistaken it is already pretty advanced into its 3rd release cycle - probably a next major release will emerge in the not to far future.

[RJLUK 307]

17 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

One most know that DEVONThink is self hosted. iCloud can be used, but not for the primary hosting. It needs to be installed and run on a Mac, period.

So it’s completely different to EN as a cloud based solution.

And only clients for the Apple world, nothing else, not even a reader on other platforms. The (small) DT team has made it very clear there is no Windows or Android client in the making.

Thanks for that saved me a lot of time researching that. I have 12 months of EN paid remaining a lot can happen in 12 months if the new owners start playing games with subscription models no doubt there will be a viable alternative.

[Metrodon 2,184]

15 hours ago, jefito said:

Now all we need is @BurgersNFriesand we can have a real party!

Old Skool

[PinkElephant 8,103]

@RobertJLee I took a deep look at it, including monitoring their forum for a while. My setup is Apple only, so that’s a match. A decent option for sure. I decided to continue with EN after some consideration.

One more thing: They probably have the best migration tool - moving your content through the API. I think @DTLow can tell more.

[jefito 5,589]

7 hours ago, Metrodon said:

Old Skool

Yep, that's how I roll.

Plus, I'm old.

[davidtderrick 54]

Evernote has over 400 employees, dealing with, as far as I know, one product.

Bending Spoons has 175 employees dealing with a whole suite of products, and with no experience of data management. Are they going to be able to give EN the attention it needs? Shouldn't we worry?

[agsteele 2,946]

1 hour ago, davidtderrick said:

Shouldn't we worry?

To use the famous question from the Tom Hanks, 'Bridge of Spies' movie... "Will it help?"

The sale of Evernote will not complete until next year. At that point I would imagine we might hear more and see a clearer plan emerging.

Until then, nothing has changed. So no worrying here - yet.

[RJLUK 307]

40 minutes ago, agsteele said:

To use the famous question from the Tom Hanks, 'Bridge of Spies' movie... "Will it help?"

The sale of Evernote will not complete until next year. At that point I would imagine we might hear more and see a clearer plan emerging.

Until then, nothing has changed. So no worrying here - yet.

My renewal is due in a a year I'm same as others monitor EN and monitor alternatives.

[Constantine001 27]

On 11/19/2022 at 12:53 PM, PinkElephant said:

Mac users can keep their calm: For 2 subscription fees there is DEVONThink for purchase. Or Apple Notes, for free.

Sorry Windows guys …

I am a Windows guy so I'm wondering do DEVONThink and Apple Notes have OCR capabilities? Since I'm only on Windows I can't try them but I am really curious.

The reason of my curiosity: There are quite a few apps on Windows with many more features than Evernote, also much faster, but most of them lack OCR.

UpNote has a very similar interface to Evernote, lets you custom sort your notes/folders, even lock them with a password, bi-directional links, INLINE tags even (!), everything but the kitchen sink and only costs $25 lifetime (or around $2/month), takes less than 100MB RAM and is blazing fast. BUT it doesn't have OCR. Also it is developed by a very small team in Vietnam. I don't know if this raises any concerns (the developers do say their data is securely stored on Firebase Google servers in the US) - but still how future-proof can such a small company be? 

Nimbus is another alternative for Windows but at the moment it won't let you open a note in a separate window, like Evernote does when you double-click on the note. They say that it is part of their plans though.

Amplenote is super-impressive but only offers a PWA for desktop for both Mac and Windows.

Anyway, there is this great website: https://www.noteapps.info/ .  It compares most of the note-taking apps out there. You can also filter by feature. If I filter by "PDF content can be indexed in search" for Windows, only Evernote, Logseq, Nimbus Note and Notejoy pop up. And I know OneNote does this for inline PDFs.  If I further filter this to include only apps in which you can also annotate the PDF, I only get Evernote, Nimbus and Logseq. The latter doesn't have a hierarchical folder system (it works more or less like Roam and Obsidian) so it doesn't really suit my needs. Nimbus may have more features than Evernote but it lacks a core one as I said, the ability to open notes in their own separate windows. So for the time being, I might stick to Evernote it seems. 

Let's wait and see.

 

[PinkElephant 8,103]

DEVONThink has full OCR capabilities, using the Abby Fine Reader engine.

Apple Notes not, but the OS has image recognition, that can be used to extract text from a pdf as well. There are tools for the Mac and scanner apps for iOS that will produce a pdf with an OCR text layer.

Personally I have all of my scanners set to do the OCR before uploading to EN. The only scans not OCRed are those few I do using the EN app scanner, which creates picture files.

[Reuven 29]

8 hours ago, davidtderrick said:

Evernote has over 400 employees, dealing with, as far as I know, one product.

Bending Spoons has 175 employees dealing with a whole suite of products, and with no experience of data management. Are they going to be able to give EN the attention it needs? Shouldn't we worry?

I am not an insider, but I believe that when they buy a company it comes as a going concern with it's employees. Sure, they may lay off some, but the core will remain

[PinkElephant 8,103]

EN is currently located in the US and Chile, BS mainly in Italy. They will probably start to merge functions and use the extended geographic coverage to boost the business, but I doubt there will be a significant trimming of staff.

This is more about opportunity than a restructuring merger.

[DTLow 5,736]

4 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

EN is currently located in the US and Chile

Chile???

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/investchile-announces-evernote-chose-chile-as-the-location-for-its-first-software-development-center-outside-the-us-300912791.html

[feyyaz_kasli 5]

9 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Chile???

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/investchile-announces-evernote-chose-chile-as-the-location-for-its-first-software-development-center-outside-the-us-300912791.html

I don't even have a idea about it. Does anyone know more about chile situation?

[PinkElephant 8,103]

AFAIK they build a second hub there, to assist with development and other functions. It is lower cost, has a good infrastructure and no time lag to western US. Very different to places like India, where it is more difficult to work with remote teams, since when one is up, the other will be off the job.

[DTLow 5,736]

 

 

[gazumped 11,664]

"Evernote's Next Chapter" seems to be a bunch of guys wading through the history of the company and trying to get Uncle Phil to say something controversial about the buy-out while he continues to stress that it's been 8 years since he left,  and he has no useful opinion... 

More non-informative speculation is no doubt being prespared for publication as we speak!

Unca Phil does rubbish one well-known (not Evernote) logo in this,  but a man whose current company is called "mmhmm" is in no position (IMHO) to criticise...  Nice background to his feed though...  

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Phil says "Guys, it 8 years I left, and I know nothing more than anybody of you".

And that's it, no need to waste nearly 14 minutes of lifetime on this.

[jefito 5,589]

I kind of enjoyed that. I'm not pining to hear the latest speculations on what Bending Spoons might do, or not do, to Evernote (just don't ***** it up, Spooners, mkay?), but I did like the look back at what he and his team accomplished in the industry. Making products for people to use, and find useful, and stick around, is hard, especially when there's no analogue out there already. I'm thinking Visicalc. Wordstar. Web browsers. Nothing really like those existed before; now everyone has their choice of a spreadsheet and a word processor and a web browser ready to hand. It's interesting to think back at the roots of the technology that we take for granted nowadays. I've been in the business for 40 years now, seen this in action. Remember the first time you saw an application that had -- and could display -- all of the streets in the USA included on a single CD? I was there for that. Nowadays, we have Google Maps (or whatever) online all the time, and it doesn't seem like a thing anymore. But there was no such thing back then, and I saw -- at a Comdex -- people being astounded by our product, and want to buy it on the spot. A large number of people were astounded by Evernote, myself included, and those moments, however fleeting -- which he references -- are something that I can enjoy.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

On 11/20/2022 at 9:08 PM, Metrodon said:

Old Skool

I imagine @BurgersNFries would have something interesting to say here

I suppose, as usual, I will be sticking around, while relying on other apps (primarily DEVONthink) to do the heavy lifting for me. Tomorrow is my Evernote birthday--I first signed up with my main account on 11/23 in 2008. I used another account for it a few months before that while I was kicking the tires on the app, but this would be when I first started investing in it (time and money). This isn't exactly the birthday present I had in mind. Libin used to say he wanted it to be around 100 years, but I think it has done pretty well to make it this far on its own.

BS may be a great thing for Evernote, and they may not be, but speaking as a user whose needs are not being met by the current Evernote iteration, I expect I will probably be more satisfied with the new ownership. After all, if it is not meeting my needs now, things really could not get any worse, at least for my situation.

I hope the employees will be taken care of, and that we will see them after the sale, because I have been pretty impressed with a lot of their work, even if the overall direction pursued by the product has drifted away from my 2008 use case.

[SWSL 66]

On 11/16/2022 at 11:16 AM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

17 hours ago, gazumped said:

"Evernote's Next Chapter" seems to be a bunch of guys wading through the history of the company and trying to get Uncle Phil to say something controversial about the buy-out while he continues to stress that it's been 8 years since he left,  and he has no useful opinion... 

 

I heard about the sale first from TWIT and was impressed at how frequently and convincingly Leo lamented the downfall of Evernote.  As if it had died years ago.   As you say, Phil did not play along but that didn't stop Leo from repeating his assumptions various times.     I guess that he has long stopped using it and somehow that meant that we all did as well.  For me, there has been no downfall and will not be as long as legacy EN functions and there is still a server.    

That said, it's rare that things change in corporate world for the better.  Here's hoping they don't kill or break it!  

[gazumped 11,664]

There is undoubtedly a huge amount of BS about the BS "takeover" (if that's the right word...)

[anfang 35]

I think there's been some new features in the pipeline already, either in beta or under development (see Ian Small's blog update). Assuming no major disruption from a vision or manpower perspective, Evernote should be business as usual to end Q1 2023, beyond which we will start to see Bending Spoon's influence coming through in the form of their new product updates.

I admit I'm a little concerned that Bending Spoon's a multimedia app company, and wondering how that might influence the direction of Evernote's design. But their app looks sleek - and they are startup-ish - so maybe some of that energy and talent will positively improve Evernote's culture as well.

Will I switch away from Evernote? Not any more than how I felt pre-Bending Spoon. I still can't find any viable alternative to Evernote. And there's really no major, convincing push factor that's driving me away from Evernote.

So I'll stay. Unless some app comes along with overwhelming pull factors that attracts me with dazzling new features.

[eric99 980]

7 hours ago, Cardin said:

I admit I'm a little concerned that Bending Spoon's a multimedia app company, and wondering how that might influence the direction of Evernote's design. But their app looks sleek - and they are startup-ish - so maybe some of that energy and talent will positively improve Evernote's culture as well.

I think that BS will  add some fascinating photo app features, very promising!

[Petsolb 55]

I'm staying on, not really going to waste energy worrying about something until I see a reason to. That said, hope the new features and fixes keep coming and things don't slow down too much during takeover

[RJLUK 307]

13 hours ago, Cardin said:

I still can't find any viable alternative to Evernote. And there's really no major, convincing push factor that's driving me away from Evernote.

So I'll stay. Unless some app comes along with overwhelming pull factors that attracts me with dazzling new features.

= hit nail on head

[Paul A. 619]

On 11/22/2022 at 2:44 PM, SWSL said:

I heard about the sale first from TWIT and was impressed at how frequently and convincingly Leo lamented the downfall of Evernote.  As if it had died years ago.

I suspect that many of the original major evangelizers of Evernote, back when it was breaking new ground, got frustrated when Evernote development slowed to molasses and moved to more modern apps which promised new innovations, apps like Notion and Roam and such. Of course, many users stuck with Evernote, and I'm sure they've added new users as well during that time as well.

From the perspective of someone who moved on years ago, Evernote might be an afterthought, even if they still have millions of paying users.

19 hours ago, Cardin said:

...beyond which we will start to see Bending Spoon's influence coming through in the form of their new product updates.

I admit I'm a little concerned that Bending Spoon's a multimedia app company, and wondering how that might influence the direction of Evernote's design. But their app looks sleek - and they are startup-ish - so maybe some of that energy and talent will positively improve Evernote's culture as well.

Assuming they continue regular product updates... I'm not very familiar with their two main apps, but my impression was they were purchased in a fairly mature state and have had their prices increased substantially. It would be interesting to know whether development has continued on those apps and whether development resources have grown or shrunk since their acquisitions.

For everyone planning to stick with Evernote (as am I, for now), I'm curious as to how you would response to price increases and curtailment of the "free" tier. As I've said upthread, I think that's the #1 near-term risk with this acquisition.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

2 hours ago, Paul A. said:

For everyone planning to stick with Evernote (as am I, for now), I'm curious as to how you would response to price increases and curtailment of the "free" tier. As I've said upthread, I think that's the #1 near-term risk with this acquisition.

For me, it would depend on the amount of the increase. I pay for a Professional subscription now, and for me it's well worth it given my use of the service. Can't really speculate on what would feel like "too much."

[gazumped 11,664]

1 hour ago, Paul A. said:

For everyone planning to stick with Evernote (as am I, for now), I'm curious as to how you would response to price increases and curtailment of the "free" tier. As I've said upthread, I think that's the #1 near-term risk with this acquisition.

Big operations like Evernote probably have the next couple of years planned out,  and even if they changed their plans (or are told to do so) it would take months to develop and launch something radical.  I don't believe there is a "near term" in this situation.  Plus BS won't be in a position to influence much until Q2 next year.

Evernote are the experts in their own field,  so (IMHO) are likely to be given a pretty free hand to do what they want - although they will have access to some new resources to include in their plans.  They did 'just' launch the new product levels,  so I don't see price increases as likely - unless it's for another level with brand new features.

Losing the Free tier wouldn't be a problem for me if they chose to do that.  It's normal practice for IT companies introducing radical changes (or closing down) to give a "lifeboat" option for existing customers - maybe introducing a new provider to take over existing accounts,  or reduced terms to upgrade.  If you decided to drop from professional to free (forinstance) I'd expect you to get good couple of months at that level,  even if the free account is no longer available to new users.  Likewise anyone with an existing free account should get a couple of months to "move it or lose it".  IF that happens.

But I stress no-one knows - it's pointless to make plans "in case" something bad is coming along.  As long as Evernote continues to do whatever it does for you,  at the same price and with the same efficiency (whatever that means) as it generally does,  then why waste your nervous energy chasing a better deal?

Wait until you see a company announcement - Journos are selling their stuff on clickbait headlines,  third party providers are doing their best to cash in on user fears,   and a slew of people who don't know any more than you do are venting their unfounded opinion.  (And yes,  I'm including me in that!)

 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

22 hours ago, Paul A. said:

For everyone planning to stick with Evernote (as am I, for now), I'm curious as to how you would response to price increases and curtailment of the "free" tier.

I left Evernote when they converted to the v10 product    
For me, it was a lost features issue   
I'm tolerant of price increases, but have always thought the "free" tier has been abused by many users
imho  New users should get full access for only a limited trial period

[jefito 5,589]

3 hours ago, Paul A. said:

I suspect that many of the original major evangelizers of Evernote, back when it was breaking new ground, got frustrated when Evernote development slowed to molasses and moved to more modern apps which promised new innovations, apps like Notion and Roam and such. Of course, many users stuck with Evernote, and I'm sure they've added new users as well during that time as well.

From the perspective of someone who moved on years ago, Evernote might be an afterthought, even if they still have millions of paying users.

Assuming they continue regular product updates... I'm not very familiar with their two main apps, but my impression was they were purchased in a fairly mature state and have had their prices increased substantially. It would be interesting to know whether development has continued on those apps and whether development resources have grown or shrunk since their acquisitions.

For everyone planning to stick with Evernote (as am I, for now), I'm curious as to how you would response to price increases and curtailment of the "free" tier. As I've said upthread, I think that's the #1 near-term risk with this acquisition.

As someone who signed on during the running tape days (hated it), but caught up shortly thereafter into the notebook/tag/note configuration, and who was one of the so-called forum "Evangelists" here, who knew all of the tricks and traps of the older Windows versions, I can tell you that I never got seriously frustrated over the changes that have occurred since. Sure, some bumps in the road here and there; well, that's software for you (I write software for a living), but nothing fatal to me. I long ago came to find a simpler way of using Evernote that suits my workflows, was adaptable to some new ones when I changed jobs, and didn't need to change much across the Windows native version and the cross-platform versions. Sure, I kicked the tires on OneNote (a couple of slightly different versions, if I remember), Notion, and other such like. But moving my Evernote data over was onerous and imperfect, and none of the other contenders offered me any real reason to switch. My methods have remained, more or less intact, for 20 years or so. They'd probably work for one of the contenders, too, but there's just nothing compelling enough to make me want to bother.

For a long time, I've held that with many popular, mature (i.e. with lots of features) pieces of software -- take MS Word, for example -- have a central core comprising, say 20% of their functionality, that nearly everyone uses 80% of the time, but that the other 20% of the time is spent some small percentage of the remaining 80% of the functionality. That is, most people don't make use of the entire set of facilities, and there's little overlap of features used between different users, except for the common core of functionality. So if you get that central sweet spot right, you're probably going to do well for most people. Evernote pretty much hits that sweet spot for me, and for a lot of other folks as well, I'd guess.

Re: the "free" tier -- I use a free version for work, and a paid Personal version for my personal use. I share some notebooks in each to the other account; seems to work fine. The work thing will probably not be important soon enough, as retirement beckons ever less faintly, so if the free tier goes away, then I should be able to adapt for as long as I need to.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

3 hours ago, jefito said:

For a long time, I've held that with many popular, mature (i.e. with lots of features) pieces of software -- take MS Word, for example -- have a central core comprising, say 20% of their functionality, that nearly everyone uses 80% of the time, but that the other 20% of the time is spent some small percentage of the remaining 80% of the functionality. That is, most people don't make use of the entire set of facilities, and there's little overlap of features used between different users, except for the common core of functionality. So if you get that central sweet spot right, you're probably going to do well for most people. Evernote pretty much hits that sweet spot for me, and for a lot of other folks as well, I'd guess.

I like this. I think it's a wise view of "mature" software. And it describes my perception of what happens with Evernote pretty well, as I observe people describing their uses of it in these forums. I'm quite content with what Evernote is, and interested in what it's becoming, but I don't expect it to do everything for me, especially not relatively "niche" things, and I'm sure I'll never use all of its features.

[SWSL 66]

17 hours ago, DTLow said:

I left Evernote when they converted to the v10 product    
For me, it was a features issue   
I'm tolerant of price increases, but have always thought the "free" tier has been abused by many users
imho  New users should get full access for only a limited trial period

Interesting.  You left Evernote but your signature says legacy user.  I wonder which it is. I'm a fairly committed  legacy user myself.   V10 will have to actually function better - for my usage - before I'll change.   I'll try it out again sometime if EN is still affordable after all this.  Bells and whistles are no compensation for increased friction accessing my data though. 

For me, EN is a utility service like Google Drive.  I want it to work and to keep working with the least friction and not be too expensive to include in my yearly budget along with all the other subscriptions. I'm off of LastPass paid (another utility) for that reason.    It's not something where new features make it better for me and to the degree they cost more or adds friction, new features are problematic.   Jefito's comment about software like MS Word having 80% too much for most is spot-on.    I cope by looking for the more simplified tool when feature-creep takes over on the main one.  The critical features for EN were already mature when I started paying.  Unfortunately, in today's landscape companies find it difficult to simply earn a living providing a service.  Grow or die, right? Thankfully our utility companies, at least, don't work that way.  

I've been paying for a long time myself but wonder how people might abuse the free tier - what that means.  They cheat to get more than EN intends?   Take too much?   Like when they offer a free cookie at an event and you eat the whole tray?  Ha ha- never did that, I swear!    suspect you simply mean that you don't like that EN offers a free tier and perhaps feel that us paying customers are subsidizing it? I guess that's their business decision, but we can opine, to be sure, gotcha.  

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

55 minutes ago, SWSL said:

For me, EN is a utility service like Google Drive.  I want it to work and to keep working with the least friction and not be too expensive to include in my yearly budget along with all the other subscriptions. I'm off of LastPass paid (another utility) for that reason.    It's not something where new features make it better for me and to the degree they cost more or adds friction, new features are problematic.

This may be Evernote's biggest making-users-happy conflict: "new features can be problematic" vs. "why can't it do X?" I suppose that 75% of the threads on these forums are one or the other of those. And each side feels equally ... what? aggrieved? cheated? just annoyed? The addition of tasks is a classic example. "Tasks? Who needs tasks?" vs. "You call these tasks? Make them better!"

[SWSL 66]

1 minute ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

This may be Evernote's biggest making-users-happy conflict: "new features can be problematic" vs. "why can't it do X?" I suppose that 75% of the threads on these forums are one or the other of those. And each side feels equally ... what? aggrieved? cheated? just annoyed? The addition of tasks is a classic example. "Tasks? Who needs tasks?" vs. "You call these tasks? Make them better!"

Agreed.  "Remember everything (in one app)" or "Try to do everything (in one app)".   Which is it, right?