(Archived) Better client for android tablets

[ivpadim 0]

Please add a custom UI for take advantage of big android tablets screens

I use the galaxy tab and the android client looks cheap on this device... Will be great to have a nice UI specially designed for android tablets...

Like the way you did with the ipad for iOS

Also please add more rich editing capabilites for these kind of devices

Don't forget android market is growing and the android tablet space will grow soon. So please what are you waiting for?...

BTW happy new year

[Ah_Fan 23]

Thanks for your comment. I logged an enhancement for Android client

[allendick 89]

Thanks for your comment. I logged an enhancement for Android client

Glad to hear that. It needs more than enhancement. I expected that the Android ap would be comparable to the Windows desktop program. (That, too, is troublesome to use now with V4, BTW)

Frankly, I was shocked at how crippled the Android ap is. No offline unless paid, and no encryption function apparent. It will unencrypt, but apparently not encrypt.

That is just a beginning of the surprises.

I just got my Galaxy and like it, but I am extremely disappointed in Evernote's implementation. That, together with the odd behaviour of the Win desktop V4 is making me wonder about Evernote all over again.

Tablets and phones are the future IMO. Desktops and laptops won't go away, but in a year or two everyone will be looking for a good synchronizing note ap -- but not one that requires a good data connection to retrieve notes, and the cost associated with downloading each note as needed over expensive and sometimes elusive 3G. Whatever is Evernote thinking???

Would I upgrade now to have offline access to my notes I entrusted to Evernote? I have figured when and if my usage got close to the max for free I would upgrade and maybe even before out of appreciation, but every so often Evernote throws us a curve like this one, and the huge changes in V4 and they arrive all at once.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Frankly, I was shocked at how crippled the Android ap is. No offline unless paid, and no encryption function apparent. It will unencrypt, but apparently not encrypt.

That puts it on par with iPhone app. No offline notebooks except for premium accounts & no note encryption. (Decryption ok.)

Regarding no offline notes except for premium users:

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=19427&p=80583&hilit=engineer#p80583

[allendick 89]

I looked at the other thread and it is interesting that people who take the effort to try to explain a less than satisfactory experience get beat up. I would have expected that people who are trying to explain a bad or disappointing -- or puzzling experience -- would be very important because many companies get so busy making excuses to themselves and listening to their fans that they fail to realise what noobs and potential upgraders are experiencing and lose the market to better marketers with inferior products. How else did Windows ever get where it is when there was already Unix and O/S2? Bill Gates is credited with saying "If they are going to steal software, I'd rather they stole mine". He understood the importance of mindshare. Others did not.

That is why I quit posting here a while back and only came back because as much as I like many things about the Windows V4 version, I suddenly found a number of subtle problems in a program I had come to trust to behave predictably and thought I'd see if I was the only one.

On top of that, I finally bit the bullet recently and bought a Galaxy Tab, and was pleased to see an Evernote ap for it. I downloaded the ap and ran it and was quite frankly shocked at it's lack of features and inability to maintain offline notes. That was a second black eye for EN in my mind in a few weeks -- and looked like a cynical attempt to extort money, after building my trust over time.

Frankly $45 is not a lot of money to pay for a polished ap that works perfectly on one's various machines, but in the Android market, it is 'way high, especially since the 'demo' Android ap seems so primitive and crippled to those of us familiar to the desktop version (which also seems to be full of new surprises periodically).

I hear some crying about money and the need to eat. To me that reflects a misunderstanding of what this is all about. From my point of view this is not about money. People *give* money to worthy causes and I've donated more than EN is demanding to developers of software that I especially value and who don't hold me up for it.

People willingly pay hundreds of dollars for tablets and phones and laptops, so they have money to spend (or had). Moreover, people are actually quite generous unless they feel pressured or tricked. So, if EN is desperate and feels the need to mug users when they step into Android Alley, maybe EN has not been asking the right people in the right way, or the right amount. IMO, someone in marketing, if there is anyone there, needs to be fired, and soon.

Here is some perspective: I had some sync problems and discussed them with support. They were shocked at how small my database was/is. They assumed it was gigabytes. It was a few megabytes. I don't have many pictures or notes. Maybe 400 notes right now, and I clean them out from time to time. I'm not much of a burden, I'm guessing, if you don't count having to read my contibutions on this board periodically.

(BTW, In checking my dB I see that Evernote has -- apparently -- left almost 1 GB of old and apparently useless updates on my drive, and maybe an old dB? What gives? Maybe it is not just marketing that needs a tune-up).

Here's how I have been thinking: Personally, I decided some time back that if I came close to the max on my EN account I would upgrade, but, so far, I have never come close, so I'm thinking that step is too high seeing as it seems you are finding that people aren't upgrading. (The current pricing approach sets a psychological target point in our minds, and because the next step is a relatively big one, we may never upgrade). Seems to me that there should be more levels of subscription, starting with lower usages and smaller fee steps -- and rewards. I know it is a hassle to make it a little more complex, but that is how you make money from happy people.

Your price is not unreasonble, it just strikes people that way because of how it is presented. Somehow seems more like punishment for reaching a level of usage and encouragement to reduce usage than a privilege or pay per unit of usage charge.

Something else: People who have access to perfect, cheap, always present, very fast Internet have no clue how the rest of us live. Even if Evernote were free at all levels of usage, we cannot afford -- or always find -- the bandwidth to exploit that generosity. If some are paying $45 for unlimited EN, we think, howcum we have to pay the same when we can never use very much? Is it reasonable to think that way? Probably not, but that is how we think and it is strong mental a barrier to upgrading.

Back to the Android ap: It seems to me to be uncomprehending and insensitive, if I can use those words to give all that is included in the desktop version, then shock established users by taking it back when they try to access what they regard as their own data placed in a trusted place, using a new (and sometimes annoying) new device. It is definitely not a good time to give them this kind of bad news -- after they have just been flim-flammed, confused and raped by the cell provider and are seeking comfort in knowing they can seek refuge in a familiar program. In the other thread, Steve said it very well at the start. I agree with him.

Good surprises are good for business. Bad surprises are bad. Evernote used to have excellent word of mouth, but many of us are now somewhat reluctant to recommend EN to people who might remember and remind us after the next surprise.

If you want a mass market and if free usage is a burden, then reduce the paid threshold, don't cripple some of the access. Charge by the GB or some such thing, in a transparent and reasonable way. Consider grandfathering existing data if you expect a squawk.

Consider secure access for all users for your own sake before accounts get compromised and you read about EN security problems in the news. Provide offline storage as part of all packages and aps just for common sense reasons, and analyse your users and what each class of user costs you. Figure out how to get the heavy users to pay. They are not necessarily your best customers or the ones who give you good word of mouth. That 20% of your users probably are 80% of the variable costs you worry about and the other 80% of the users are only 20% -- if the usual rules hold.

Your free users, as long as they are satisfied, are your best advertising, and I'm betting that most of them cost you next to nothing.

FWIW: A nickel's worth of free advice Excuse me if I sound grumpy. I am.

[allendick 89]

Oh, yeah. ...And where did I discover that the Android ap is so lame? After I was seated on a plane for a four-hour flight and expected to open a mission-critical note.

Up until then, when I tested the ap, I had been connected and only noticed that EN seemed slow retrieving notes.

At that point, the penny dropped. When you landed, do you think my first instinct was to rush off the plane and send Evernote $45?

Do you think I am at all happy at this betrayal?

Not one bit.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

From my point of view this is not about money.

That's not the way it looks from here. It's very simple. EN has a product that many, many, many people can use daily w/o paying a single cent. Other features that cost Evernote Corp more money to implement and maintain are things users have the option to pay for or not. If it's not worth $45 a year to you, that's fine.

[allendick 89]

I hope you don't speak for Evernote.