Removal of zoom functionality in Evernote for iOS: A total disregard for users with visual Impairments!

[Thorz 82]

As a loyal Evernote paying customer for over a decade, I'm deeply troubled by the recent changes.

The past month has brought about some of the most regrettable updates I've witnessed in Evernote's recent history. The frequency of poor decisions in such a short span is truly alarming.

However, the most egregious and disrespectful change of all has been the removal of the pinch-to-zoom feature offered by iOS from the Evernote app, a vital tool for users with visual impairments.

Since Evernote's launch on iOS, visually impaired users have relied on pinch-to-zoom gestures for both editing and viewing notes, akin to browsing a website in Safari. The decision to arbitrarily eliminate this feature demonstrates a blatant disregard for visually impaired users.

What's more concerning is the lack of response from the support team when reporting this issue as a bug. I've submitted multiple tickets over the past 6 months without receiving a single response.

This behavior is not only appalling but also discriminatory. Bending Spoons, you should be ashamed!

[PinkElephant 8,217]

Just tried. The only page I can’t zoom is the new starting page. All others can be zoomed as before.

Where exactly do you miss a zoom option ?

Send your request at

feedback@evernote.com

[Thorz 82]

5 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Where exactly do you miss a zoom option ?

Send your request at

feedback@evernote.com

Before the multiple changes pushed out with this last month's updates, it was possible to use the typical pinch out and pinch in gestures with 2 fingers to control the screen zoom in Evernote, both when viewing a note (with no editing controls or keyboard in view) and when editing a note (with keyboard or editing controls in view). When zoomed in while editing the screen, focus followed the cursor at the insert point. This is the normal behavior for many text editing apps in iOS, for example, Word, using the regular pinch-to-zoom gestures that you can use almost everywhere in iOS as you can in Safari or the Photos app.

Right now pinch-to-zoom has been disabled everywhere in Evernote for iOS at my end. The app is fully updated and shows version 10.86.0 (1220841) when you open the settings menu on the upper left.

I am using an iPhone 15 Pro Max on the latest available iOS 17.4.1.

I created a support ticket reporting the bug to Evernote more than a week ago and as usual, during the last 6 months, I haven't received any answer from their support department. The ticket number is 3876708 if someone is interested. I don't have any contacts inside Evernote to ask for help with this critical issue. The app is almost unusable for me in the state it is at the moment. In addition to this, I also sent an email to feedback@evernote.com.

I feel that the process Bending Spoons is using to quality-check the Evernote updates before pushing them out to the final users is completely out of control. I love that they are trying to push Evernote forward, but you have to have some kind of minimal QC controls in place to not break critical functions like pinch-to-zoom.

Looking at the recent history of arbitrary updates pushed out without caring for the majority of user's opinions, I am afraid this is another of those decisions taken without caring for a part of their user base that is 100% dependable on something as basic in iOS as pinch-to-zoom.

[gazumped 11,732]

I did see a X(Twitter) from Federico that during May Evernote will be looking more closely at the mobile apps - maybe we'll see some progress then.  Rather than 'not caring about users opinions'  there has been a series of posts explaining planned changes and receiving (mostly positive) feedback,  and in some cases what has been released has been modified from what was on offer.  Check there is you want to stay more in touch with what's going on.  Sympathies that the changes aren't anything that you're looking for - but they're not arbitrarily imposed by Evernote.  They can't cater for anyone's specific pet process - they're just providing what the majority of users would like to see.  Granted that their QA leaves something to be desired!

[Thorz 82]

27 minutes ago, gazumped said:

They can't cater for anyone's specific pet process - they're just providing what the majority of users would like to see

If you consider removing a critical accessibility feature provided by the operating system as "cater for anyone's specific pet process", then we clearly have two fundamentally different perspectives on how software should evolve.

Disabling critical and basic functionalities within the app, which are essential for thousands of visually impaired users, cannot be the right path forward, and goes against the ethical principles of advancement. Additionally, completely ignoring support requests from paying customers during the last 6 months only exacerbates the situation.

[Thorz 82]

7 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Just tried. The only page I can’t zoom is the new starting page. All others can be zoomed as before.

This was interesting to read @PinkElephant. I decided to erase Evernote from the iPhone, reboot, and install the app again. Sadly there was no difference at my end after doing this.

All the other apps like Safari, Microsoft Word, Photos, etc are working perfectly fine with pinch-to-zoom gestures. The only one that isn't now is Evernote.

[PinkElephant 8,217]

I have it another try. It’s inconsistent. What always works is zoom in picture annotation. Sometimes I found in notes and note list view (haven’t found a pattern yet). It never works on the new start screen.

It deserves a support ticket and some devs action for sure.

[Thorz 82]

20 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Sometimes I found in notes and note list view (haven’t found a pattern yet). It never works on the new start screen.

Evernote on iPhone has always included the iOS pinch-to-zoom function when you are inside a note, viewing or editing it. This feature has been an essential part of the app since its inception and has been a key reason why many visually impaired users adopted it. In fact, different courses catering to people with low vision disabilities in Scandinavia have included the use of Evernote as part of their curriculum for years.

Pinch-to-zoom gestures only work within notes and do not apply to other parts of the app such as the note list, the start screen, or the widgets page where this function isn't really needed.

Quote

It deserves a support ticket and some devs action for sure.

Sure. Unfortunately, it seems that Evernote support has not been responding to requests for the past few months.

[Boot17 1,474]

I noticed the pinch to zoom stopped working as well. I didn't really rely on it as much so this issue didn't particularly affect me so much as other breaking changes have.

I wish that we could set the default note text scaling on mobile as I think that would alleviate the need to pinch to zoom(?). (I've noticed on iOS that Evernote only honors the accessibility font size on the text in the note list, but not the note content itself.) While the font size worked well on Desktop and Web, I find it a little too small on my mobile device. (Thus just making the font bigger on mobile wasn't a solution as it would make it too big on Desktop.) Pinching to zoom was a nice stop-gap, but it meant you had to scroll left to right to read the content.

[Thorz 82]

@Boot17

I agree that it would be a nice touch for Evernote to honor the text scaling settings set under iOS accessibility preferences. However, I don't see this as a replacement for pinch-to-zoom because it would affect all the content inside the app globally, not just the note text. When editing, zooming into the note text following the keyboard's insert point cursor is the most important thing, so it's necessary to have pinch-to-zoom. Moreover, I feel that enlarging the text in other areas can make navigating the app difficult on small devices like the iPhone. Nonetheless, having the option to honor the text size set under accessibility options is always welcome. After all, having more choices is always a good thing

[Lolinda 15]

15 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

I have it another try. It’s inconsistent. What always works is zoom in picture annotation. Sometimes I found in notes and note list view (haven’t found a pattern yet). It never works on the new start screen.

It deserves a support ticket and some devs action for sure.

I am an Android user and yes, I confirm that on Android we do have the same issue. And I found a pattern: pinch to zoom is not available when I recently edited a note or when I am editing it (keyboard visible). pinch to zoom is on my devices available when I read a note that was not edited recently. 

[Lolinda 15]

But there's an additional long-standing issue with pinch-to-zoom:

On both of my Android phones, pinch-to-zoom makes the text simply move out of the screen to the left and to the right! 😮 No re-breaking of lines! Unbelievably stupid! So I have to drag, two fingers held on the screen, the text to the left and to the right: this is the only way to read the beginning and the end of the magnified lines. 

I have already reported this bug to Evernote, I have put in a lot of time to produce a screen recording and guess what they responded? Nothing! as usual! Their non-existent support even for users who do pay. 

Question: I'm curious about other experiences: do you have the same trouble on iOS? On Android devices? which ones? I use a Samsung Fold 3 and a Samsung Fold 5, both have the same trouble and de-installing and reinstalling Evernote helps nothing

 

[Thorz 82]

4 hours ago, Lolinda said:

But there's an additional long-standing issue with pinch-to-zoom:

On both of my Android phones, pinch-to-zoom makes the text simply move out of the screen to the left and to the right! 😮 No re-breaking of lines! Unbelievably stupid! So I have to drag, two fingers held on the screen, the text to the left and to the right: this is the only way to read the beginning and the end of the magnified lines. 

I have already reported this bug to Evernote, I have put in a lot of time to produce a screen recording and guess what they responded? Nothing! as usual! Their non-existent support even for users who do pay. 

Question: I'm curious about other experiences: do you have the same trouble on iOS? On Android devices? which ones? I use a Samsung Fold 3 and a Samsung Fold 5, bulls have the same trouble and de-installing and reinstalling Evernote helps nothing

 

Pinch-to-zoom worked fine on all my iOS devices until they disabled it with one of their latest updates around a month ago.

The bug you describe feels bizarre. I never saw that kind of problem neither on iPhone (iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone XS Max or iPhone 15 Pro Max) nor on iPad Pro 2nd gen. I haven’t had an Android device with Evernote to test there.

About your experience with support, their response has been horrendous for everybody since BS took over. I really can’t understand it. I can get that at times it can take longer for a company to answer to support requests from paying customers because of periods of high traffic, but zero response in my case during the last 6 months is unheard of. It feels like they have fired everybody on their support area and have decided to completely ignore customers that are having issues with the product. It is the same with this forum which is completely neglected by them.

Edited May 2 by Thorz
Typos

[BEACHNUTS 1]

Agree.   The pinch zoom feature is gone and it's terribly frustrating.  I am also a long time paying user of Evernote.  We NEED this. 

[Lolinda 15]

14 hours ago, Thorz said:

your experience with support, their response has been horrendous for everybody since BS took over. I really can’t understand it. I can get that at times it can take longer for a company to answer to support requests from paying customers because of periods of high traffic, but zero response in my case during the last 6 months is unheard of. It feels like they have fired everybody on their support area and have decided to completely ignore customers that are having issues with the product

it may surprise you after I have complained myself about the BS hotline that actually I do have some understanding for their idea of reducing investment into support: so they can invest into debugging, which they indeed do. You may be interested in the second post on this thread that I have created, There I outline an idea on how it would be possible to have a highly effective support system save a huge amount of support cost at the same time.

[Lolinda 15]

in addition to visually impaired users, there is a lot of further importance to fixing issues with pinch-to-zoom in Evernote: 

- There is no mobile phone and no tablet that can handle maximum sunshine in summer in any country that is closer to the Equator than say Germany. Even using maximum screen brightness, readability will suffer and a temporary means of zooming like pinch-to-zoom is needed.

- Using dark mode or "eye-protecting" overlays, before going to bed is a common practice for health conscious people who wish to avoid crappy sleep and who therefore restrict blue light before bed. These solutions, however, typically reduce contrast and reduce screen brightness and you end up not being able to read small letters.

-> so if I were you, and if it should be the case that you still have a possibility to change the thread title, I would formulate it more broadly and not only address the special needs of visually impaired users and not only address iOS. Yes, of course I do understand your pain that you identify as being such a user and you suffer from EN's ignorance. But this thread will address many more people if my above two examples of user needs for zooming are included.

- And one more thing: Evernote actually does read this forum, but they just don't react in order to save time. So this thread that you have created does have some chance of reaching its goal that they listen and do an improvement. But I guess, they may use a tool to select threads that are read and commented by many users. So in order to achieve the desired Evernote reaction, we would need to attract more forum users to this thread....

- to attract more users, it is also a good idea to choose a really catchy title. fun and provocative. I don't always succeed, but here I did and attracted quite some users:

https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/148706-dear-evernote-i-want-to-pay-do-you-have-a-plan-on-which-your-app-doesnt-crash-10x-a-day/

- One little additional trick that may help: not responding immediately, but after a few days. This way, this thread stays pretty much on the top of the heap in the forum for many days. if responses are given immediately (which I do right now and I shouldn't do it) then this thread is at the total top of the heap for some hours, and then, when responses stop, it sinks into invisibility... 

- we need in one of the first posts a catchy screenshot or video. I offer you to make one but only if you like the idea: My really ridiculous bug report, that the left and the right end of the lines moves out of the screen when zooming in 🙂 . of course, that doesn't really address the issue of your thread, but it looks ridiculous and it does somewhat relate to the topic and it makes people discover that "oh I do have this issue too!" - even if they idn't zoom so far.

please let me know, if you like my above suggestions for modifying this thread.

We also could create a new thread that attracts a lot of users. Before, use this present thread to discuss strategy, and develop a catchy title and good visuals (screenshots and videos). 

(Yyyyyes, I am a nasty b itch but for a good purpose 😄 I only want to help your cause)

[gazumped 11,732]

Whilst I appreciate the frustrations,  and I fully agree that Evernote's 'Support' seems non-existent at the moment,  making more fuss in the Forums (or anywhere else) is the last thing anyone needs. 

Bending Spoons is a big company,  staffed and managed by experienced,  responsible individuals who must be perfectly aware that their service is inadequate, and will already be doing their best to fix that situation.  One thing they will be doing is to plod through their backlog of enquiries in order of priority and receipt,  dealing with as many as they can,  as quickly as they can.  They'll also be rebuilding the Support process to be able to deal with increased volumes.

Dragging resources away from what they're doing to deal with individual issues means that other users will wait longer for their turn at the front of the queue,  and overall that resources are being diverted from actually fixing things,  to working on isolated brush fires.

There's a rule in the Forums not to post twice on any subject because the people who actually do reply - like me - are mostly just other users (unless you see a big STAFF label in their post).  I use the app every day,  but I also have a life outside Evernote and I don't want to waste my volunteered time dealing with the same issues again and again.

The Forums can help on most things that don't involve subscriptions or authentication,  for everything else there's only Support.  The staff there are only human,  trying to make the best of an abysmal situation.  If you're not prepared to be patient while they do that,  you should probably be looking at other providers.

If you are prepared to wait,  and haven't yet raised an issue,  check out https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us for general help and post full details in the Forums (once) to see whether there might be other ways to solve your issues.

 

[Thorz 82]

9 hours ago, gazumped said:

The staff there are only human,  trying to make the best of an abysmal situation.  If you're not prepared to be patient while they do that,  you should probably be looking at other providers.

I hold great respect and appreciation for the tireless efforts you and the entire moderation team exert to uphold this forum. However, I must respectfully disagree with the defense of Evernote's current support practices as stated in the quoted text.

Throughout all my experience in the IT industry, I have rarely encountered a company that completely neglects its paying customers by failing to respond to support inquiries for such an extended period, as BS has done in the last months. Just over the past month, I've submitted multiple support tickets without receiving a single response. As a veteran user of Evernote since 2012, I am intimately familiar with the product, and typically only reach out to support when encountering a bug that I cannot resolve on my own or by first searching both this forum and the web for a possible solution.

The last time I heard back from Evernote's support was 8 months ago, when I inquired about a concerning 257% price increase in my region for the Evernote plan I use (257% was not a typo).

While I understand your suggestion to consider other providers, transitioning to another service presents a formidable challenge, particularly for visually impaired users like me who heavily rely on Evernote's integration into their daily workflow.

Perhaps there could be a more open discussion about user experiences with Evernote support? That can be the topic of another thread all by itself.

[gazumped 11,732]

1 hour ago, Thorz said:

Perhaps there could be a more open discussion about user experiences with Evernote support? That can be the topic of another thread all by itself.

Why?  There's nothing any user can do to apply pressure on the company,  other than to move to another provider if you believe you'll get better service there. 

Creating bad PR loses subscribers which reduces both funding, and Evernote's ability to spend their way out of this situation. Creating more work for the company just slows down the rate at which they can process existing support requests.

The Bending Spoons team are best informed about their situation and probably better qualified than most users to resolve it.  Armchair quarterbacking is good for blowing off steam,  but not for solving problems in the real world.

[Thorz 82]

I hope that BS can overcome their current difficulties and start responding to support requests from their paying customers as soon as possible.

Neglecting customer support is one of the worst ways to save money in business management. It is normal for users to express their opinions about this online.

Unfortunately, BS's recent actions are the reason for negative publicity for themselves.