Please stop iterating so quickly

[mackid1993 913]

I wrote the below to feedback@evernote.com, but I wanted to share it here to see how many agree with my sentiment. Hopefully if enough of us speak out something will change:

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You guys are iterating way too quickly, releasing too many features at once and breaking workflows with the bugs that they bring because the new features haven't been tested enough prior to release. Evernote is productivity software that people use to organize their work and lives and therefore it needs to be reliable. Things were better when you were focused on reliability than adding new features.

 

We need you to slow down, if you read your forums most posts are complaining about bugs, new features are nice but please let them bake longer in the oven and only release them when they have been thoroughly tested and are ready, not quickly to get them out the door. Please consider a true Early Access program that is opt in so those looking to try new features can and those looking for ultimate stability can stay on a stable track.

 

Many software vendors have a beta program, in fact most do. Right now I feel like all of your paying customers are beta testers and that is not OK. You are selling the most expensive notetaking app on the market, please start to act like it.

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If enough of us share this sentiment and pass this along to them, maybe they will listen to us. Strength in numbers.

[Mike P 2,718]

100% agree with this. I'm also really concerned that when new features are introduceed there is a "tick the box and move on" culture. Time is not spent improving the feature beyond the basics. So we get new features that are just about useable but not a pleasure to use. Tasks is a good example of this. Well over a year before some of the things people said at the time were needed were introduced. 

[MvdH 434]

I'm happy with the iteration speed, but introduce a "stable" line and a "pioneer" line or something, so people can choose which they want to be on. I a nutshell, I cannot see anyone who really needs to rely on this second brain, not agreeing with your sentiments/suggestions.

[MichaelvT 20]

With many developers moving to agile with CI/CD approaches, you can expect with all parties to have their new versions released in more frequent pace. This is what I call progress. If you compare this to many complaints I noticed in the past about the low frequency on updates, I believe the Evernote team deserves to be praised for this. 

If the level of upgrades is too high (which is understandable because not everyone can simply install the latest version from the site or run in the app), then be advised that you do NOT have to always install the update. I noticed that the in-app update does not pass by too often, but I could be wrong ( I install the latest versions from the download page), but you can skip if needed. So not to worry. 

[anfang 37]

They could introduce a beta-testers pricing tier.

A Bleeding-Edge tier that's practically the same as the Personal Tier, but $2 cheaper per month. This is to warn subscribers that the service could be subpar or unstable, in exchange for paying less.

Alternatively, they could also raise every tier (Teams and Professional, except Personal) by $2 - that would go into funding additional testing and support options, while ensuring the product is on a stable line and features are introduced after extensively testing with the folks in Personal Tier

[Mike P 2,718]

22 minutes ago, MichaelvT said:

you can expect with all parties to have their new versions released in more frequent pace. This is what I call progress. If you compare this to many complaints I noticed in the past about the low frequency on updates, I believe the Evernote team deserves to be praised for this. 

I don't think the issue is really the frequency of the releases per se, but the quality of the releases and the fact that releases often break things that were working perfectly well before. I think people were hoping that taking it a little slower would mean more opportunity to test and catch these things. This in turn would lead to fewer "emergency releases" to correct things. e.g the current release needed a fix release to get the keyboard shortcut to shortcuts working again. 

[kkarney 121]

4 hours ago, MichaelvT said:

With many developers moving to agile with CI/CD approaches, you can expect with all parties to have their new versions released in more frequent pace. This is what I call progress. If you compare this to many complaints I noticed in the past about the low frequency on updates, I believe the Evernote team deserves to be praised for this. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't testing prior to GA part of the agile framework?

It'd be one thing, as some have mentioned here, if they had a willing cadre of alpha testers (and I'm sure some folks would be happy to do that). But they're using regular users who depend on this software on a daily basis as their testers, and I don't think that would be considered good development practice by anyone.

[Thorz 84]

Absolutely agree. At the moment it feels like BS is using all the user base as beta testers.

I do like some of the new features that have been implemented lately, it is great to see the product evolving forward, but removing crucial functions that have been available in Evernote since its inception without first measuring the impact this will have on thousands of users is not ok. I don't know if the removal of some of these functions happened because of bugs introduced due to the fast development cycle or the result of completely arbitrary decisions taken by someone at BS.

[mackid1993 913]

I don't mean iterate slower, I should clarify... big changes should go out to beta testers before they hit all users. The current system of a major release every week is broken. There needs to be an Early Access track that is a build ahead of stable or something of that sort to catch any bugs before they hit general users.

[Feitz 187]

With the host of issues that pop up every week and the necessity to manually download the latest version since auto update is several iterations behind I find it hard to use V10 for anything productive.

I don't know of any other software that causes so much trouble. I can't understand why they don't release a well-tested version and - if anything pops up - send automatic fixes before new features that also don't work properly are released. How do they keep track of the multiple issues if they constantly churn out new untested versions???

[Feitz 187]

Just checked: 

'Latest version': 10.87.6

current download: 10.88.4

[Feitz 187]

Just to confirm my point I got this a minute ago: 

Half an hour of work gone...

I am this close to nuking V10 again and NOT reinstalling it. Repeat on every device and find peace...

[kkarney 121]

18 hours ago, Feitz said:

With the host of issues that pop up every week and the necessity to manually download the latest version since auto update is several iterations behind I find it hard to use V10 for anything productive.

I don't know of any other software that causes so much trouble. I can't understand why they don't release a well-tested version and - if anything pops up - send automatic fixes before new features that also don't work properly are released. How do they keep track of the multiple issues if they constantly churn out new untested versions???

I'd like to see them stop adding new features for right now and concentrate on fixing the broken ones (such as the speed of everything). Maybe send half of the dev team over to support and start clearing out that backlog. Right now, the issues just snowball because they're adding to them rather than taking them away...