bigtelco

I just retested this version. 

1. Reliability seems to have improved.

2. Apple Pencil support has improved from absolutely useless, to marginally useful.

3. The addition of Table support is enormously useful.

4. Scanning has improved.

5. PDF annotation still lacks zoom capability, but Pencil support is at least somewhat better. 

6. Inexplicably for a note taking app, there is still no shortcut that allows resorting of outlines, bullets or numbered lists. 

I am still trying to figure out who the target audience is.  

For those of us who used Evernote as a place to store content produced elsewhere, speed and reliability were the keys— those are still diminished from the old versions which were rock solid and reliable in years of using them.

For those who want  a state-of-the-art note taking app, Evernote iOS lacks a variety of key features of other apps:

1. Real Pencil-kit pencil integration. 

2. Excellent annotation

3. Powerful outlining. (Toggle outlines, keyboard shortcuts, etc. a la Craft, Notion, OneNote, Bear, Apple Notes)

4. Database features (a la Notion)

I’m still hoping for major progress on both fronts.  At this point, Evernote has state-of-the art search and a great web clipper— but they had those before this grand “experiment” began.  They are starting to finally make some improvements— but then the first versions of Evernote for iOS v10 were fundamentally unusable and caused me to more my workflow elsewhere.   It’s getting closer to a decent experience, but all Evernote “customers” are still Beta users at this point.   Just try making a note in Craft, Notion, Bear, Apple Notes or even Evernote— you will be amazed at how much better the “note creation” environment is.  Evernote has made some minor aesthetic progress while some of the alternatives have taken gigantic leaps. Just try Craft on the iPhone or iPad and you’ll see what I mean. 

Unfortunately, while Apple keeps rolling out new capabilities on its platforms (E.g., updated PencilKit), because Evernote has chosen to go the Electron route, they have to reinvent the wheel rather than leveraging capabilities that Apple has already created for “native” iOS apps.  Unless Evernote think that they can outcode Apple’s huge teams of developers, this is bound to mean that Evernote gets further behind rather than catching up. 

21 hours ago, jabaron said:

I also use a Mac (mainly). What I absolutely need is:

The ability to tag notes and organize the tags

The ability to sort notes within notebooks by dates of creation and revision, and by author (and ideally for pdf files by date of original authorship)

Web clipping

Searching for words within notes.

Reliable, fast operation.

Legacy EN works pretty well for me -- but V. 10 will not allow for sorting by author, and is slow with an awkward interface for me. I can't imagein using Home.

Thanks for your help...

 

 

On 3/8/2021 at 10:27 AM, Jimson said:

Wow, finally upgraded to v10, this last weekend, only to find so many of my notebooks+notes missing.  After investigating, it's because v10 doesn't allow for Private/Local notebooks, one of the main reasons I use it.  If Microsoft OneNote had this feature (for Mac), I'd eventually make the switch, BUT that's a huge time investment in converting 100's of notes.  Sad to see this feature gone, and hope it gets added to v10.

Until then, legacy EN to the rescue.

21 hours ago, jabaron said:

I also use a Mac (mainly). What I absolutely need is:

The ability to tag notes and organize the tags

The ability to sort notes within notebooks by dates of creation and revision, and by author (and ideally for pdf files by date of original authorship)

Web clipping

Searching for words within notes.

Reliable, fast operation.

Legacy EN works pretty well for me -- but V. 10 will not allow for sorting by author, and is slow with an awkward interface for me. I can't imagein using Home.

Thanks for your help...

 

 

@jabaronThere isn't a great "all in one" solution to your problem.  That was the beauty of Evernote in its legacy form.  Unfortunately, the new iOS version is unreliable and who knows how long the "legacy" version of the desktop will last. 

 I am exclusively a Mac and iOS user.  I tried Devonthink.  Its Mac experience was great, but the iOS experience was far less stellar.   Right now I am using " Keep It."  It stores your materials in their native format in your iCloud Drive, does OCR, has a decent tagging scheme, and a very good iOS app. The program is really an overlay onto iCloud Drive, to the developer doesn't have access to your data.   The program itself is great, but it is occasionally slow-- I think because of the relative lagginess of iCloud Drive.  

 I also looked at just putting my documents in the cloud with iCloud, OneDrive,  Dropbox or Google Drive.   Only iCloud supports native tagging-- but iCloud search doesn't do OCR search in iOS-- not even on pdfs-- and its desktop search is really limited only to pdfs.  Google Drive has really powerful search-- certainly equivalent of Evernote.  However, it doesn't have a tagging scheme.  Dropbox is definitely the fastest and has the most reliable linking and sharing, but it doesn't do deep OCR and it doesn't have a tagging scheme. 

None of these solutions has a web clipper.   You are left with three options:

1.  Save the links but not the pages

2. Use OneNote or Notion (neither has a Safari web clipper). Bear also has a Safari web clipper-- but it really just pulls text and is in no way equivalent to Evernotes preexisting capabilities. 

3. Continue to use Evernote

It is unlikely that the local drive support can return.   The "new" Evernote is for all intents and purposes a "web app".  Even if it were able to access your local drive, the "Evernote" part is in the cloud-- and thus you are no more secure on the local drive as you would be having your data on Evernote's servers.  My main concern is what happens when the next MacOS update comes along-- is Evernote actually going to support it?   Then what, stay on an old OS?

Because of the web/server interaction needed to make v10 work, there are probably also some serious limitations on how fast Evernote v10 can work.  Previously, Evernote was never very good as a "notes" app-- but it was fantastic as a place to store and maintain files in a way that they were fast and easy to find.   The new Mac version is a marginally better note-taking app (use of blocks and standardized formatting) but an unambiguously worse storage experience (no local notebooks, substantially slower operation, losing data).  In addition, the ability to annotate pdfs has been made far worse.  In the companion world of iOS where many notes are taken, the new Evernote is unreliable and in the case of viewing and annotating documents, is now almost completely unusable. 

6 months on, I harbor no illusion that the current management is going to awaken to what a huge mistake they have made.   I continue to use the Legacy app while I search for a better workflow for my work.  My mission, like so many other Premium users, is to have all of my data migrated to a new system and workflow, prior to the reup date of my subscription.   

If they had just implemented Pencilkit in iOS and cleaned up the editor in MacOS-- which they had largely done prior to v10-- Evernote would be far and away the system of choice.  I never had a big complaint about inconsistent experiences on different platforms (this is much more of an issue in MS OneNote!).   Instead, Evernote have thrown away their primary differentiators (speed, reliability, and customizability) in favor of making it easier for them to program exciting new features like a "Home" view, a mess of widgets I cannot imagine enhancing the productivity of anyone who actually understands how to use Evernote.    

6 minutes ago, normv8 said:

  I open a PDF and I cannot do a search in that pdf  I must search everywhere..  Fix this quick please. I am ready to leave soon. this is driving me crazy

 

I keep checking in to see if Evernote is actually getting better.  Unfortunately, every time I test if still fails.   I‘m in the Apple Ecosystem, and I‘ve found that Keep It works extremely well, with reliable tagging, OCR and search, and a decent notes capability.  I also discovered that Google Drive does a very good job of OCR and search.  Good luck in your quest @normv8 , so far Evernote isn‘t it— and unfortunately unless Evernote changes course and builds native apps, it is never going to be the fast and reliable Evernote of yore.  The Legacy version on the desktop continues to outperform the nearly 6-month-old „new and improved“ version, while iOS, for which there are no „legacy“ alternatives remains buggy, slow and difficult to use, despite its coat of fresh paint. 

Despite its speed and great integration with iOS and Apple Pencil, the comments above regarding the lack of key features in Apple Notes were spot on. (See @stocky2605).   So, my quest continued, since Evernote for iOS doesn't seem to be getting better and with the shift to non-native code, it may not be able to. 

For those tied to the MacOS/iOS ecosystem, there may be a better solution that incorporates multi-level folders, advanced tagging, OCR of all stored documents (including handwriting, photos, and text), the ability to store items like Word and Pages files in their native format.   How about ultra-fast search?  How about the ability to create notes in Apples Notes, Bear or Craft and have them transfer to the same storage system as other files with just a click? How about great PDF reading and annotation that actually works?  Apple Pencil integration that doesn't look like a 2 year old stole a crayon?

First, I tested Devonthink, a  complex data management system that works great on the Mac.  However,  in iOS, where I do a lot of my work, the app is pretty poor.  Some file types don't transfer over at all.  No joy....

I had just about given up hope when I came across this article about Keep It:  https://thesweetsetup.com/apps/the-best-evernote-replacement-app-for-long-term-research/ .   It is a native app, it uses your own iCloud storage, so if the App is ever mothballed your files are still in your iCloud account and you can retrieve them.  Keep It is basically an "on-device" file manager/note taker, so the developer doesn't interact with your data!  Thus far I have found it to be fast, reliable, and it leverages the capabilities of Apple OS rather than trying to work around them.  For example, it uses PencilKit to make sketches, and Keep It notes uses the same syntax as Apple Notes.  Indeed Keep It is the file management structure that we can only hope that Apple actually implements natively someday. (Strange for example that you can tag everything in your Apple Files database-- but you cannot tag an Apple Note). 

However, unlike Apple Notes:

• You can use colors in iOS.
• You can change fonts
• You can export!

You can even create tables, although that part of the experience isn't quite up to Apple Notes usability, it is still fully functional--unlike Evernote where that is true only in 

I have not yet tried transferring over my Evernote database yet, but so far this is the most promising alternative I have found to the swirling green arrow that greets me for 10-40 seconds every time I click on Evernote.   So far, its longest search has lasted less than a second, its OCR has been just as good--and more reliable than Evernote,  and it is much more flexible in terms of organization. 

While it is for Apple-only users, it is pretty compelling if that's your thing.  

10 hours ago, Alvin C said:

Although I already left Evernote for Bear, I keep trying it when it is updated. But every time I have to delete it again and again.

This time:

• A note added on desktop web version was synced successfully on iPad... after 9 minutes.
• Notes (>30) downloaded successfully after installing. However when I update some notes, notes need to be redownloading and the process is never completed.
• Scanned document is still incomplete. The camera does capture the whole area, but I am only allowed to crop within, say 60% of the area. I cannot crop the shape I like as before (just like now what Apple Notes can do that Evernote/Scannable used to be able to)
• The phone is still hot even when not in use. Battery drain is serious in my case.
• App link still cannot be copied on iPhone and iPad, but the external website link. (So you will open a note in a browser when you are using Mac or Windows.)

The overall performance does improve, but will let you frustrate in some cases. If you are lucky, okay. If you are not, sorry. That's why people even opt for Apple Notes, for stability and reliability. It's not strange why Evernote users rather choose something simpler, and simplicity can bring productivity.

To be honest Evernote has improved faster than I think. But it's already five months since launching the new iOS version. For users it's long time although for the team they are moving quite fast.

You might also check out Craft Notes. Although it lacks tags, the iOS interface is amazing, it has far superior Apple Pencil support and they just rolled out Toggle Outlines.   I have found the platform to be extremely stable and the notes are, well, beautiful.  Still, none of these options replace the storage capability of Evernote... provided of course that your note is actually stored.  Maybe Devonthink and a tag system in iCloud, or search in Google Drive are the only alternatives.  Ugh....

1 hour ago, stocky2605 said:

you are a PREMIUM user and you are able to replace Evernote by using Apple Notes? sounds strange to me. Either Apple Notes has tons of new features I’m not aware of or you‘re paying PREMIUM for nothing. 🤷

I've tried Apple Notes (and more recently Craft), because of Evernote's issues since October.  Depending on your use case, Apple notes does a have a lot of features that the current version of Evernote doesn't do very well.

With Apple Notes you get:

• A much faster experience on all platforms
• Faster and more reliable document scanning
• A much better iOS experience:
  • "Instant" note taking on the iPad
  • Inline viewing of PDF attachments
  • Vastly superior document annotation
  • Ability to reorder lists with drag and drop (in the case of tasks) or using iPad keyboard shortcuts
  • Apple Watch integration
  • Drag and drop
  • Multiple instances
  •  Excellent Apple Pencil support, with shapes tools
  • Beautiful dark mode
  • Ability to create legible tables on both iPhone and iPad
• An app that never crashes or loses data. 
• Decent OCR of handwriting
• You can add information to existing notes

However, it isn't a replacement for the more "Devonthink" file management features.   To get those, you would need to create a file management system using iCloud & Apple system tags (fast but no iOS OCR or any OCR of handwriting), or Google Drive (the only Cloud system that reliably does OCR of handwriting  on stored documents-- concerns about privacy aside) or Devonthink.    Devonthink, (I hear you @stocky2605)which I have also looked at, has some great document storage and management features, as long a you are on your desktop.  The mobile experience is not great-- which file attachments are available is not consistent. But, they seem to be focused on making this a better experience. Plus, it allows you to save contents-- in their native form-- in an organized way. 

In Apple Notes You Will Miss:

• No Mail in or API 
• OCR of scans and photos is hit or miss. 
• No colors in iOS
• No web clipper - 
• Linking function is not as robust and is more difficult to use
• No tags
• No saved searches
• No interface customization
• Document storage

The BEST experience would be a fully-functioning and reliable Evernote.   I should be able to compose outlines and notes and save them, as well as store them long-term.  Evernote was previously a great storage solution:  It was fast, allowed easy organization, had fantastic search and  I used it reliably for a decade. BUT it wasn't that great from a note editing standpoint. I tended to produce a lot of content externally and then drop it into Evernote for storage and search.  

In the latest "upgrade" the desktop editing experience improved markedly but  speed, the mobile experience and reliability got blown up.  I've also had real problems with the web clipper. 

 Why am I still on this forum?  Evernote should/could be the winner.  If Evernote manages to pack together speed, reliability and a modern note editing experience they would be the greatest productivity app on earth.  But, I didn't need a new "Home" feature....yet , I need to be able to:

• Not wait for 30 seconds before I can begin composing a note
• Not have the green arrow spin for a minute when I click on a .pdf. 
• Print my notes
• Export notes to other applications like Mail and Word. 
• Annotate a PDF
• Use the Apple Pencil with my iPad
• Create outlines and manipulate them (impossible in iOS). Still no toggle outlines or other outlining supportfeatures
• Create tables in iOS-- its there... but not really.
• See attachments inline when I'm using the app
• Feel confident that ONE copy of every note I create will still be there, just as I left it, a month or a year from now. 

In other words some pretty basic things are holding Evernote back. If they focus on these rather than shiny objects this could be great.  One of my gravest concerns is whether  they can achieve the speed and reliability needed without building native apps.  Notion has done it with Electron--- but Notion isn't a document storage solution and it really doesn't have any of the interface issues of a note creator (E.g. use of Apple Pencil, or Samsung stylus).   

4 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Anybody needs to define what works best for the own use cases. If it works, fine, if not, find a better solution. Don’t pay and grumble at the same time - it makes sad wrinkles, ulcers and heart attacks.

What is maybe a problem is that full alternatives are rare. „I want EN as it was, but not from EN“ is not a good strategy. OneNote may be close (personally I don’t like it), AppleNotes is lean, and still does many things, for Mac & iOS  there is DEVONthink, etc. There are options, but not without the need to adapt.

My stress level is pretty low, as long as I can run with legacy. If some features are added to v10, I will switch over. If mission critical stuff is still missing when legacy stops working, there is Plan B. The EN iOS app it already pretty good, at least on newer devices.

So WTF - I spare my emotions for relevant issues.

1. I already paid.  I don’t see EN offering customers their money back. 

2. This post was about iOS.  @ArjenC is correct, the iOS application still loses data. I’ve experienced it on multiple occasions. Until this “update” you couldn’t see many of your saved .pdfs.   Or, try to scan a multi-page document, a feat that Evernote used to be the best at— the scanner just starts taking photos of your documents, the walls....  One solution: use Scanner Pro or some other scanner— but EN no longer reliably accepts data from 3rd party apps....

3. It is interesting that you are defending Evernote, yet you aren’t running v10 either.   So, I guess that you are in agreement that it is Beta software.  What other company does that to its customers?  BTW, that was not EN management’s original intention.  Their communication was “come on in the water is fine”— it was only after the uproar from customers that we heard that their real plan was for “power” users (a.k.a. Customers that needed the app to work) to remain on the “legacy” version.  “If only we had communicated better.” What utter BS. 

4. The “core” concept of Evernote is still better than most of the alternatives, and there are no perfect substitutes. That is why they still have customers.  Migration, with tagging and workflows is not easy— or the entire customer base would have defected last October. 

5. I don’t need an apology from EN,  I need  a plan.  EN is essentially the outsourced IT department for my business and many others. That’s what EN was selling.  They are at least— because of pressure from customers— starting to indicate what they are working on. But, this is far from a plan.  For those of us who rely on mobile devices for all or a portion of our work, there is no “legacy” version to revert to— we are stuck with the bug ridden mess where 5 months on the “new” feature is that you can see a .pdf— although it may be so small you cannot read it. 

6. The glass is neither half full nor half empty.  The glass is broken and leaking. Pouring in more water in the form of additional features doesn’t change that. 

2 hours ago, Saphyre said:

I use Evernote A LOT! Even though I am retired and no longer working in the field of engineering, I use Evernote in my day to day life. I love Evernote so much that I'd be a rich person if I got a dollar for each time I recommended and have even installed Evernote on a friend or family members computer.

However, this 10.5.7 build has taken away some of my workhorses.

Where did the horizontal line go? The check boxes? Syncing? Tag Filter? Searching? Sharing notes? Local Folders?

And why can't I use the same fonts I was using before? The font folder in is my windows program. But now, I have only 6 fonts to choose from? I didn't use a lot of decorative fonts, I leave those for special things, but the one font I used the Hell out of was Tahoma. OK, I can get around the fonts since it seems that all of the over 5000 notes I have has had their fonts automatically changed, but seriously, some of us prefer the freedom of expression on our own notes.

Over the last 2 days, I've spent 12 to 14 hours on Evernote and I can't count how many times I have tried to put a horizontal line into my note only to realize the option is not there anymore.

Someone is going to say that I'd get the same line by holding down the underline key.  

I just want to say to them,  THE HORIZONTAL LINE IS NOT THE SAME KIND OF LINE I'D GET FROM JUST HOLDING DOWN THE UNDERLINE KEY.

Nor would the Checkbox be the same if I were to use the little box that is in the Wing Dings font, that is if I could access the Wing Ding font in my fonts folder.

Is it too much to ask to have a few of our old workhorses be put back in the latest version of Evernote? It's not like I'm a beginner in this. I've paid for the Premium service since I got a decent enough phone that I could access the Evernote app on without the phone freezing (talking to you Blackberry Key2) and that has been for the last 5 or 6 years. I've been with Evernote in some form or another since 2009.

Can we expect a future update that will replace some of our beloved features?

 

To get the horizontal line,  type the blue “+” insert button and choose “Divider”.   That said, I share many of your frustrations.    

Unfortunately, Evernote seems to think that their system is well-functioning and they are already hard at work on new features like the "homepage."    However, two days ago, I attempted to annotate a pdf on my Mac and I couldn't save the annotations--the Save button is grayed out, another 30 minutes wasted.  Meanwhile, the iOS apps remain a complete disaster-- and there is no legacy option for these.   

The only positive differentiators I can find for Evernote right now are the "Mail In" feature and the Web Clipper.   The system is slow, the "new" editor is inferior to Apple Notes, Bear, Notion, and Craft. I.e., just about every alternative I've tried.  In iOS, the sketch and table features are apparently not yet fully realized (i.e., they are inferior or simply don't work)

My problem is not that the "new" version doesn't have all of the features of the old one. The problem is that the "new" system is unreliable and doesn't work.  There is still a lot of potential here, but if their strategy is to plunge ahead with new releases with new interfaces rather than fixing basic functionality, then this company is doomed.   I don't see them offering refunds to customers for wasting vast amounts of their time.   

Particularly disconcerting are their statements that "oh, only 5% of users need this feature".  However, the vast majority of Evernote users aren't paying.  What percentage of paid users are going to leave because of the mess they have created?  Those paying customers were waiting patiently FOR YEARS as Evernote management promised improvements.  Instead, we now choose between a de-contented and unstable version with "new" features, or a stable "legacy" version with a limited life and no new features.  I, and virtually every Premium customer I have corresponded with are already at least halfway out the door.  

Of course they cannot tell you which features they will "add back,"  they didn't plan to add any back.  The most amazing thing is how "amazed" they seem to be that their most loyal users are unhappy.   This Electron thing is a HUGE strategic blunder-- I don't know that they will ever recover.  Native apps will always work better, even if they are harder to program.  Evernote's view seems to be that even if the apps are worse, slower and less functional, at least programming them will be easier.  In a competitive environment this is  losing strategy. 

If Craft, Apple Notes, Notion, or Bear implement a decent web clipper and mail in features there will be a stampede out the door.  While this won't be an option for many users, I have moved the majority of my work to Apple Notes-- which is--despite missing some of Evernote's legacy features-- amazingly less stressful, more coherent, and everything works like it is supposed to.   

For iPad Evernote should just integrate  Apple’s PencilKit— vastly superior writing experience and virtually no coding....

14 minutes ago, Koandco said:

Like many here, I too am disappointed. It seems like the changes have been done mainly for people using smart phones. 
I'm a writer. I need all the formatting goodies and they've disappeared. 

I'm an Evernote power use but less technical than you guys are. 
Here are my pet peeves:

• If you quit Evernote, the notetaker gizmo on the desktop closes too. In the past you could still take notes on the thingie even if Evernote was quit. 
• The simplified formatting?? I can’t choose the fonts I want. + they dropped the dividing line that I used ALL THE TIME to separate content in huge long notes (mine are over 50 pages long at times). 
• The search tool is on the top left? not user friendly at all. You should put it back on the upper right side like all search bars. 

 

Maybe we only have ourselves to blame. I didn't want to be a Beta tester. Not enough of us have agreed I believe and it gives that. 

I'm scared of reverting and lose some stuff. I'll wait and see. 

Maybe I'm just loathing change. 

 

Sorry you are having so may problems, you have plenty of company. 

But No, don't blame yourself. There were many Beta testers-- I was one.  I can assure you that many of the issues you see, and dozens of others were brought to the developers' attention and were not addressed before this horrible thing was released.  I too used the dividing line, there is a shortcut--  just type three dashes and hit enter, and voilá, you get the solid line.  In addition, on the desktop version you can type a "#" or "##" or "###" and get large, medium and small headings.   It would be great if at "launch" Evernote actually provided users with a guide to what had changed.  Many, many user hours are being wasted because of this poor communication.  

I am much more concerned about the lethargy, instability and bugs in the new version.  Yesterday I annotated a pdf I had saved months ago, just by highlighting a passage and saving.  The entire pdf disappeared and is unrecoverable!  There were lots of things I didn't like about Evernote, but the things that kept me were:  1. It was super fast on my Mac and iOS, and 2.  In numerous years of use, it never lost any data.     The developers have tried to address some of the other shortcomings, but in the process have made the app buggy, slow and unreliable.   

I  annotated a pdf with a couple of highlights in Evernote 10 with Big Sur.   It caused the entire pdf to disappear from my note with no recovery.   I have the old Mac version on my desktop alongside the new version- the pdf is gone there too.   I was testing to see if things were improving.  Within 2 minutes I had already lost data.   My advice:  don't even test out Evernote 10 with your live database.  After working with Evernote for over a decade, I am migrating to Apple Notes, I cannot afford to wobble through this nightmare as Evernote figures out how to operate their own platform--I am trying to run my own business.   

At this point it isn't a comparison of features any more.  Evernote have a few features, like the web clipper and mail-in that are great.  The new editor looks good.  But, if you cannot trust that it won't lose your work, what's the point????   At this point OneNote, Bear, Apple Notes all have one HUGE feature advantage over Evernote-- they do what they are supposed to and generally don't destroy or lose your data.    

13 hours ago, Daniel KT said:

Homogenizing is a good thing actually. It makes experience consistent and end result is we should be more productive. 

But this is where I think Evernote missed the point on homogenizing. You're supposed to homogenize by use case. In this case, there are 2 types:

1. Mobile class - IOS / Android - More for consumption

2. Desktop class - Windows / MacOS - More for creation & workflow

If the above is understood clearly, then the decisions on what to homogenize, where and how will be consistent for the sake of end user experience and increasing productivity. 

My 2 cents. 

DanielKT, I agree with your point about designing software to exploit the unique capabilities of the device and software architecture.    iOS, especially with the addition of keyboard support to the iPad, a now occupies a space very close to "Desktop Class" and for some functions, like annotation, iOS actually exceeds the capabilities of the desktop platform.   Example: In Apple Notes I can format docs, create tables, view pdfs in-line inside a note, annotate pdfs, and photos with the Apple Pencil,  and draw and diagram effectively,  I can move items up and down in an outline or in a list. (OneNote for iOS has similar capabilities) I use this functionality all the time.    I can do virtually none of these things in the "new" Evernote.    The things that Evernote used to do better than anyone else: Tagging, Annotation, Scanning,  and OCR are now not unique-- competitors are doing them effectively.   

 While other apps, including OneNote, Bear, Apple Notes, Notion and others are striding forward in leveraging the new capabilities of iOS, Evernote's "update" so far is a giant step backward. Evernote no longer identifies search results inside a pdf., scanning is slower, tagging is changed,  annotation is virtually impossible,  and the system is buggy and it lags and often freezes.  

The workflow, storage capabilities and search capabilities of Evernote should have allowed them to outdistance competitors.  Instead of just fixing the well-known problems of the Evernote editor, they have become internally focused on making everything "the same" and, I fear, they are a few advances by competitors away from becoming completely irrelevant.  Homogenizing is great if you are in front of your competitors in terms of features on all platforms-- not so good if you are homogenizing toward the "least common denominator" (aka a "web app").  

Just now, bigtelco said:

Hi Peter2040.  I am a Notion user, but it is not a real replacement for Evernote.  It isn't great at pulling information from the real world and transmitting it back to the real world.  It is excellent at outlining, storing and manipulating content created inside the app.

If you are all-Apple, I have found the new Apple Notes to be very good.  If not, MS OneNote is the closest option.  Neither is as good as what Evernote "should be", but both are superior to what Evernote have released here.  Ugh.

13 hours ago, Daniel KT said:

Homogenizing is a good thing actually. It makes experience consistent and end result is we should be more productive. 

But this is where I think Evernote missed the point on homogenizing. You're supposed to homogenize by use case. In this case, there are 2 types:

1. Mobile class - IOS / Android - More for consumption

2. Desktop class - Windows / MacOS - More for creation & workflow

If the above is understood clearly, then the decisions on what to homogenize, where and how will be consistent for the sake of end user experience and increasing productivity. 

My 2 cents. 

1 hour ago, Peter2040 said:

This is all very disappointing in the extreme.  After at least ten years as a loyal Evernote customer, paying them good money, this feels like a lack of gratitude and respect from Evernote.  I am looking at other options.  Notion?

Hi Peter2040.  I am a Notion user, but it is not a real replacement for Evernote.  It isn't great at pulling information from the real world and transmitting it back to the real world.  It is excellent at outlining, storing and manipulating content created inside the app.

If you are all-Apple, I have found the new Apple Notes to be very good.  If not, MS OneNote is the closest option.  Neither is as good as what Evernote "should be", but both are superior to what Evernote have released here.  Ugh.

10 hours ago, humanengr said:

• Search text inside Office docs and PDF — https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313388 says, if I read it correctly, that search no longer works in side EN for OCR'd pdfs and one needs to open each pdf found in the EN search in a separate app and repeat the search there in order to find the one pdf you are looking for. That's entirely unworkable. If it's this way on Mac, I'll never upgrade. Give us the old iOS EN back.

Apple Notes is somewhat similar, but their capabilities are improving steadily.   OneNote does this pretty well. Evernote????  This is a huge step backward. 

On 11/3/2020 at 11:12 PM, Mike P said:

If you mean the different header styles you can do this with markdown type formatting. #, ## or ### followed by a space. Works really well.

I was happy to discover this. Unfortunately however, although the whole purpose of these updates is supposedly to homogenize the experience across platforms, Markdown shortcuts like # and ## don’t work in iOS.  Why????? Again it seems like homogenizing is more about easing developers lives regardless of the impact on users.

According to these instructions, resizing images is only available on Mac. If, like me, you used to use your iPad for annotation, this is now virtually impossible.   Images sometimes appear impossibly small and the tools are impossibly large, annotating is like a horse trying perform microsurgery.  

Also, the tools remain clunky and unintuitive.   

Evernote still have a long way to go to make this anywhere close to usable. 🙁

Grinstead: Excellent points.  That’s the reason I ended up in Apple Notes.  I’m missing some Evernote features, but it is a consistent, stable platform not amid huge changes.  

17 hours ago, Chris Huston said:

Side note: Just watched this interview with Ian Small. It looks like he fell into a trap filled with the dead bodies of companies past. The book “Crossing the Chasm” is all about the fatal mistake of polling 10 different kinds of users, making a list of their most valued features and then having a committee determine “if we do these X features we meet 80% of everybody’s needs” - missing the point that you’re failing to completely satisfy anyone’s needs.

The book goes on to talk about the different market segments and how they respond to incomplete or promised features: turns out that very few users are willing to accommodate an 80% solution (early adopters and visionaries that see an opportunity). The rest of the market (pragmatists and laggards), representing something like 80% of your users, just want to get their work done. A partial solution means some part of their work is blocked - so they’ll be pissed.

I’m old enough to know not say “no way they’ll pull it off” but the choices, motivations and the fact that Small seems to have a hard to time listening even to the host of the podcast - puts me deep into the skeptical category.

FYI: Apple notes is working out so far.

 

Yike

Good insight.  The key is meeting 100% of your target customer’s need.  I don’t know who Evernote is for right now.  

You want to do research—- you cannot efficiently annotate any more, certainly not as well as other apps.  

You want to write a book— there aren’t decent export options from the editor—look elsewhere. 

You want a filing cabinet— the old Evernote did that better and faster than the new one.  You lost scanner support. OneNote, Apple Notes are free and now have strong OCR, and internal scanning functions

You want to take electronic notes— OneNote is more flexible, Apple Notes is faster and makes better use of pencil,  Notability and GoodNotes are vastly superior iPad options. Notability also add has superior voice recording. Notion has a variety of outline formats, database types etc.  

i don’t know who the target customer is and they don’t seem to either....  When Evernote started, it was the only player in the space, so customers had to adapt.  The notes space is getting ever more crowded, Evernote needs to be “the best” at something. 

4 hours ago, Chris Huston said:

@stoppa What’s your assessment of GoodNotes?

I have tried both GoodNotes and Notability.   In terms of overall usability and the quality of handwriting, I would give the nod to Notability, which I still use often for making sketches, handwritten notes and preliminary engineering drawings for my work.  I also found that the Notability’s workflow is more, shall I say, Evernote-like:  New notes go into an Inbox where they can later be processed into folders.  

Why not convert completely to Notability?

1. The Mac desktop app is really not up to snuff.

2. There is no linking function either between notes or to connect notes to my task and project management systems.

3. It isn’t a great typing experience. 

I hope this helps! Good luck!!!!

On 10/25/2020 at 5:37 AM, Chris Huston said:

@bigtelco I thoroughly agree with your bill of harms and the poor outlook for Evernote. This is dispiriting moment. I’d far rather have a functional, prosperous Evernote than try to move all this work to another tool. Yet, as you state, we’re not in the first inning of Evernote’s decline - we’re deep into the game.

I’m actively looking for replacements. I’m trying the Apple notes - although Apple is horrible about just dropping technologies that people will have put immense effort into content creation (OpenDOC, iWeb, Aperture),

What I’ve found so far:

• The import was very fast
• Syncing between devices is good
• Search, including within the attached PDFs, is very fast even with 1000+ large PDFs.
• Sketching is a pleasure.
• Web clipping works great from Desktop Safari via export PDF and on iOS using the “print...” panels ability to generate a PDF who’s share sheet will store directly into a note.
• Giant Problem: It doesn’t appear that annotations made to PDFs with the “Markup tool” (which is excellent) get synced back to iCloud. The modifications persist on my iPad but do not sync back to Mac or iPhone.
  • The markup tool edits don’t appear to show up under Preview.apps’s “Highlights & Notes” sidebar section.
• Notes imported from HTML/Evernote Web-Clipper aren’t terribly usable
  • The source URL in the note attributes doesn’t survive import so you have a mangled note and no link.
• There’s no versioning - if you mistakenly nuke a part of your note, there’s no getting it back.
• No tags

It sure would be great if Evernote would work.

I agree completely.  I had no desire to leave Evernote, and Apple requires a few weird workarounds but I found myself having few viable choices:

--Evernote for iOS is broken and there seems to be no focus on fixing it. 

--Communication from Evernote is nil.

--OneNote, although it has great features, is very inconsistent between platforms, doesn't work well on iPhone  and search is good but not great. Plus, my brief experiment moving some notes from Evernote was an abject disaster. 

--Bear has a great editor and organization system, but really doesn't have the feature set for document management.

--Notability and Goodnotes are great on iPad, but not strong on the desktop and lack organizational tools.

--Notion.  I use it, but it doesn't support Pencil, annotation, and is clunky getting data into it and out of it. 

I have not experienced the issue you described with markup.   

Let's hope that Evernote at least start communicating with users!!!!

The End....

This morning, after 10 years of subscribership, I finally gave up and moved my database to Apple Notes.  What did I learn?

1. It was amazingly easy (see link at the end of this comment)  I exported my Evernote notebooks, one notebook at a time to ENEX files on my iMac desktop. I then clicked import in Apple Notes and they uploaded almost instantly. I then moved the notes to appropriately named folders in Notes and ... done.  Several thousand notes to me a half hour. It then took another 30 minutes for everything to upload to iCloud so that they are accessible on all my devices.

2.  Notes is way faster than EN (new version)

3. Search is about equal to EN. OCR works well.

4. The share sheet can be used to save web pages into Notes. It isn’t as sophisticated as the web clipper but it is very functional.

5. Attachments are easily annotated from my iPad with Apple Pencil. 
 

6. Note formatting is better and faster than the “updated” Evernote.

7. Tables are viewable and full featured on MacOS and iOS devices!

8. There is full support for handwriting and new shapes tools.  You can write and annotate within the app.

9. It requires an extra step but you can create reliable links to your notes that can be pasted into other notes, your task manager or elsewhere.

In short, if you are an Apple ecosystem person, there is no reason to continue the suffering.  A clean interface, a zero price and great features await.  
 

This may seem disloyal,  and I will miss the Evernote community, but face it folks, this has been an asymmetric dysfunctional relationship for a long time:

—5 years and virtually no new features?

—Remember awaiting the “new” Evernote and discovering that the only new feature was a redesign of the Mads the Elephant logo?

—Remember having prices jacked up?

— Remember getting “chat” instead of any requested features?

—Remember the removal of useful capabilities like Evernote Clearly?

—Remember all of the promised enhancements to security? A decade on and you still can’t password-protect a note! Remember the policy document that indicated that developers might be reading  our notes?  They later retracted this, but what assurance do we really have?

— Remember multiple versions of the virtually unusable Penultimate?

And now, after promising a new improved Evernote, they have launched a feature-disabled Mac app, and fundamentally broken Windows and iOS apps.  

They sold us Evernote branded Fujitsu ScanSnap devices— now they have removed scanner support with notice to users.

They released apps that don’t even allow printing???? What???? 

There is no real communication other than marketing spin. There is no documentation of what is supposed to work and what is in development.  The features that used to differentiate Evernote have largely been lost or broken. Ian Small is now talking about all the enhancements in the future, but what are they?  When?  We waited 2 years for this????
 

While Evernote have taken our money, Apple Notes, Bear, Notion, Notability, Goodnotes, Roam Research and OneNote have been advancing forward rapidly. Evernote meanwhile is remaining pretty much the same or getting worse.  Some folks have used Evernote as a filing cabinet.

After exploring a bit, I’m amazed at how far the rest of the world has advanced. Unfortunately beyond the user community itself, there is simply no compelling reason to stay😢