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weyer117

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  1. Yes, as I mentioned in my posting I have a number of workflows built on AppleScript that are broken and finally drove me to install the Legacy application today (after trying to make due with the "current"/Electron application for nearly a year) to restore previous functionality required.
  2. Yet another reason why Write once debug everywhere is a bad business proposition for PAYING users..... The business model fundamentally SHIFTS the cost of Application development from the actual company (and their Dev Engineers) to their users who see in turn see higher cost to support the vendor's application abstraction while at the same time producing diminished application functionality with the loss of native OS service (in the case of Evernote this would be loss of AppleScript, Spotlight, Text Services, the list goes on......). I lead engineering teams and worked at Apple for 13 years (6 months before Steve came back to 2 years before he passed) and remember all the pitches/ excuses I heard from Developers when I was in Evangelism/Developer Relations. Including such hits as: "This GOOD for you because it will allow you to GAIN feature parity with our Windows app..." "By consolidating our development efforts, we will be more productive (once we get over the hump of our brand new platform/architecture) and we will be able to innovate much faster having just one platform to support"... The reality of all this has been and LIKELY always WILL be the following. We will use this "windfall" over time to DECREASE our investment in even THIS platform(s) so that frequency of these "new" innovations (setting aside for a moment how many "innovations" really are just reimplementing OLD features that weren't available launch of the new platform), will ACTUAL be no more frequent then before consolidation. While likely no more "innovative" then what could be implemented on the previous Native platform offering, and completely eliminates any advances made to the native OS platform that they would have potentially "gotten for free" by using standard system calls (rather then the hacked up abstraction) Now don't get me wrong. IF you are offering a free (to the user) service then this represents a very different business model (just ask Facebook or Google). In this case, as a long time Product Manager, your PRIMARY client (wether you admit it or not to yourself) is NOT the end user. This doesn't mean that you don't care about the actual consumer of your service, but when push comes to shove and trade offs need made you can guess who's interests will more often then not end up below the feature cut line. Again this is to be expected from a MASS market solution that often times is supported by indirect funding (funding that is not DIRECTLY derived from the end user) including Society's current rage... Advertising supported services Branded Applications (once all the rage) Contracted/custom platform applications, where the platform vendor plays for development (Pay2Play) Think Platform Exclusives in the gaming industry. I won't go into an ethical discussion about the merits of each or even the value of direct funding vs indirect, honestly in a capitalistic system there is a place for many approaches. I will however say though that anyone who has EVER worked in Engineering or Business will point out to you that decisions on features and trade offs will/HAVE to be made based upon the business model/funding source you built you Business upon. No one ever had (or ever WILL have), an infinite amount of resource so one must make the best use of what they have to further the goals of their Business. The reason I think you will find so MANY Mac users frustrated and unwilling to stick with Evernote any further (as a 10+ year user myself, who has PAID for "Premium" since 2015) and provided several in person rounds of feedback over the years to Evernote's CAB (customer advisory board) is the following. I (like the profile of many Mac users who pay a premium for abetter product) do see value in a paying for a quality service, and am willing to pay for that PREMIUM experience. Unfortunately what I have gotten over time has become LESS and LESS valuable as functionality, and cost have increased. Unfortunately I like many have reached the end of my road here. Today I HAD to install the "Legacy" (aka NATIVE) Application to get back support for a number of custom automations and functions I have that use Evernote via AppleScript (Sal would certainly be happy- apologies for the inside Apple joke). I also got back thankfully Spotlight indexing/integration support for my years worth of content. This likely represent step one for me.... Step 2, given that Evernote is more focused on being a mass market low (to perhaps no) cost supplier of services, I will/have been looking to migrate off the platform over the next year or so (just renewed in Jan). While I may not be happy about this, it's clear the writing has been on the wall for a while. Quite honestly I SUSPECT this in part is what drove Management's decision to try to cut expenses. Unfortunately it seem they are falling into an accelerating downward spiral. Stoked by disheartened paid users who leave, resulting in less funds for development, with leads to even worse user experiences, until a critical mass is achieved. It's truly a shame as there was so much potential here and in the many ideas I know they had once considered. So now only time will tell if there will remain a sufficient paid customer base to support the platform should Evernote even attempt to try rebuilding the trust they lost or if they will become this decade's PointCast...
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