Wanderling Reborn

1 hour ago, tavor said:

Anchors, outline mode, internal note links. This category of features has been highly requested for many years. Amazing that at the end of 2020, EN still does not have it.

It's one of the key reasons I'm experimenting with Joplin (along with no local notebooks and no zero knowledge encryption). The built-in editor has a TOC function that checks for markdown headers in the note and builds a TOC at the top of the note, which gets updated as headers are added or deleted. A convenient way to navigate long notes. Another option is using an external editor like Typora, which has outline view - there's a left pane that shows all your headers in an outline format, very much like the TOC in Joplin's native editor, except the outline view, when enabled, is always onscreen. So you can click around to your different headers, while in the native editor, you have to get back to the top of the screen (CTRL+Home or CMD+Home) to access TOC.

Onenote has that functionality, FWIW.

9 minutes ago, DTLow said:

No one is locked in

With Evernote's export feature, it's easy to exit with our data

I wasn't talking about data. The data may not be locked in, but devoted users are. They won't find another Evernote to switch to. They have years of habits, established workflow, and it will be irreplaceable. Their devotion is not boundless, of course, but strong enough that they will continue paying for years to come. So if $8 per month is the only rate, they will pay $8. I bet the majority of these users would pay $15.

35 minutes ago, tavor said:

Current Premium users are willing to pay $8/mo over current Basic. Per my plan, EN takes current Basic and removes device limit and maybe 1 more feature (along with development focus on daily users, not on socks and mugs and bags or on new colors), then charge ~2/mo for it. They're not going to lose many Premium members to paid Basic given they're currently paying $8/mo over free current Basic.

What they stand to gain is the large number of daily users who are currently Basic users upgrading to new Basic. Per my earlier post, they can offer free trial Basic for 6mo or 1yr, and if they start the clock at the same time for existing users, they can't really cry foul because they'll have plenty of advance notice.

And for new users who are prospective daily users, 6mo or 1yr trial is long enough for them to make a decision. And it's longer than many of the competitors are offering.

For the 80% of non-daily users and prospective non-daily users, these people generally aren't paying under the existing scheme and won't pay under my proposed scheme. They need a different product - maybe multiple products, built off the same core Evernote product with extensions that support the uses of the different types of non-daily users. E.g., if someone uses EN just for recipes, rework the UI to customize the note experience into a digital recipe book experience - free trial and $6/yr after that. Similar for other categories of non-daily users.

There is no future for a be everything to everyone in one note app anymore, like there was years ago. Too much competition, and they're busy carving out sections of the note app userbase. Look at how Obsidian and Roam are picking off the research segment. Evernote could have built this in years ago, but they were so busy with growing userbase, and what did they get for it? Many millions of very low intensity note takers who are never going to pay for the app as it currently exists; again ~80% are non-daily users for a product that is designed for daily use.

These people are paying $8 over Basic because they are locked in and have no choice. 

Who do you think will pick that $2 plan ? If new users, it needs to be at the very least attractive enough to compete with gazillion of free and cheap plans offered by Notion, Onenote, Bear, SimpleNote, Keep, Apple Notes, etc. etc. etc. And this means it will look attractive enough to a large percentage of current Premium users as well.

Or, they make it restrictive, along the lines of what you proposed. Which will still not entice too many new users from outside of Evernote, maybe convert some existing Basic users, with the possibility of some Premium users still downgrading because they mainly need multi device access.

I am not going to post pros and cons and prices on this forum, this would look like promoting competing services. But I do suggest you look at pricing plans vs features of competitors. Evernote is easily the most expensive of the bunch. They are not growing - probably slowly shrinking - but they have a somewhat secure revenue source from people who are married to their service. So, do they endanger their existing captive golden egg paying user base for a pie in the sky ? That's the big question.

15 minutes ago, tavor said:

Right, the bulk of the revenues likely comes from the ~20% of users who are daily users. The group they have ignored for years. So many highly requested features have languished in limbo, some for 8, 9, 10 years - some are almost as old as Evernote itself. It was one thing to ignore these users' requests back in the first 5-7 years of EN's existence, as there was little in the way of serious competition. Back then when people were contemplating leaving, there was OneNote (with all the drawbacks it had back then) and DevonThink for those content to stay in Apple's walled garden, and that was about it.

Different game today with so many competitors. They cannot afford to continue to ignore their daily users, at least not while they are charging one of the highest prices in the note app market. Now that the product is Electron-ized, we'll see where they focus their attention - is it to build deeper interactions with their daily users, or try to grow the userbase by bringing in people who've tried the product and left or people new to note apps. Or as our last couple of posts have suggested - maybe split their offerings - a more feature-rich but more complex app for daily users, and a lighter, simpler product for casual note takers - i.e., the 80% who aren't daily users.

A point on daily users - there are many daily users who aren't on Premium; I'd guess the majority of daily users are on Basic. I think EN can convert a good chunk of these people with (1) a renewed focus on building useful features, and unlike the article's notion, EN knows exactly where to start - the miles long list of highly requested features, and (2) a paid Basic or Plus (whatever you want to call it, but I'm thinking something like Basic Legacy with no device limits and maybe 1 or 2 other features) for ~$25/year.

The problem is the current pricing. It pretty much holds them hostage and severely limits what they can do as a company.

When you look at the prices that their competition charges, the current Premium plan is too high. Long term users will pay it to keep thousands of notes and workflow they came to depend on over the years, but most people who are not already deeply invested into the service will just shrug and move on. To attract new users, they must make a compelling value proposition - but this is a Catch-22. If it’s too attractive, the current paying users may switch over to the new cheaper plan, and they lose the revenue they came to depend on, with no guarantees of more paying customers. If it’s not attractive enough, they’re back to square one, with slow attrition of old paid customers and no new ones. I don’t have a solution for this.

36 minutes ago, tavor said:

The surveys were interesting, but the insights these guys are offering are mediocre at best. This was written in 2019 and one of the authors had this gem:

They were so proud of this insight, they set it apart from the rest of the text and bolded it. Longtime users will remember that EN did this color refresh a few years ago. For the power users, which I assume has high correlation with what the surveys refer to as "daily users" (and whom the authors say EN should focus on - which I agree with), this went over like a lead balloon. Of the many dozens of highly requested features that we've been waiting years for, a different green and grey color scheme was nowhere to be found.

Other similar "insights" in this article. These guys must churn pieces like this out b/c they really didn't put much thought into it.

But surveys are interesting and do highlight the challenge EN faces. For a daily user like me, it's easy to forget that daily users are actually a small minority. Makes me think that either the other 80% of users needs a different product, or the 20% of daily users need a different product. Because there's no way both camps are optimized by the same product.

I actually read his statement as saying that Evernote needs to visually rebrand itself to appeal to broad new audience. A fresh new look. Which is probably true. Just changing colors would not do it. Pretty much everyone even remotely interested had already tried the service and most moved on. To make them interested again, something needs to change. But it was the data in that article that I mainly pointed to.

However, this would not fix the pricing predicament that they put themselves in.  They are charging premium prices compared to the rest of competitors, yet they are not seen as a premium product, or even a top suggested product. On the other hand, they have a fairly sizable core group of dedicated legacy users who are now, I suspect, the main revenue source. They can’t attract new users without reimagining the service and dropping prices, and they can’t drastically revamp the service and drop prices without both pissing off the core users and losing revenue. I think you are right, it’s almost like they need to split into two separate products.

5 hours ago, AlbertR said:

Regarding "Keep Basic's existing features and time limit it."

Why "time limiting"? Often beginners are threatend with such hard boundary and have the feeling that they cannot agree to start paying without having tested all the features. But there is no time to check all the stuff because playing around with such an application is not their first job...

What about "Offer all features and transfer limit it."?

OK, most basic users do not hit transfer boundaries as long as they're reset every month. But I'm sure EN can gather statistics over longer periods to settle up reasonable limits. If a new user hat time enough to figure out the main value, he/she will honour this dispite fancy UIs and trendy approaches to All-in-One apps (that will never come 😉)

But biting around a "transfer" limit: If some suggests other nice limits (except time), this would be OK. Main thing is to convince newbies without time pressure. 

This is indeed the main thing. Evernote failed to convince newbies to buy a paid subscription when it was a cool, industry-defining service that everyone was talking about and with very little competition and low subscription price. Now that it’s an old dinosaur brand in a market filled with shiny new toys, with a restrictive free plan and jacked up price... this is an even tougher task than the one they couldn’t pull off years ago.

I’ve kept repeating myself for years here...

• Jacking up prices while severely limiting the free plan turned away new potential users and greatly contributed to Evernote brand stagnation. It may have not been a mistake, but rather a deliberate last ditch attempt to buy time and temporarily increase revenue at the expense of loyal core user base, giving up on attracting new users in hope that this is all temporary and the redesign will fix everything (and the conversion rates were low anyway).
• Venturing into business space was a mistake. Evernote had, predictably, failed to make a dent in the market. They are at their core a consumer company, not a business company. This cost them wasted effort and misdirected funding.
• They think of themselves as a unicorn, but to the average new user they are a dinosaur. Most people coming to this market today were in elementary school when Evernote was famous. They lack things that many modern users consider basic - handwriting, for one. Full note encryption. Some modern apps lack features too - but they benefit from still being new and cool and talked about. (Notion, I am looking at you...)

If I knew how to fix it, I’d be running companies instead of managing projects. Personally, I think they are way overpriced, for starters. Just compare EN pricing and included features with most competition. But they may have put themselves in a situation where they just can’t cut prices without sinking, not unless they secure major new funding. Time will tell...

Have you read this ?

The Rise, Fall, and Future of Evernote (profitwell.com)

1 hour ago, tavor said:

Fanboyism? Me? Nah, I've been very critical of EN as my post history would make evident. We'll have to agree to disagree on where EN Basic Legacy stands among the competition. I've looked around and to my mind, EN Basic is right up there with the best note taking apps.

Who said anything about 30 days? It can be 6 months or even 1yr, which is more generous than most of the competition. Given that many competitors are offering shorter trials and apparently still drawing users, a 6mo or 1yr trial shouldn't be much of a deterrent to people trying Evernote. And then ~$25/year. 

Again, what is your alternative? To keep Basic unchanged feature-wise and keep it free forever? How will they grow paid subs with most users content to stay on free Basic?

This would indeed be a prize winning answer, wouldn't it ?

As I said... go on Reddit (simply because it's arguably the biggest place where people are asking such questions, which is not tied to a specific OS or product) and make a search for "recommend notetaking" or "how you take notes". See what people have been recommending for the past few years. And how often Evernote is even mentioned. It's no longer the default name people think of, it's a blast from the past, something that was cool ten years ago.

Raising prices did not fix the low user conversion rate, it only masked that problem by forcing more money out of the core group of Evernote faithful. Eliminating the free tier will likewise not force more people to convert to paid, it will just make potential new users even less likely to try it, many existing free users will quit altogether, and  the overall number of active accounts will go down. Venturing into business space was a mistake, and I called it out on this forum years ago. The % of business accounts is what now, mere 15% of revenue ? Jacking up prices the way they did was a mistake (I am not saying that they should not have restructured their pricing structure, but they did it wrong). I bet you that the majority of current paid users have joined the service before the price hike. Evernote must make itself cool and attractive again, and humbly accept that it's no longer a unicorn, but a dinosaur. 

32 minutes ago, tavor said:

Not joking. In fact, eliminating free forever comports with your view on Evernote's growth trajectory. If the note taking space is well past its hype phase and is "as mundane as scan apps", then what is the point of keeping the current Basic level free forever? Free forever made sense in the rapid growth phase, especially if the view was the market potential is massive. But if it's a niche market, as you believe, how does offering a very feature-rich product for free with no time limit make any sense at all?

EN Basic is arguably the second best note taking app in the entire space, right after EN Premium. At the very least, EN Basic is right up there with the best of the competition, nearly all of which are paid subscription services (exceptions that I'm aware of being OneNote if you are buying Office 365 regardless of whether ON is included, and Joplin; I don't consider Google Keep in the same category, that's just digital sticky notes).

Having such a feature-rich product free forever does little to induce upgrading to Premium - most of the additional features in Premium are quite niche. EN realized this, which is why they started a few years ago to reduce Basic's feature set, and they went right for a broadly used feature - multiple devices, which they curtailed to 2 + web. And recently they pushed on the same lever, and limited multiple devices to 2 including web. Can't tighten down any more on this particular feature because syncing is a huge part of the appeal of a seamless note taking app, so you have to let users try this for free.

If you agree with me that Premium's features, apart from multiple devices, are quite niche, which I suspect you do given that you view the whole note app category as niche, then adding more power user features into Premium isn't going to radically drive Basic users to upgrade. The other option is to reduce Basic's features. 

What else can they take away from Basic while still giving users a compelling experience that would drive a good portion to pay? To me, the answer is obvious. Keep Basic's existing features and time limit it. 

With that, I throw it back to you. What is EN's path forward in what you view as a relatively slow growth market, if they keep Basic free forever?

Sorry, but the highlighted line is pure fanboyism. Go to a place like Reddit and see what people use and recommend for notetaking. Especially in the Apple and Windows ecosystems. Evernote is not anywhere near top. (Neither is Onenote, when it comes to Apple users). A lot of people prefer and recommend Notability, or Goodnotes, AppleNotes, Notion, Bear, etc. Evernote is rarely at the top of the list. Keep is limited but perfectly fine for people who don't need power user features. Which is, apparently, the majority of Evernote users. Onenote is slowly but surely taking up market share, especially as 2-in-1 laptops and Surfaces are getting more popular just as MS is finally making a major push into educational space (a decade late, but not too late this time). MS and Google pretty much own .edu, and this is translating into major exposure and user habit forming. Do you think Evernote can afford to limit their exposure right now ? 

Without a Basic version, the number of people even trying Evernote out will dwindle quite drastically. And if Evernote has hard enough time  making people convert now, it will be even harder if these users are faced with having to make a commitment after a 30 day trial. Realize that a large percentage of current Basic users are not really using the service - they opened an account, played with it for a while, then pretty much abandoned it. They will not convert. This move would just result in less people even being willing to evaluate the service in first place. 

On 12/17/2020 at 10:56 AM, tavor said:

That certainly has been the idea for over a decade. Has it worked? I look at the stepwise reduction of Basic's feature set as evidence that this hasn't been working, so now they are trying to push people into Premium. The next logical step, IMHO, is eliminating free forever. 

Don't know if you're joking, but this would be a perfect suicide. If they have issues making people pay after using the service for a few years and realizing they need more features that they are willing to pay for, how are they hoping to make people pay without given them a chance to even get used to the service ? 

On 12/23/2020 at 10:58 AM, Vidalia said:

I think reading at most comments, it is pretty clear that as long as people continue to use proprietary format notes (e.g. EN, ON etc.) the problem will continue as product can change features, increase prices or introduce other limitations.

The only way out is using a open source notes format like .TXT or .RTF or similar.

So any app that uses a open note format, allows users to choose their own sync (e.g. Dropbox, Gdrive, Onedrive etc.) and offers a search across all notes mechanism it is a winner.

Question is whether there is any such app. I think there are quire a few with plain text (which includes Markdown) notes but not sure about rich text notes.

 

That's what I did with most of my notes and records, actually. After converting them from EN to ON and going with ON for a few years, I just converted them all again into a mix of HTML, PDF, and Word, relying on built-in indexing search in Onedrive to find what I am looking for. (My wife is still using Evernote and expects me to maintain her notes,  though ) DOCX is now an open format and is actually more common than RTF.

The only issue with this approach was taking notes on mobile devices (specifically iOS, as that's what our family uses). Taking a quick note in MS Word on the desktop is easy, but Word for iOS is not optimized for quick notetaking. I used Notability and had it set to auto save PDFs in Onedrive.  It looks like the new combined iOS MS Office app is actually designed for quick notetaking, but I haven't tried it yet.

On 12/11/2020 at 2:08 PM, tavor said:

Yes, EN is an old startup at this point, but your valuation assessment is totally off base, IMHO. Look at companies like Netflix and Amazon - they lost incredible amounts of money (EN losses are a drop in a bucket by comparison) year after year for many years, yet they were able to go public and reached stratospheric valuations.

Again, look at the evidence. If power users were important to profitability and profitability was important to valuation, would EN management be making the decisions they are? If your answer is "no", then you need to change some of your assumptions.

Not a fair comparison, IMHO. Both of these companies were market leaders (by a wide margin) in segments with broad appeal and a great earning potential (video streaming and e-commerce, respectively), growing revenue year by year, and spending much of it to achieve an even bigger market penetration and technological advantage over their rivals. They had the money to book profits, but decided to use these funds to expand even further instead.

Evernote (and all of its rivals) are competing in a relatively small, niche market, with limited earnings potential (compared to the content delivery and e-commerce) and lots of competition, including free offerings from software behemoths like Google and MS. And this market (not just Evernote as a company, but the entire notetaking market) is well past its prime as far as the hype is concerned. It is no longer the shiny new technology that everyone talks about or wants to try, it's about as mundane as scan apps. 

So, not the same thing at all.

8 hours ago, gazumped said:

 

Quote

I only bolded that bit because it seems to be the new fashion.  Why are we arguing hypotheticals?  AFAIK no-one who has had an account mysteriously deactivated has commented here as to the justification or otherwise for that action.  Evernote may have detected suspicious activity on the account,  received conflicting instructions,  or the accounts may have inadvertently been deactivated by the user.  The company aren't going to comment on individual cases,  and the users don't seem bothered,  so why labour the point for so long?

Per Evernote's reply, it seems pretty clear that this is a known problem on their end. So not a hypothetical. 

On 11/30/2020 at 5:19 PM, Shane D. said:

Hi All,

This is a known issue that has affected a small number of users.

I'll be reaching out to you directly via DM with further information.

Quote

Is this about the device limitation?  If so,  plIf you find the service useful and especially if you save 'essential information' there,  either pay for it,  or use one of the competitor services that aren't (yet) charging for access.ease get over it.  Evernote is not a charity.  You have 365/24/7 access to their server space and free storage space,  plus (nearly) all the features of the full software.  If you find the service useful and especially if you save 'essential information' there,  either pay for it,  or use one of the competitor services that aren't (yet) charging for access

This issue impacted both paying and free users.

This is not about device limitations. This is about data integrity. Device limitations and feature limitations are fine. Losing access to your data is not.

Quote

If you find the service useful and especially if you save 'essential information' there,  either pay for it,  or use one of the competitor services that aren't (yet) charging for access.

"We don't guarantee access to your data unless you pay up" is not a good message. However, I doubt that Evernote chose you as their spokesman. 

On 12/20/2020 at 8:19 PM, PinkElephant said:

The current way to unlock every account is to switch to Premium for a month, by this removing the device limit plus get access to support.

One can discuss whether this is an adequate answer to the limit. Currently it is the fastest way to fix things.

Personally I think EN should offer an „always on“ access to the accounts settings, without access to the notes if the device limits were violated. The legal aspect is something for lawyers to argue - because the device limit was always there, and does not restrict access if not violated I doubt it would be easy to prove the company is handling it wrong. If the current way to do it is good for user relations is another question.

I am not sure that the bolded part is true in this case.

The problem with going Premium for a month is that the user is basically being forced to pay for support even if they were locked out via a service error.

I understand not providing support for free accounts, but there’s got to be a clear way to get hold of Evernote in emergency situations which may be due to problems on their end.

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

AFAIK the only deactivated accounts here were Basic users,  and there could be any number of reasons why the system decided that some 'suspicious' activity (or lack of it) merited deactivating the account.  Since the links to Support (and this forum) are public, anyone who has suffered this indignity seems to have a pretty clear route out,  and -despite the fact these are non paying users- Evernote has been supportive in getting folks back online.  Seems like sensible and reputable behaviour to me - and if you do have "important and often irreplaceable data" I do recommend not saving it into free apps.  Bad things can happen if you do...

Whether they are paying users or not, as long as they are using the service as intended, Evernote has a responsibility to protect users' data that was entrusted to them, and provide a path to recovery if the problem was on their end. Same goes for the hundreds of millions of people using free email services from Google and Microsoft and Apple and what not. If Google tomorrow just wiped out millions of users' accounts without warning, they would be hit with class action lawsuits and government agency investigations and the fact that it's a "free service" would not help them. 

Besides, this is a question of professionalism. If a free user's account can be deactivated by mistake, and the only way to fix it is by begging for help on a users' forum and hoping that someone can alert the company, this does not instill much confidence in the internal processes or business organization. 

18 minutes ago, CalS said:

I would use VeraCrypt if I wanted to put this Local notebook file structure on OneDrive. Process is you create a “volume” in their parlance to contain the folder(s).  Mount the volume as a logical drive and access via that drive, m: for example.  When you dismount the volume the cloud sync occurs.  Downsides are having to mount the drive and being sure index is enabled after the mount and not before.  And no mobile access.  Not biggies for my use case, I only use this data on my desktops.  At this point I think it may be easier to just encrypt backups of the folders on some schedule. FWIW. 

I've used TruCrypt for many years (the predecessor to VeraCrypt). Cryptomator works in the same way, except that instead of a single dynamic volume, it creates a folder with multiple subfolders. The lack of mobile access was the main drawback. Otherwise, it's the same functionality.

On 12/15/2020 at 9:00 PM, CalS said:

I think direction is dictated by what is in the local notebooks.  I've posted this elsewhere.  In summary

1. Most of my local notes contain PDFs (7600 of 8100) which don't require a lot of access. 
2. I'm considering putting all the attachments in a very simple Windows folder structure and use Windows Indexing and File explorer for access. 
3. For non PDF notes I'm considering printing to PDF and putting that in the folder structure.
4. I may add tags to the file names.  There's a utility that makes this easy across groups of notes.
5. It'worked remarkably well in a 1000 note test.  Instantaneous searches, titles and contents.
6. I would back up to the cloud periodically to a zipped and encrypted file. 
7. I would probably set a folder structure so I only have to backup a current folder (Years perhaps). 
8. I would also limit indexed folders to just these.  That process in Windows is a hog but seems to work fine with a limited target. 
9. I considered putting it all in a VeraCrypt container but I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze on that one.  Haven't eliminated the idea as yet though.

This weekend I'm going to see what you get with the HTML export option.  Though I fear attachments will be in different folders than the base note, if I remember from past dalliances with HTML exports.  Looking for other ideas as well.  You want to put a tin foil hat on try an air gapped machine with Legacy on it.    Just kidding.

I would just as soon not have to do any of this but it seems clear EN isn't bringing back local notebooks.    Procrastinating on starting though.

This is precisely what I did with all my data a few years ago. First, moved from EN to ON, then after a while decided that I didn’t really need a wrapper around my data, and moved or all inside a folder structure. Worked great, so far.

I did look at Boxcryptor but didn’t like their subscription price. I ended up using a free open source cross platform software called Cryptomator. Well, it’s free for desktop, a small one time payment for mobile app, and I did send them a donation. It’s been rock solid in the several years that I’ve been using it. It’s available on Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS and Android, and I did use it on all of these platforms except Mac.

There are a few drawbacks with this approach.  First - for obvious reasons - the encrypted files are not being indexed. So on the mobile, I have to rely on an organized folder structure to find what I am looking for. On the desktop, I am using a standalone indexing program (DocFetcher) that is saved inside encrypted folder, so the index is encrypted and inaccessible without mounting Cryptomator first. Second, on iOS I can’t edit any files directly from within Cryptomator, I have to export them for editing then re-import back. This is more of an iOS limitation and would be the same for any service that doesn’t have built in editing tools. Third, and this is specific to Cryptomator, I don’t think the mobile version will work without interned access (the desktop versions work with local data and sync is handled by whatever service you place your container into).

So in a nutshell, it’s great for file storage, and great for editing on the desktop. Not so great for doing much editing on mobile.

You don’t just deactivate a user account “for security reasons” without (1) informing the user (2) providing an explanation (3) providing means to contact support and reverse the action. Especially when you’re talking about a service that people store their important and often irreplaceable data in. This is... mind boggling.

2 hours ago, Piotas said:

I have similar struggle, I am tied into Microsoft ecosystem of Teams/Office. I use Joplin purely for notetaking related to calls, meetings and daily activity, while the rest (emails, contacts, tasks) are in separate workflows.

Still, IMHO using a OneDrive folder structure with documents is easier than embedding them in legacy Evernote notes - there is no real benefit of putting your files INTO the notes.

Why don't you use Onenote for meeting notes and daily activity? It's so well integrated with Office, Outlook and Teams, you're really missing out if you're not using it for that. (Onenote 2016, as Windows 10 app is too limited).

E.g. when I have a meeting, with just one click I create a Onenote page with all meeting data - including a sign in list where I can check off attendee names, agenda, and a Notes section. All of that is automatically copied from Outlook. I then brainstorm the meeting ahead of time under Notes, add links to relevant documents and emails (or just copy them  as attachments), and add checkmarks with all questions that need to be covered, checking them off as we go. Any notes to myself that I don't want to share with meeting go into a collapsed outline on the right side of note, outside the main body. If any actionable items come up during meeting, I create Outlook tasks right from my notes, without leaving Onenote. When I am done, I export meeting notes to PDF,  and distribute them to meeting participants with a few clicks in Outlook (right click on meeting in calendar, "Reply all", click on attachment icon, it will automatically suggest the last document created in any Office app). The "tags" (which are not really tags) is also a very powerful feature, when used right. It's a major time saver. 

On 12/17/2020 at 9:21 PM, tavor said:

 

@eric99 - I need to correct myself. Typora does have a WYSIWYG view. It's a fantastic editor that lets you do things that EN editor cannot. Some implementation of an outline mode has been requested for years by EN userbase, and we still don't have it. Typora has it and you an use that as your preferred editor in Joplin.

Also, Joplin editor has WYSIWYG in beta. 

The problem with Joplin, for me, is that it's all but useless on iOS. And if I only used my data on the desktop, I'd just put it in Onedrive / Google drive as regular documents. Both these services have PDF and image OCR, something Joplin doesn't do. Onenote is indispensable for work if your organization is using Outlook and Office, the level of integration is fantastic (MS does a very poor job promoting its best features, or how they can be used to simplify a Project Manager's life). Evernote is a great alternative otherwise. With Joplin, I am not sure what it would do for me that I can't get with text notes, Word and Excel files stored in Onedrive and indexed. 

On 12/8/2020 at 4:02 PM, luvmyc6 said:

Oh yes, I remember those feeble and pathetic attempts by MS! To this day, some people at my company (esp the MS defenders) never understood that LN was more than just a "Mail" application.

LOL but for us the end users it was primarily a Mail application. And it SUCKED. Big time. The “Interface Hall of Shame” website had an entire separate section dedicated to Lotus Notes - while most other software got a paragraph.  Well deserved, too.

Switching from LN to Outlook was a breath of fresh air. While Outlook may not have the advance database features of LN, as an email / calendar/ task manager it’s indefinitely better.

2 hours ago, tavor said:

I don't think even Microsoft was clear on this in their own minds! I think it took Evernote to come along and really define what a note taking app is, the rationale for using one, etc. And then Microsoft was like - "hey, we already have something that does this". But even then, I don't think they appreciated the potential - or maybe they decided it would just be a minor player compared to their heavy hitters and deployed marketing resources accordingly. They have the luxury of slow playing this because even if OneNote dies tomorrow, it doesn't affect their bottom line. And their user numbers don't really suffer from lack of big marketing push because everyone on Office 365 has it, and students get it for free, etc. They are in the enviable position of just trying to hit singles, knowing there will always be more turns at bat, while most of the competitors are swinging for the fences because they live or die based on this one product. 

We see somewhat similar behavior by Google. Keep has been around a very long time, in note taking app years, and they've really slow played that product. But they can step on the accelerator anytime they want. And if they neglect it, they still have the option of focusing on it next year or the year after that . . . 

MS' problem is that it's a very squarely business oriented company, which has no idea how to market to consumers, doesn't really care for the consumer market, and is losing because of this big time, over and over again. Just look at them having a full featured, modern mobile OS years before Google and Apple, yet doing nothing about it for years until it was too late.

4 hours ago, tavor said:

On a related note, do you think power users evangelizing for EN has increased on decreased in recent years? Years ago, I was evangelizing to close family and friends. A few years ago, after a continued pattern of releases with poor QA that broke user workflows, I could no longer in good conscience recommend the product even though I use it every day.

Perhaps a comparison would shed some light on your point. Here are search trends for Evernote and OneNote over the last 10 years:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2010-12-13 2020-12-13&geo=US&q=evernote,onenote

From my perspective, those trends line up with what I experienced. OneNote has been around forever, but never generated much excitement. It's been Steady Eddie, and with Office365 including it for free, it continues to soldier on. Evernote was a rocketship by comparison, and that trend peak in the first half of the 2010s corresponds to a time when there were so many people evangelizing for EN, a time when Evernote not only lapped OneNote, but defined the space, even though it came years after OneNote.

It's harder to do a good trend search for some of the other players in the note taking space because many of the names are not unique to the software - e.g., bear, joplin, nimbus, etc., and so you have trend results showing popularity even before these apps were launched.

MS never really marketed Onenote. Even for the past few years, as they poured more attention into the service, especially the mobile side of things and the abortive W10 app, they’ve been doing a piss poor job promoting it. And before that, tens of millions of people had it preinstalled on their work and business computers along with the rest of Office, and had zero idea of what it was or what to use it for (or even that they had it). MS had really dropped the ball there. 

On 12/9/2020 at 3:38 PM, Christophe Gevrey said:

I think AutoHotkey can be a nice addition to any note system to do web clipping.

Not on mobile, alas.

3 hours ago, Piotas said:

You compare open source project with billion-dollar software giant?

Microsoft already tried to kill OneNote 2016 and replace it with OneNote for Windows 10 - a dumbed down, online-only simplified app.

There is clear analogy between Evernote v6 and v10.

Only recently Microsoft decided to continue support OneNote 2016 as part of Office 365 subscription, because, well, new version suck ass - just like Evernote v10.

What's wrong with comparing software ? At the end of the day, it's only user experience that counts. Just because Joplin is open source, doesn't mean that it's providing a comparable user experience for the majority of users - there will always be some people for whom some of the features are super important.

As to Microsoft - they gave a clear timeline for Onenote 2016 being supported through November 2025. (Although it seems that they had reversed the direction altogether and once again are actively developing the desktop version, due to strong user pushback).

I really dislike Microsoft's propensity to kill or drastically change ecosystems that their users are reliant upon, and I got burned with them more than once - Windows Mobile, Wunderlist, MS Money. But they always provided an early warning, a sunset date, and a path out. So, at the very least, Evernote team should clearly communicate their plan for extending support for the legacy version - right now, they are basically avoiding commitment, which is bad from users' perspective. "We will support this version until Summer 2021" is, at least, some form of guarantee.