notetakeingguy

I think they did it so less of us premium members will quit because we're so frustrated with the product. I have a support ticket I submitted months ago, and when I checked an update they said they were ready to implement a solution. But I have not heard anything.

I think Evernote will have a huge hack, because that's what happens, karma wise, the companies that treat their customers so bad.

I also sent a note to Frederico months ago about all the difficulties I've had with windows and Android. No response, and nothing has changed.

I got the message again on my Evernote Android to fill out the survey. This time the link to work, so I copied my message from above into it.

Thank you for helping me create a response that is more accurate/complete for the developers. I have edited my post and included a picture too. Some of the edits are also below: On #2, are you suggesting that if I converted to the new Evernote on all my devices, they may pull up faster?

2) Notes open faster (I've waited many minutes before, and when I need a note I need it NOW). For example, in Step 5 below, I had to open the note several times, and in one instance, I waited for 5 minutes to open, finally hitting the back key and trying to open it again. And it still won't open. Wow, I've been editing this post 15 minutes now wrestling with getting these notes with PDFs to open!

3) removed, it is possible (offline reading)

4) Fewer clicks to highlight text; that was a recent change and it is awful. I like to read and highlight articles on Evernote, and it is now taking too many clicks. To explain, first you have to click Edit, and lose 1/3 of the screen with the window. Then you have to click the format button (Aa). Then you have to click the highlight button. Each time you highlight. On legacy Evernote, you have to click Edit, you do lose 1/3, maybe 1/2 the screen, but the highlight button is there.

5) When I open the new Evernote on my Android, the Home screen appears to reflect notes for when it was not open, not the current state based on changes I made to my Evernote database on other devices. For example, it is showing Tasks that have already been completed, and showing as the most recent note, how it was when it was last opened. Only when I  click on Notes does it start syncing Evernote with changes that had been made on other devices

6) Evernote Android only allows you to open a PDF in the Evernote native App. This is a huge restriction as I prefer to open PDFs in XoDo. There have been threads about it, see here: 

here (1)

here (2)

I do see an Export, so maybe it is just more clicks?

7) Evernote Android sometimes can't even load the attachment. In trying out #6, I had one note that I uploaded yesterday where it says "Couldn't load attachment." Wow, a second one too. And I just opened them in legacy Desktop PC and Evernote 10 Desktop PC and the attachment pulls up fine. See picture showing it open in Acrobat on my computer (from Evernote) and can't open on the Android. I added a video here, if it works, though at the end when I show my computer, sorry that I flipper from portrait to landscape.  

I was opening Evernote on my personal phone today and I saw a blue bar asking me if I could complete a 1 minute survey about why I am still using an older version. However, when I clicked it, it said the webpage could not be found. I tried multiple times. I also had a different device (my tablet) and the same thing happened. This is my way to communicate what would have been written in the survey.

I use the old Evernote on my personal Android phone Evernote and my personal tablet. I use the new version of Evernote on my work phone.

I prefer the older version because:

1) searches are much faster, and work
2) Notes open faster (I've waited many minutes before, and when I need a note I need it NOW). For example, in Step 5 below, I had to open the note several times, and in one instance, I waited for 5 minutes to open, finally hitting the back key and trying to open it again. And it still won't open. Wow, I've been editing this post 15 minutes now wrestling with getting these notes with PDFs to open!

3) removed, it is possible (offline reading)

4) Fewer clicks to highlight text; that was a recent change and it is awful. I like to read and highlight articles on Evernote, and it is now taking too many clicks. To explain, first you have to click Edit, and lose 1/3 of the screen with the window. Then you have to click the format button (Aa). Then you have to click the highlight button. Each time you highlight. On legacy Evernote, you have to click Edit, you do lose 1/3, maybe 1/2 the screen, but the highlight button is there.

5) When I open the new Evernote on my Android, the Home screen appears to reflect notes for when it was not open, not the current state based on changes I made to my Evernote database on other devices. For example, it is showing Tasks that have already been completed, and showing as the most recent note, how it was when it was last opened. Only when I  click on Notes does it start syncing Evernote with changes that had been made on other devices

6) Evernote Android only allows you to open a PDF in the Evernote native App. This is a huge restriction as I prefer to open PDFs in XoDo. There have been threads about it, see here: 

here (1)

here (2)

I do see an Export, so maybe it is just more clicks?

7) Evernote Android sometimes can't even load the attachment. In trying out #6, I had one note that I uploaded yesterday where it says "Couldn't load attachment." Wow, a second one too. And I just opened them in legacy Desktop PC and Evernote 10 Desktop PC and the attachment pulls up fine. See picture showing it open in Acrobat on my computer (from Evernote) and can't open on the Android. 

So clumsy to just access notebooks and tag lists.

So here I am, editing this post to explain it more detail, and pulling up Evernote, and I'm already 8 minutes in trying to get the example notes to pull up in Evernote

I'm nearing the end of my 1password trial. I do see how some things seem smoother, but on Android, LastPass seems stronger. Or maybe I just need more practice. 

12 hours ago, Paul A. said:

 

Sorry to hear that. Are you on Mac or Windows? They seem to be developed fairly independently of each other, so my experiences (on Mac) may not be reflected on Windows.

And to keep this somewhat on topic, the long time Quicken for Mac product manager actually used to work for Evernote! (Though he's no longer leading Quicken for Mac, he moved into a different role in the company.)

I'm a Quicken Windows user. Since like 1994. Sometimes OneStep update doesn't work for certain credit cards, e.g. Discover, and you don't even get an error. Lots of discussions on those boards. And calculator doesn't work great. Other user interface things. And yet they keep hiking the prices.

27 minutes ago, Mark78 said:

Totally agree! Notion is a key competitor, but their Evernote import stinks. They link accounts, then the import stalls... and fails. I told them don't do the "direct connect" route, rather import using Evernote ENEX files. Even told them how to do it.... Hopefully they will do it.

This is good to know.

Does Notion support PC? Have web clipper? Have tags? Good searching? Have send email both into and out of?

7 minutes ago, Twitchly said:

So would I.

No, no, I am not happy with Quickens 1-step unreliability vs the significant price increases 

11 hours ago, Paul A. said:

It's a fair concern, but there are exceptions. Quicken was sold by Intuit to a private equity company in 2016, and sold again to another private equity company around 2021, but it has thrived. According to an interview with the CEO that I read a year+ ago, Quicken is strongly profitable and has significantly more paying customers than it ever did as part of Intuit. More importantly from this user's perspective, the software has seen a steady release schedule that has chipped away at the feature backlog of the Mac version, steadily polished and improved existing features, and overall software quality has increased.

I'd be happy if the same happens to Evernote.

I'm a quicken user as well, and I've been so unhappy. There are bugs that still haven't been fixed, and yet they keep increasing the costs every year.

56 minutes ago, Bill Myers said:

I would if I were you. If I may be permitted to stray way off-topic, the LastPass data breach was unforgivable and they are no longer worthy of trust.

I'm on the free trial right now. So far, I like the interface and the rapidness of help. However, I don't like having to re-enter the master password everytime I close my browser. And LastPass is still doing a little better filling in apps on my phone.

Meanwhile, my wife's LastPass subscription ended. They had a deal to renew, but something didn't go through. I contacted LastPass the day after, and they just closed the case with no comment or notice. Not happy with that kind of service.

It comes back to the same things as Evernote -- smooth convenience so you don't have to think about it. LastPass delivers that for me. 1Password, almost (and maybe I just need a little time), but Evernote, probably last 9 years, most of the time, but not all the time, those times were unpredictable.

For me about how much it should cost based on its value to me, I'm not sure if that is fair. I benefit greatly from Evernote, Dropbox, LastPass (likely switching to 1Password soon), any.do, followupthen, feedly, Pocket, and others. If I had to pay each one for how much value I get, it would be not be affordable. Think of the value people get from Office (the money that's made from those Powerpoint slides). I think it needs to be  comparable to others.

I felt Evernote was not comparable because it changes too much, has too many unpredictable bugs, and had terrible customer service. And dealing with those causes me to lose productivity, often in unpredictable ways and times. 

About job loss and such, yes it is hard. I had a job not that long ago that gave me a choice - move 1000 miles away with a company relocation, or leave the company with severance. I had 2 months to make the decision, then 3 months to take action. I chose to relocate. My new management was hard to deal with, and regretted moving from my old location. I stuck it out 3 1/2 years, got accomplishment #1, got accomplishment #2, and got accomplishment #3, and then got out. To a new job, at much higher pay, where I am treated well. Though still in my same location, though my wife got excellent fertility care in this new location, we've had two more kids, and the oldest is doing well in the schools. I still wish I hadn't sold my house in my old location, but it was because the company offered me a relocation package.

My experience is that the executives have a lot on their plate. They have to make decisions that have significant impact. While the lower ranking people do work hard, they don't always know the "why", which is what the higher ups have to do. And we trust the higher ups to make those decisions.

I looked at Bear but doesn't seem to be available for PC.

Staff may not have done too bad according this article which gives a nice history of their rise and fall:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/evernote-the-memory-app-people-forgot-about-lays-off-entire-us-staff/

[Staffers typically received 16 weeks of salary, one year of health insurance, and a pro-rated performance bonus, along with assistance for those working on visas.]

I agree with you about credit and capitalism. The reason I think Ian Small was "fairly" compensated is that based on his LinkedIn profile, it seems this was he was hired to do. Get the ship in shape enough to sell out; not necessarily look out for legacy customers like ourselves. VCs wanted their money.

If Evernote charged $50 / month I'd be gone too. I'd probably just export all my notes to html on OneDrive or something like that. But more importantly, it would indicate more of the same - ignoring the customers, and we see where that has landed. I still wish they would return URLs when sending a copy of a note by email. And properly lasting a Word document with bullets into Evernote.

And that's what will make it hard for me to switch from Evernote. I have 15,000 notes, all tagged very well, and very easy to find. I don't have an easy way to recreate that somewhere else.

5 hours ago, Wanderling Reborn said:

The tags in a classic, Evernote anpproach are to classify notes individual notes ("Cars", "cats" etc). The "tags" in OneNote are to mark individual lines of text (paragraphs, phrases whatever) across the notes. I.e. Evernote tags let me find all notes related to cars. OneNote "tags" let me find todos (or  important bits of info, or things I want to check out later, or deadlines assigned in a meeting) across all my notes regardless of what category the notes belong to.

 

 

 

Is there any equivalent to tags in OneNote? Namely, where one can assign multiple tags, which I use a lot.

And remember, Evernote isn't gone, just all the staff. I have never been fond of how Evernote interacted with customers; creating features that worked partially, never fixing things, and ignoring customer feedback. Perhaps that will get resolved?

I use OneNote for work and where it is lacking is searching is not as easy/effective, it can't search inside documents, and tagging is really not intuitive. Tagging and searching are the two biggest things I do in Evernote, hence why it doesn't work for me.

Back to the original topic of this thread, I just looked at the Linkedin of the former CEO of Evernote, and this may have been the plan:

Quote

Brought in to reinvigorate and find an exit for a long-standing venture-backed notetaking business originally funded by Sequoia Capital, Morgenthaler, Meritech Capital Partners, and a host of other investors. Revitalized employee morale with a renewed mission and sense of purpose and transformed company culture to enable a multi-year journey to rebuild the product and the company. Replatformed the app, unifying product UX and modernizing tech stack to unlock innovation velocity. Repackaged customer SKUs and leveraged product-led growth strategies to lift ASP and increase conversion rates substantially while preserving world-class subscription renewal rates. Stabilized financials, generated cash flow and built cash reserves while transitioning Evernote out of the niche notetaking segment into the larger productivity market, driving customer satisfaction and increasing community engagement. Evernote was acquired by Bending Spoons S.p.A. in January 2023.

He likely got a nice golden parachute, but also, to his credit, given where Evernote was.

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/evernote-layoffs-moving-to-europe-18190083.php

I still have legacy and like it better, but I also have the v10 on my computer and use it a bit too. Some of the reasons:

- when I boot up Evernote, I need it fast. v10 takes forever to load

- when I want to e-mail notes, I often want to E-mail multiple notes at a time, and v10 can't do that

- neither includes the URL of the note at the bottom anymore, which is eliminated many versions ago. I miss this feature dearly

- when importing folders/notes from a file folder, v10 doesn't delete the attachment

- in 2022, on my work computer, v10 ran into lots of problems pulling up PDF files. Neither this forum nor support could help me.

- in the legacu version, it is easier to get to the list of tags

- I move notes a lot between folders, and I find it easier to do that on the legacy version

- Huge issue on Android -- that Evernote pulls up PDF files it it's own viewer, instead of my viewer

I have both on my computer, and I use them both, but find I gravitate to legacy.

As a user since 2010, I'm disappointed that bugs I've complained about (see my previous posts) not only haven't been fixed, but I get a pretty sorry response from customer service. I have no need for most of the new features, but I did have a need for pasting text from Microsoft Word to come in the right order (I've complained that bulleted text shows up before the regular text). I also am still not over that when you share a note by E-mail, the URL doesn't appear anymore like it used to.

I use OneNote at work and am not happy with it. Too hard to search, and tags are too hard to use.

Luckily, my renewal is May 26, so I have another year at this price. I know everyone is saying price hasn't increased since 2017, but my 2022 price was $5 higher than previously.

Maybe the karma will cause them to end up like LastPass -- worse and worse customer service, raising and raising prices, and they get hacked, poor public relations response, and then every pundit is writing about how you need to leave.

Yes, thank you.  Somehow i got switched to the old version. Back now.

The Highlight button has disappeared from my toolbar in Outlook web. I clip an article, then I want to highlight it....but it is gone. I know this happened like a year a half ago, but this happening to me today, in November 2022. I've included the image of the toolbar below in case someone sees it and can point it out to me.

When Evernote 10 first came out, I created my first task.

I have checked that task as completed so many times, and it keeps unchecking. I've deleted it, and it keeps coming back. I have even changed the task, and it is retorts back to the original task.

It's in the note called, "Things to do".

Does anyone know why this one task won't go away.

I can't remember when Evernote 10 was released, but for me, it still doesn't work as the old Evernote, so I can't get used to it. Especially with PDF files.

1 hour ago, notetakeingguy said:

I have this same problem that Jackar and d0d report. d0d did a good job summarizing it. I too am constantly moving things around when I all I really want to do is scroll. I have Windows 10.

Having only noticed in in Evernote up to this point, but reading people mention other programs, I just noticed I have this same scroll bar too-thin-problem with Outlook 365 web

I have this same problem that Jackar and d0d report. d0d did a good job summarizing it. I too am constantly moving things around when I all I really want to do is scroll. I have Windows 10.

Same problem here. Furthermore, it doesn't let me share it to my PDF reader. Only other apps.