(Archived) Trunk - it's a bit of a rubbish update really..

[Metrodon 2,184]

I'm a regular visitor to these boards and a long time EN user and a premium user, so you could say I'm an EN fan.

I have never seen anyone say "what we really need is an app store for EN" - this product will really suck till we get one.

I've seen lots of people asking for long standing problems with syncing and text editing to be fixed, or for shared notebooks to work across all the clients or even nested folders (never gonna happen!!).

This update lets me add a notebook of Ron's EN tips - brilliant! I could use the rather handy EN clipper and grab those myself if I wanted to. Oh, it let's me find related iPhone apps too, you know I can just type Evernote into the app store and find these.

Why could they not just have a decent partner page on the website rather than spending what I'm assuming are fairly tight development dollars on something like this?

Unless, this kind of thing is very popular in Japan and so is being driven by what appears to be a lucrative new market for them.

Dave is great at coming on here and answering techie questions - I wonder if Sinkov or Libbin will make themselves available to talk about Trunk as maybe I'm missing the point and they can explain it to me.?

[jbenson2 2,147]

I think the link is a great addition. It shows the power of Evernote and will undoubtedly drive 3rd party developers to create new programs to address the hundreds of forum requests for more exotic requirements such as: E-book / Kindle reader, PhotoShop editing tools, Military Level Security, mind mapper, offsite backup, Livescribe clone, web hosting service, etc.

[rickcb 2]

I have to agree that Trunk turned out to be something of an anticlimax. The idea is sound but the way it was hyped as a 'major announcement' was way over the top. I have tried one of the iPhone apps listed in Trunk as working with EN and found that it doesn't. By all means present services like Trunk, just don't pretend to users that they're going to change dramatically how they use EN.

[charlali 6]

I like the trunk,but I think that Evernote should try out the parts of the apps that relate to Evernote thoroughly. I bought the Awesome note app after seeing it on the Evernote website and have just posted the following review on the iTunes App store because it just behaves weirdly with Evernote synchronisation:

I am really torn about this app. On the one hand, it's a beautiful app with lots of functionality that works really well - stand-alone. Synchronisation however, just doesn't work properly - even with Evernote and individual support is just non-existent. The synch behaviour is weird. Synchronise with Evernote and your notes will appear in both apps. Synchronise next time and they will all disappear from Awesomenote. This is a real pain if you have set ToDos with future dates on. Also, if, like me, you are a heavy user of Evernote and you try to import notes, you will see notes from previous years (with no year against the date) but not your recent notes and no choice of notebook to import from. Any other Evernote users had this problem? I've tried re-downloading the app and clearing all of my notes and Anote notebooks.

[crane 40]

Re awsomenote - I had the same problem a couple of months ago. First sync worked, second sync killed everything in my AwesomeNote. I tried deleting the app, resetting, etc. etc. I contacted the developer and was basically told that I was the only user that had that problem. He's updated the app a couple of times and I always try again, but it continues to fail.

Waste of money, as far as I'm concerned. I have better luck with Egretlist, but I tend to just not use and EN stuff on my ipod Touch. I put the stuff I need into SimpleNote.

[Smorris 0]

I have to agree that this "update" is a big disappointment. I've posted the following on the blog, but as I've had a couple posts not approved due to related asking for mobile security features, I expect this one to be rejected as well.

I have to agree that the hype was way more than the resultant update. Big disappointment. Go back and look through the guesses we made in the teaser announcement. There were many excellent and really needed ideas in there. I don’t recall one poster asking to have the “works with Evernote” ads from the webpage added to the application itself. Absolutely nothing offered with this is useful to me. I want several of these features built into Evernote, not the need to buy or add another application that might work with my mobile but not sync with my desktop.

Evernote has been growing and improving so much this past year, and I took advantage of the rebate deal with the ScanSnap to upgrade to Premium. I’m glad it was basically a free upgrade, because I keep seeing the same requests over and over on the blogs and forums, only to have them ignored, deleted, or put down as not needed because partners have them. ( I personally have had posts deleted from this blog when requesting password security on the iPad/iPod version of Evernote.)

Please go back and read the teaser blog post replies. That’s what we want in Evernote. Seems security, Dropbox integration, rich text editing, and subfolders top the list, not more advertising in Evernote.

[Metrodon 2,184]

Even better, so the stuff in Trunk hasn't necessarily been tested either.

Fab!

[engberg 89]

There's some more information here:

viewtopic.php?f=53&t=17574#p71050

Everyone has their list of things that they'd like to see in Evernote, and those lists are different for every user. This means that every time we announce anything, it won't happen to be the #1 desire of 80-90% of Evernote users. But we have a lot of projects going on and they progress in parallel, so if we (for example), we announce "Evernote has an iPad application", there's no need to assume that we aren't doing any work on the Android platform and post "OMG Evernote doesn't care about Android!" on the forums and blog comments.

If you don't personally see any use for the products that we showcase in the Trunk, then feel free to ignore that button and wait for the next announcement.

Thanks

[Metrodon 2,184]

Dave - I think what has annoyed people (or me at least) is the way that this update was publicised ahead of time. I was almost expecting the second coming and an awesome one at that.

In the end, it's just advertising - which is fine but it doesn't look a lot like jesus (Copyright - The Killers).

I wonder - have you ever had such a negative response to an update? I don't remember seeing one.

[engberg 89]

Yeah, out of our 3.7 million users, we do usually get 20+ people complaining about every announcement ... usually because it wasn't the one thing they really wanted. E.g.:

We update the iPhone app for OS4, see complaints about Android, Pre, etc. http://blog.evernote.com/2010/06/19/eve ... 4-is-here/

We update the Windows client to include the popular "hide unassigned tags" feature, and people complain that we didn't release inter-note links, Linux, subfolders, etc.: http://blog.evernote.com/2010/06/03/eve ... -update-3/

Basically, every feature announcement will always generate a moderate number of complaints just due to the law of averages when you have 3.7 million customers. So we appreciate the feedback, but also process it with a thick skin (and a grain of salt).

Regarding how this was publicized: we felt like this was an interesting development for a technology company like ours, and the feedback from the technology press seemed to validate that. Implementing some narrow feature like "inter-note links" would never rise to that bar with journalists. I.e. companies add internal features all the time (see: hide unassigned tags), so that's only minor news. This was more newsworthy due to what it says about our relationship with partners, etc.

[Francisbacon 0]

Implementing some narrow feature like "inter-note links" would never rise to that bar with journalists.

Inter-note linking is probably one of the least "narrow" of the potential upgrades. I understand you're trying to express a point, however, your example is not the best; it is not narrow within the scope of Evernote. Being able to connect notes to one another through hyperlinks would be an upgrade that would certainly change how people perceive the notes they create. Personally, it would change my perception of Evernote far more than the trunk has. I understand it's not as news worthy, though.

I hope that in the future great product connections are formed as a result of the trunk, and I'm sure in the future it will change how I can use Evernote, however, I'm just going to put my vote in for inter-note linking as the next upgrade. If you're looking for large shifts in core functionality that are at least more news worthy than others inter-note linking is definitely one.

[engberg 89]

I'm not saying that "inter-note links" is a bad feature. If we added a way to right-click on a note header to copy a hyperlink into the clipboard, and then paste that into a second note to make a link that will open the first note when clicked ... that would be a nice and useful feature. But it wouldn't get major write-ups the next day from

Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/5588232/five-serv ... e=true&s=i

PC World http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/a ... vices.html

Wired http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/evernote-trunk/

CNet http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-20010560-2.html

Financial Times http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2010/07/ev ... ith-trunk/

etc... (search news.google.com for more)

Obviously, we add features all the time that don't get major press coverage, and we announce those appropriately via our blog, release notes, etc.

But the Trunk says something a little more interesting about Evernote as a company, and that's the reason we handled the announcement about this particular change the way we did. But, obviously, not every announcement from every company is going to be about something that's personally useful or exciting to every customer. I follow OS X announcements from Apple (because I have a MacBook) and ignore iPod ones without getting upset.

Thanks

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Financial Times http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2010/07/ev ... ith-trunk/

"Evernote’s plans are ambitious - it also wants to be on every kind of device that can be touched, from computers and phones to TVs, cars and refrigerators."

Whoa. :shock:

(Wondering how much that elephant eats & if it will fit in my car.)

(Emphasis mine.)

[engberg 89]

Hrm. Phil hasn't come over to divulge our secret refrigerator plans to me yet.

[jefito 5,589]

My toaster is craving some Evernote love...

~Jeff

[JustDave 0]

It's just another app store. Some apps are free and some aren't. No big deal.

[engberg 89]

Yeah, I don't think "app store" is quite the right fit, since there are a bunch of things in there that aren't apps (e.g. a Lexmark printer or various notebooks of stuff for your account), and we aren't actually selling anything (ergo, not really a store).

I think that TechCrunch had a more accurate description by calling it a "showcase of Evernote-enabled products."

[JustDave 0]

Some of the "apps" are for sale. Evernote may not be selling them but they are being sold through an Evernote conduit. A minor point perhaps and certainly not a big deal but lets not get lost in the hype.

[engberg 89]

Yes, we are giving a list of products that work with Evernote. Some of those products cost money, and you can go to a store and buy them if you like. Although if those scanners and printers were all free, then my Christmas shopping would be done early this year.

[cbelanger 0]

First of all, thanks Dave for participating so actively in the discussion. It's understandable that the Evernote team would be please with the publicity plan given the good response and of course you are right that the typical update does not get the same response.

The issue here for users is that the publicity implied a whole new way to use Evernote and the results do not really fulfill that. It's a new way to access existing features and add-ons but correct me if I'm wrong but there is nothing i can do with Evernote today that i couldn't do last week. It is a nice feature though, just not what it was billed as.

It would have been better to hint at the announcement in the publicity "a whole new relationship with our partners" or "a whole new way to users to access new content" or whatever flowery marketing language you would come up with. If so, i think that today you have happy users commenting on a nice new feature rather than disappointed.

That said I'm sure it will be good for Evernote - nice integration, more users from the publicity and more companies looking to integrate with ever note as well.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Although if those scanners and printers were all free, then my Christmas shopping would be done early this year.

And I'd need a bigger office.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

The issue here for users is that the publicity implied a whole new way to use Evernote and the results do not really fulfill that. It's a new way to access existing features and add-ons but correct me if I'm wrong but there is nothing i can do with Evernote today that i couldn't do last week.

I've not seen all the hype on this (nor do I really care to), but going to the Noteworthy Blog, it states:

"Something that will change the way you interact with Evernote,"

...which I think is appropriate.