Does Evernote actually ever implement General Feature Requests?

[mikefinleyco 52]

Wondering if Evernote ever actually implements any user general feature requests? Looking at the list, it looks like one of the most popular feature requests has been there for over 11 years!!!

The top 5 look like they have been requested almost weekly for the last 7 years!!! That's pretty mind-blowing and depressing to see them ignore items requested over and over again for over a decade. Why even ask?

Seems one of the best ways to improve your product in the markeplace is to implement features the users are requesting, especially for 11 years. What type of message does the company send to it's users by asking for improvements and then ignoring them, seems almost diabolical. Seems it would only be logical and a no-brainer for them to be working on the top 5 every year.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, mikefinleyco said:

Wondering if Evernote ever actually implements any user general feature requests?

Yes, and supposedly request-votes are a factor in prioritization.    I suspect it's a small factor.  

>>That's pretty mind-blowing and depressing to see them ignore items requested over and over again

Ignored???

>>Why even ask?

I post feature requests and add my vote because this is the process.  I recognize Evernote is under no obligation to implement these features, and has other priorities. 

I'm not into the 'Boohoo, Evernote's so bad' posts

>>Seems it would only be logical and a no-brainer for them to be working on the top 5 every year.

There's a story about Henry Ford ignoring customer requests - they wanted faster horses

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, mikefinleyco said:

The top 5 look like they have been requested almost weekly for the last 7 years!!! That's pretty mind-blowing and depressing to see them ignore items requested over and over again for over a decade. Why even ask?

As far as I can tell,  they implement the ones that make sense for their vision of the product, and based on feasibility. This is much like what other software development companies do. The one I work for does, anyways.

[mikefinleyco 52]

So the answer is no then. That's really too bad. What a waste of everybody's time.

It paints them like the small business that empties the suggestion box into the trash whenever it gets full to make room for more suggestions.

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, mikefinleyco said:

So the answer is no then. That's really too bad. What a waste of everybody's time.

It paints them like the small business that empties the suggestion box into the trash whenever it gets full to make room for more suggestions.

Evernote have 250M users.  That's not a small business.  And  they have adopted a variety of requests and suggestions - which often then produce complaints from users who didn't want their experience changed.

 

[jefito 5,589]

2 hours ago, mikefinleyco said:

So the answer is no then. That's really too bad. What a waste of everybody's time.

It paints them like the small business that empties the suggestion box into the trash whenever it gets full to make room for more suggestions.

The answer is not "no", and I never said it was. They do implement user suggestions, but they haven't chosen to implement some of the most popular ones, for whatever reasons. Note that the suggestions are still here, undeleted, and you can still comment on them, upvote them, whatever, so your analogy isn't quite on target. Right now they're in a phase where they're not really rolling out new features so much as reworking their foundation for the future. That's slated to last several more months, per the CEO's posts, if I recall correctly, then we'll see what direction they take things.

[mikefinleyco 52]

Double fan boy responses of nonsense. You guys should apply for jobs. 18K and 25K posts troll status has been achieved. 🙄

[ripwit 18]

Something smells in Denmark, maybe it's fine Danish Blue...

I've tried a couple of the betas in the last two years but they were so incomplete that I couldn't use them in a meaningful way - and if you want good beta testing the products have to be a lot closer to usable.

Over the last 3-5 years I've made a few suggestions for general usability (not big feature asks) and have not seen any progress. Some of the "guru" respondents seem to be more apologists for the (dis)organization.

It's really too bad since EN iswas in such a good place on the platforms (except Linux). I'm slowly moving my .enex (10K++) notes to other products since too many eggs in one fragile basket is not a good idea.

 

[DTLow 5,736]

30 minutes ago, ripwit said:

I'm slowly moving my .enex (10K++) notes to other products since too many eggs in one fragile basket is not a good idea.

Which products?

No concerns about my "eggs" since it's easy to access my data via solid backups if there are Evernote issues.

[ripwit 18]

I've tried a few other apps that give me some things that EN doesn't, but none that supply the "semi" complete environment that EN is capable of.

I backup my data via ENEX and HTML and then index it with Lucene tools (Docfetcher is a good one for dealing with PDF attachments, etc.)

Recently I've been experimenting with Joplin and using SyncThing to move the notebooks between different Windows/Linux/Android platforms.

Not that you asked, but I came from a long history of "todo" apps: PCOutline(PCO) a TSR in MSDOS, Ecco (the best), Polaris/Packrat, etc. My goal is to have a universally accessible (web?) app with encryption and superb text editing. For my purposes an underlying _markdown might be sufficient except for linked images/etc.

I don't get on the forum very often, just to vent, but I have enjoyed your comments/rejoinders. What is your feeling about using EN for the next 1 and next 5 years?

 

[DTLow 5,736]

30 minutes ago, ripwit said:

What is your feeling about using EN for the next 1 and next 5 years?

In the short-run, I'm comfortable using Evernote
I use the Evernote editor for basic notes, external editors for serious work.  
For example, I use Apple pages for word processing, Typora for markdown
I store the documents in Evernote as note attachment files
I see this continuing for the next 1-5 years

In the long-run, we all die

[ripwit 18]

That's where I am at, also - EN is a good tool, could be better - but I haven't found something that makes me want to jump ship yet.

 

Since more of my work is in Linux, I actually keep a W10 VM alive to make and view notes. Strange world but still a good one.