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(Archived) Why IPHONE and not Windows Mobile. We want offline viewing.


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Hello,

I'm happy that Iphone got some new features to its edition of Evernote. I appreciate the work the team of EverNote is doing but I feel left out.

Im a long time user of Windows Mobile and I believe you guys started supporting WM before the Iphone.

I request the Evernote to implement a similar feature in Windows Mobile.

I once again want to thank the team of EverNote for making such a great masterpiece.

Regards

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I will add myself to the thread of each message I find in this sense: I want offline viewing/editing on the WM client. Right now it's a pretty decent tool to capture text/pics/audio and eventually upload it. But that's it!

All the other clients are EXCELLENT. Before them, the WM version is subpar. And I don't think that's what you want for EN.

If I had to boil it down to the minimum requirements, I would say:


  • [*:38kq6vjr]Off-line storage of the notes in the phone. Maybe being able to include/exclude certaing note types and/or notebooks, in order to save space (I would leave my photo/audio heavy notebooks off my phone, for example). And being able to use either phone memory or storage card.
    [*:38kq6vjr]Encryption, of course
    [*:38kq6vjr]Tags, of course.
    [*:38kq6vjr]Rich formatting is NOT a must in this context. I could do without it if I could "read" a formatted, HTML version of the note (or even a plain text one), and edit only plain text, even if I lost the original formatting when editing. Even if could do HTML source code editing, perhaps.

One minor sin I find in the current implementation: I cannot use TABS when capturing text. Odd, but true. Us, indentation-freaks (Python coder, if you were wondering) rely on tabs so much...

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For offline viewing on WM, I recommend setting up your mail client to retrieve your notes via IMAP mail:

http://evernote.com/about/support/imap.php

I've done this with a few of my notebooks, and now I can quickly access my recipes at the store when I forget an ingredient.

Can't seem to get this to work with WM6.1. I got it to log on and download folders...my folder heirarchy shows an Inbox and other typical IMAP folders...but also 2 folders that correspond to my 2 EverNote notebooks. It then says it's downloading headers...and quits...saying it can't download these messages.

Any ideas?

BTW, you know the WM instructions at the link you posted has contradictory information...as to whether the email & server address to use is "m.evernote.com" or "preview.evernote.com"

I do hope this can work as it would be a much better interface for me than the current WM client...since it allows offline viewing (as you indicted)...and I'd really prefer that over the web browser only interface since that requires an Internet connection which I don't always have (airplanes, cell-phone unfriendly office buildings, etc.).

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For offline viewing on WM, I recommend setting up your mail client to retrieve your notes via IMAP mail:

http://evernote.com/about/support/imap.php

I've done this with a few of my notebooks, and now I can quickly access my recipes at the store when I forget an ingredient.

That is an option . . . but if it's not good enough for iPhone users why should it be good enough for the rest of us? :)

Actually, my big problem with this solution is the fact that I have a 4gig Microsd card and would love to be able to take advantage of that via Evernote--but Outlook on WinMo doesn't give you the option to store it out of the internal memory. Now, I could use some external mail client--but if I really wanted to download another app to access Evernote, I'd want it to be... oh... Evernote.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have three questions regarding IMAP use for Evernote on a Windows Mobile 6 smartphone.

First, if I delete (accidentally!) a note on my WM8 smartphone, will that note also be deleted in my other Evernote places?

Second, I only plan to use my notes for reading on my smartphone (at least using the email software.) Am I better off use using POP and not IMAP4 in that case?

Third, can anyone recommend a good WM6 email program for using with Evernote? Is there one that lets me search within emails?

Thanks.

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The IMAP and POP are "read only" views on your account. This means that we ignore any requests to delete a note from a mail client.

The question about whether to use POP or IMAP is largely based on how the mail client on your device handles attachments. IMAP is nice because it has folders, so we can make one virtual folder for each Notebook in your account, so I'd start with this. However, some clients will only grab attachments for messages if you view them online first in IMAP, but will pre-fetch attachments in POP (or vice versa). This means that (e.g.) images may not be available offline until you view the note first. I'd use whichever one pre-fetches attachments on your platform, if you have the choice.

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I'm also having problems with EverNote on iphone when I am using it off-line. Even if I save some note in 'Favourites', after making a slightest change in the note it tries to update all the notes, fails to do it and then everything or half of the updated note disappears. When can we expect to be able to use EverNote off-line on the iphone?

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I'm also having problems with EverNote on iphone when I am using it off-line. Even if I save some note in 'Favourites', after making a slightest change in the note it tries to update all the notes, fails to do it and then everything or half of the updated note disappears. When can we expect to be able to use EverNote off-line on the iphone?

+1 on phantomlv. I also have an iPhone, and the offline feature still needs a lot of work. Until Evernote can be used completely free of an internet connection, specifically with the ability to delete and edit notes before they are synced, I wont be able to fully throw myself at Evernote and it's potential. Im not sure what the iPhone's restrictions are (that could be one of the reasons for lacking functionality), but if there were a way to allow 10 or 20 mb of note storage locally on the iPhone before it needs to be synced, then it would solve my problems. This way, I would be able to take audio, video, pic and text notes with confidence when I dont have an internet connection available.

Good work, and i'll be looking for some of these updates so I can upgrade my storage capacity.

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Me to. I use Evernote and what's the use of it if I need to be online? Internet bills in phone are expensive so we should be able to use a local repository for keeping the notes and syncronize all when we are online with a PC machine. If it was made for the iUseless aka iPhone it should be done for the WM version too.

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  • 1 month later...

What gets me is that in the closed beta, the notes WERE stored locally prior to sync. The feature has just been removed. This is incredibly frustrating, because prior to "launch," I used Evernote constantly. I have a wifi phone and have disabled all the data connectivity features, because in Canada, they are ungodly expensive, and there is never any reason I have to sync immediately. Sadly, my version of WM6 doesn't even come with a free note taking program, only mobile Word, which can only edit, not create a new document.

So, now I've gone from a program that I loved and relied on, that was flexible enough to use in any situation (I particularly like to take reading notes sitting on a park bench or such), to a program I've removed from my phone, since I never use it anymore. How sad-- how do you call a program Ever*note*, and then forget that sometimes people just want to take a simple note...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Cloo: you are right. Not happy with not having offline note access of previous (synced) notes, now we can't even see the unsynced notes. The other day I had to resort to something else to have a note available offline, and later at home, still capture it in EN Mobile so it synced via WiFi. Good they solved the "cannot use anything unless you are connected" issue of the former release, but why this new "feature"?

If I can play a little devil's advocate here, Cloo: do not leave. Maybe you can find an older version and go back to it. I'm sure they will fix this soon, as they've done in the past. I depend on the full system (desktop, wm, sometimes web) so I'm staying. The desktop client keeps getting better and better, and there is also evolution on the WM side.

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Cloo: you are right. Not happy with not having offline note access of previous (synced) notes, now we can't even see the unsynced notes. The other day I had to resort to something else to have a note available offline, and later at home, still capture it in EN Mobile so it synced via WiFi. Good they solved the "cannot use anything unless you are connected" issue of the former release, but why this new "feature"?

If I can play a little devil's advocate here, Cloo: do not leave. Maybe you can find an older version and go back to it. I'm sure they will fix this soon, as they've done in the past. I depend on the full system (desktop, wm, sometimes web) so I'm staying. The desktop client keeps getting better and better, and there is also evolution on the WM side.

There really is development happening. I have to remind myself of that constantly... But it's slow, and seems to be addressing features that aren't important to me (ignoring those of critical importance to me), so I get frustrated. I want note-to-note linking, Automatic Keyword Categories, and a variety of other stuff I've listed multiple times. I'd LOVE offline viewing on my PDA. Seems silly to me not to have it, but since the requirement to get your notes online directly impacts Evernote's revenue model, I don't expect it to change.

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Drew:

I'm not sure I follow you on the revenue model part. To me, it would be the same as with the desktop client: you can always use a native client (phone or PC/Mac) and never ever sync. This way you would have a great, free BUT unconnected app and you would be losing what any hardcore note-taker sooner or later finds out: you WANT to sync.

Eventually, I guess Evernote hopes you find out:

1. You need to sync (not because of the app, but because it's so practical)

2. You need more bandwidth per month (not because of the app, but because you use it THAT much) <- revenue starts here

3. You need to sync your attached files (because it makes so much sense) <- ...or here...

and so on, for each Premium feature. But it all started with a killer app you got for free. Desktop is killer, web (though I don't use it that much) seems pretty cool too. Only mobile clients are substandard (ouch!) right now among the family.

I don't really see why would Evernote want us connected all the time with our phones. I mean, they are not carriers who would benefit from the data-transfer fee, and many phones are WiFi enabled anyway. The comments that they have answered on the forum are more in the sense of "building each client takes a lot of work and we are too few to do it fast", which makes some sense, if you think about it. (Maybe the recent funding will help with that).

But maybe I am missing something you are seeing...

BTW: I also want note linking!

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This still doesn't explain why the option not to sync immediately was removed as a feature, thereby rendering the entire mobile application useless anywhere you are without a network. Which, to be frank, is most places.

I suppose my concern is slightly different than "offline viewing"-- more that the app doesn't even work without a network. Not being able to create even a PENDING note without connectivity is maddening.

I should note though, that while the mobile app is pretty much useless, I do still use the web app (hell, I can even pull that up in a browser with about the same level of mobile functionality). I've just had to buy a separate notetaking app, and just email everything in.

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I'd just like to make sure my vote gets added to this thread.

I think the fact the WinMo app doesn't do offline synching is plain old ridiculous.

It take EverNote from the answer to all my prayers to a little useless.

Note I would pay for a working synching win mo app. I wouldn't pay for more disk space (I probably won't need it).

There no worrying about the amount of bandwidth I'd use for photos. Just give me the option to not synch them!

Is there an evernote api one could use to build my own useful client?

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This is a bit more than a 'feature' ... implementing full offline synchronization of your entire account would take several times as much effort as it took to implement the current WM client. So we haven't announced any dates for implementing this, but it won't be appearing in the near future.

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That's a big disappointment. I actually bought a T-Mobile Dash (WM 6) and signed up for service with them just to be able to use Evernote on the subway in NYC, where there is no cell reception. A 4 gig MicroSD card is a lot bigger than my current EN database, so I thought I was all set. The IMAP option doesn't seem to be working for me because I can't get it to open JPG files (although PDFs and regular text are fine), but it does sync nicely.

I'll be returning that phone and canceling service with T-Mobile sometime this week.

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Evernote team: I am back again at the offline-viewing issue, with a (arguably) fast-to-implement fix while we wait for actual online/offline mobile clients: RSS. We already have a feed for each public notebook. I don't love the idea of sharing every notebook so I get every feed. Besides, they are indexed by robots. I want my notes to remain private unless I specifically want to share them. Anyway, I am sharing one and testing the results.

If you could implement a (authenticated) feed available for every notebook, it might yield interesting results. Better yet, a tiny RSS API. You already seem to have something for the public notebooks:

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/pub/11 ... =2&search=

For the URL I guess there is already:

* notebook

* max

* sort

* search, which BTW seems to support search=tag:TAG_NAME (well, tag%3ATAG_NAME)

So, i if you could:

* make "notebook" optional, so you could have a feed from "any notebook" if the parm is missing.

* maybe an option to exclude images/attachments/audio, to get lighter downloads

Something like:

http://www.evernote.com/rss/INSERT_USER ... nts=0_OR_1

IMAP is impossible to navigate with my 1000+ notes (and 50+ tags) on my HTC Excalibur. Some carefully crafted feeds and a decent feed reader could do an acceptable (though read-only) alternative in the meanwhile. I use mDigger for my feed reading, and Yomomedia is nice, too, and both could make for better (Ever)note readers than Pocket Outlook or QMail.

Think about it: we the people get off your backs for a while with the offline issue, and IMHO the development of such a thing should not be THAT time-consuming. Besides, almost every web app out there seems to include RSS: RTM, Google , Yahoo , Flickr, Hiveminder, you name it. Of course you already provide an RSS feed, but I had to jump through some hoops to find it, and it only works for public notes.

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  • 1 month later...

THis is my first post !!!!!

I was planning to get a subscription but now keeping away as offline viewing is so important for me.. I found that in iphone and its really helpful...

Hopefully it will be implemented soon

GOpa

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Was taking some notes on a building site with poor reception and felt the create/edit while offline could do with some improvement.

.

It feels like i've left 3/4 of my brain in the cloud and the other 1/4 on my pc desktop local notebooks

.

back to windows mobile office ? ouch

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I really have to go back to this point -

It comes down to bandwidth and storage. When you have a large database (and, think about it - a Premium user can upload 500MB a month), that's a potential 500MB of data for every month you're a member (even if you drop down to Free, that stuff is still stored.) We've got people with multiple GB databases. Many people.

So, say you've got even a "Reasonable" 2.5GB database that you want stored offline on your iPhone. That's a LONG download over 3G, or EDGE. And with bandwidth caps by AT&T, Sprint and Verizon of 5GB a month with their data plans in the US (3GB for Telcel!), you're going to hit your cap pretty quick and get stuck with overages. Just to download your database.

Ok, right, so you got around that by downloading it over Wi-Fi. Well, great. now you've got 2.5GB of *stuff* sitting on a storage card on your WM phone, or on your iPhone, and no real way to sift through it, because the memory on your phone isn't built for dealing with files this large (unless you live in Japan. In which case you're 12 years ahead of us technology-wise and should not even be in this discussion because we're all so primitive that you don't even speak the same, um, language :) )

Our API has been released. You're welcome to develop something to try to open an Evernote database file on a WM device (if you transfer it there from your computer.) But transferring your entire database over Cell Towers isn't going to happen anytime soon.

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But transferring your entire database over Cell Towers isn't going to happen anytime soon.

What about text only? And/or just selected notebooks?

I doubt a user with a 2.5GB database is using up even 30% of that space with text. Why not strip out the images and attachments?

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I've started using EN yesterday. And I was pretty surprised by the way it works.

But today, I was really disappointed that it wasn't possible to take notes, when not connected.

I followed this discussion, but I'm not certain what the reason is for this.

Why not make a application for WM6 that lets you take notes all the time, and syncs them when you want the way you want.

It would be a great help for me....

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+1

And the other note taking app - Microsoft OneNote - has a nice implementation in WM phones. At the risk of discussing the obvious, with their Office 14 release which can live on the web plus their superior inking capabilities, you are running into bigger competition...Hopefully you have this feature resolved by then...

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I too am waiting for offline access in windows mobile; viewing at the very least if not editing. If as it sounds, there is little enthusiasm for it from the EverNote staff than I am quite disappointed. I've paid for a year subscription. I've enthusiastically showed EN to many colleagues, at least one of whom has also bought a year subscription and is telling other colleagues about it. I've bet that offline note viewing for the Windows Mobile platform, at the least would be available within a few months. (and dear iPhone folks, sorry, iPhones don't work where my wife and I do) If not, than sad to say I will reluctantly start looking for yet another solution. I really do like EverNote. The multiplatform approach, easy clipping, cloud/sync model. However, I would not be surprised if soon other note program vendors, such as Phatwhare (Phatnote) get a cloud side, then I may go reluctantly go back.

I can see the arguments from heather above, but as already pointed out, these can be worked around with user selected parameters for throttling when not on wifi or usb connection, which notebooks get offline support, user tips to minimize database size for offline notes etc. I'm a physician with about 2200 notes accumulated over the last fifteen plus years including hundreds of medical images and my database size is just over 50 meg TOTAL. Only 1800 or so notes are from my medical reference notebook. In addition to EN, I store several medical reference textbooks on a memory card as well. I take care when grabbing images to size them down so as not to waste memory and other steps to avoid wasting card memory. I don't load full size Xray or CT data sets and do not store any patient data. I suspect the people wanting offline use would be happy to do this. Look where we are going. iPhones have 8 or 16 GIG. MicroSD have 16 G cheaply now. The processors and screens in the handhelds are getting faster and better but the connection can never be trusted for mission critical work.

EN is shooting itself in the foot to ignore this as offline viewing changes EN from really a toy to a serious professional's tool. Frankly, much of what EN seems to be focusing on is more 'Gee its cool and wow look what we can do' vs more basic functions that really get real work done. Honestly text and some small inline images go a long way for serious work. Yes, the integration of text recognition, easy image capture, web clipping, picture text indexing is all nice but if you can't access it when you really need it, what good is it.

One can't trust the web to be there and many people believe it or not are in areas without service fairly often. Wait until the earthquake, hurricane, power failure or whatever hits or you are in the field and you have NO access to any of your notes. Now perhaps EN staff imagines that their customers will just sit next to the candle waiting for someone get everything working, but for those of us who have to actually function at full capacity under those conditions, having the ability to reference the data we have accumulated day by day to help with our jobs that is too new for textbooks (if those even will exist for much longer) is pretty d.mned useful. EN with offline viewing would be a great first responder, medical professional, field work etc tool. The key is the syncing from the handheld to the cloud since most other note takers have the PDA tied to just one or two full scale computers rather than essentially an unlimited number.

I think having the offline viewing available to the paying subscribers would be quite a reasonable way to go. I would pay for just viewing ability. Yes, editing would be nice but I much prefer editing on the desktop or laptop; certainly that could be later feature. For others, the offline editing likely will be important but I understand you have limited staff. I suspect one of the real issues is perhaps you contract out your Windows Mobile programming.

Fortunately I still have my set of Phatnotes, even though they are slowly drifting out of date. It has been alot of work porting over to EN but I could go back if I had to.

Oh and by the way, telling a customer who is actually taking the time to try and help you improve your product to 'use the API and write the application themselves' is quite poor form from a customer relation stand point. IF we did not like the product and want to see it survive and do well so we can continue to use it we would just drop it and go elsewhere. Very dangerous attitude for a company barely a year old still surviving on VC funding folks. If you think your major customers are programmers, then you better get ready for unemployment.

SO, finally, excuse my tone, I write bluntly and directly an mean no disrespect. I think you have a great product with even greater potential. I just wish to see it get that little bit more that will add a tremendous amount of utility.

cheers

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Thanks, amgalitz, for one of the most useful and stimulating recent posts on this forum. I had never considered before the possible uses of Evernote in natural disasters, and I can see why you are distressed by the lack of local data on mobile devices.

I have a similar problem with my iPod. I'm a scholar and spend quite a bit of time in libraries taking notes. Generally I carry my laptop to a library, especially if I'm planning to be there for several hours, but sometimes I dash into a library for just a short time to check a few references. In those cases it would be wonderful to be able to bring along my iPod and consult my EN files quickly if I need to; but not all libraries have wi-fi, so often it's out of the question for me to go to a library sans laptop. Like you, I don't worry too much about the difficulties of taking notes on a mobile device (I don't like typing on an iPod), but I want to be able to consult my notes rapidly when I'm not near a wi-fi signal. I wish the EN management would give priority to that goal.

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wsp, thanks for the support!

I did not expect to get proven right so quickly but:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/10/MNJB170JM7.DTL

"Authorities hope a quarter-million-dollar reward will shake loose a tipster to lead them to the vandals who severed underground fiber-optic cables, cutting off phone service for tens of thousands of people and disrupting life throughout southern Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Benito counties..."

"...The sabotage crippled parts of the three counties. Public safety crews that rely on 911 calls, hospitals trying to access medical records and people who wanted to make a landline or cell phone call, use an ATM or make a purchase with a credit card found services down. Repairs were completed, and full service was restored early Friday, about 24 hours after the first problems were reported..."

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Actually, that outage didn't affect the Evernote servers at all.

However, the "pipes" to Evernote, depending on which internet service you use, may have been slower. If you use a DNS service that updates more frequently, you should have been fine. If you use one that only updates every few hours, or daily, then you may have experienced an outage.

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Actually, that outage didn't affect the Evernote servers at all.

However, the "pipes" to Evernote, depending on which internet service you use, may have been slower.

You kind of missed my point. If one's cell service was out, no matter that Evernote Servers were up, one could not use Evernote notes on a mobile that lacked offline viewing, period. Again, many of us must work when cell phones don't. Where my wife was working, most everything was out. People lost both landlines and cell so internet was out too. You can't wish or talk away this problem.

Another case in point, I've tried to use Evernote on the web a few times and found it down for maintennance. Not a problem if working on a client with offline viewing, but with WinMobile that is a problem.

I looked at the relative coverage of AT&T vs Versizon for broadband and once you leave the major cities, AT&T is quite non-existent. Perhaps that is why you all have given priority to iPhone offline viewing. My wife's bank (large international commercial bank), dropped iPhones for this reason.

Come September I will be doing medical volunteering where nothing but mobile radio works: no cell, no reliable satellite (frequent dust storms) hence no reliable internet. It would be nice to be able to use my EN files but sounds like I won't be able to (sigh). I just purchased a large reference that will run off a memory card so I can squeak by, but it is nice having ones own pearls of wisdom accumulated over the years that somehow haven't made it into the textbooks. If this situation continues through next year, then likely it will be bye to EN.

If you are looking for beta testers of a WinMobile with offline viewing let me know.

cheers

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've just fallen in and out of love with Evernote within the course of about 10 minutes.

I know Heather has already said "We hear you..." earlier in this thread but I'd like to add my voice to those looking for offline viewing. I thought that I'd found a great solution for my requirements with Evernote but I'm afraid that for me I've now discovered that it's not a solution at all in its current form.

I absolutely need offline viewing. I really only have a smartphone because I had to admit a couple of years ago that, with the decline of standalone PDAs, the only way to update my PDA was to get a smartphone. I consider that what I carry in my pocket is a PDA and that the phone part of it is only there as a very occasionally useful passenger. I have my device locked to the GSM network rather than 3G (to maximise battery life) and try to initiate data connections as infrequently as possible. Having Evernote initiate a data connection whenever I start it up is most definitely not the way I want to work.

I haven't got an iPhone to play with but from what I hear there is a solution on the iPhone by marking notes as favorites to get them cached locally. I would be perfectly happy with this as a solution, provided that this also prevents the Evernote mobile client from trying to connect when the application is started up and that the mobile client would only ever connect to the network either when an un-cached note is accessed or if the user manually initiates a sync.

I need one more thing beyond just offline viewing. I'd like the ability to create notes on my device (for me just text notes would be fine) and have them stay local until I explicitly initiate a sync (which in my case I'd only do when the device is cradled so an option to automatically initiate a sync on the Windows Mobile client when a cradle connection is detected would be a nice final touch).

- Julian

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  • 4 weeks later...

If we can't get the ability to store our notes on our devices, how about fixing up the HTML export feature so the output is easier to use??? Maybe an index by category and then an index of the notes? It's not perfect, but it's better then not being able to get to our notes at all.

Grinch843......

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  • 2 months later...

I don't mean to turn this into an OS battle, but I have to get this irony off my chest. Before iPhone, it was all about Windows PCs and Macintosh, and when nearly EVERY company in the world catered to the PC, all the Windows users just sat back and laughed. When Mac users complained about the lack of support, they were met with Windows Zealots telling them, "Get with the times", "The world runs on WIndows", "Nobody uses Mac".

Now that the iPhone is the in the top 3 selling phones and Windows Mobile devices are the last thing anyone is buying these days, we start hearing the WM Zealots whining like the Mac users use to do about the lack of support. "Why does iPhone get it but we don't... we are the rulers of the world... everything runs on Microsoft... I don't get it... how can this be."

Well, all I have to say is... Have fun eating your humble pie!

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If we can't get the ability to store our notes on our devices, how about fixing up the HTML export feature so the output is easier to use??? Maybe an index by category and then an index of the notes? It's not perfect, but it's better then not being able to get to our notes at all.

Grinch843......

Have you listened to Evernote's latest blogcast? To me, after listening to the blogcast, I was left with the definite impression that we are going to get the ability to store our notes on our devices.

- Julian

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  • 5 weeks later...

thx to amglalitz and all

Agree w most of it.

The "killer feature" is offline storage on a mobil phone. That means, for the first time, that you have all your important data with you everytime on every place. A Vision comes true.

Better would be to implement and connect a data chip in your brain. But for now.. it is a good start to have all the knowlegde in the pocket on the phone... with evernote :-)

It is a mankind dream.. do it!

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