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Evernote for iOS 7


gbarry

Idea

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  • Level 5

Please quote where I said it was onerous? (and while we're at it, perhaps not quote all the paragraphs you aren't actually replying to)

I don't know why they didn't put a pull to sync like mail in the client. I'm agnostic on it.

I merely take my cues and presume they're confident that for the significant use case, it's not needed.

So I adapt to how the app is actually running and live in it.

For me and my use cases, it seems to bear out the devs intent.

It's in fact not needed by me.

I can "take control" with everything they've already put into the app.

Be wary of when you're a hammer, every problem looking like a nail.

Not every data issue needs a manual sync button.

Look at Apple's other apps. Or other icloud sync apps. How many of them have a sync button?

Lots just do it when they need it, in the background.

Look at Pages/Numbers/Keynote, reminders

No sync control at all. It's real-time and responsive to user activity.

For that matter, even Dropbox on my ipad, if it has a sync control, it's completely eluding me.

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  • Level 5*

If it were safe and sound I wouldn't be losing data. For actual user data, please see my earlier posts. The best way I know of protecting myself against note conflicts and lost data is to take control of the sync. I've learned this through bitter experience. If swiping down to sync is so onerous and unnecessary in iOS 7, I wonder why Apple has it in their Mail app. The feature adds no more clutter to the UI. In fact, it would even remove it, because you wouldn't need the button in the settings. You can avoid swiping down if the feature bothers you. I think we will have to agree to disagree here. Thanks for talking this through with me.

I agree that some form of manual sync needs to be easily accessible. Previous versions of EN for iOS were pretty agressive about syncing changes - with each saved note, it would sync. With the new version, I've seen it sit there a few minutes after hitting "close" on a note and nothing. This is not good IMHO, especially on a mobile device, because you expect to take out your phone, make a change, and put the phone in your pocket and be confident the change is in the cloud.  Now I have to sync manually. While I would MUCH prefer the old way to come back of aggressive change syncing, in lieu of that, an easy way to manually sync would be nice.

 

Pull to refresh would be perfect. Every iOS user gets that gesture.

 

By the way, I was on a train last weekend with no WiFi and made changes (mostly notebook and tag changes, some content changes) on my iPad to over 70 notes. When I got to a WiFi area, they all sync'd just fine, so the iOS client seems to be pretty robust in that way when a signal isn't available.

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  • Level 5*

 

Quotes from CEO Phil Libin in video:

  1. "... we wanted to make it clean, fast, simple, and powerful."

  2. "Evernote 7 is the most advanced, modern version of Evernote we've ever built".

 

Dear Phil, all I can say is REALLY????

 

Have you actually used the V7 in the real world for anything more complicated that jotting down a note or two???

How can V7 possibly be "powerful" and "the most advanced" ever???

 

Out of 6 pages, 102 replies, I think there are only 3 that thought V7 was really good, and even they had a list of complaints.

 

And then, to release it with so many bugs -- unbelievable!

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Pull to refresh would be perfect. Every iOS user gets that gesture.

Yes - this would be excellent - I feel strongly that an easy-to-use manual sync is necessary. Over the w/e, I had my 1st data loss. Thankfully, it was only a few lines. I don't know what happened & I was unable to duplicate it.

 

In general, I am quite happy with the upgrade (even though I'm usually in the camp of 'If it's not broke - leave it alone'). Hopefully, the decision-makers will listen to our requests & make the changes.

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  • Level 5

With the new version, I've seen it sit there a few minutes after hitting "close" on a note and nothing. This is not good IMHO, especially on a mobile device, because you expect to take out your phone, make a change, and put the phone in your pocket and be confident the change is in the cloud.

I think we need to be careful on that and test/check changes on the web or other clients and/or the activity log in Settings.

It puts a lot of faith in the network, and Apple's use of it (very prone to glitches that need resolving with cycling airplane mode/rebooting occasionally etc). Both are far from 100% and EN can't do a thing if either of those get in the way.  

 

We need to remember that our EN client isn't directly connected to Evernote servers.  There's a mobile OS and a freaking complex network inbetween us and them.  And the moment we don't as Loius CK says "give it a second, it's going to space!", before getting EN support on the horn, it might be decent to do a network traceroute and see how many packets might be dropping along the way (we don't really think Verizon/AT&T/Sprint are 100% on every tower, every minute right?).  And even the EN servers themselves can be under momentary loads.  We know they're prone to attack, and also for other load based ill's.  Google around and it's eyeopening to see lots of different things like: https://www.projecthoneypot.org/ip_212.92.35.34  Sort of makes me want to sit down, as with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate and sift through some of the content loads and use cases EN has to bear, along with my sync impatience.

Plus I've thought I might be seeing a non-sync on occasion and tested hard to see that sometimes that sync indicator really is very fleeting and missable. Especially on iphone 5.x class devices when on LTE vs WiFi (it's quite a game change now when typical mobile LTE bandwidth is faster than typical WiFi/broadband bandwidth). A paragraph of text should sync faster than you can see.

I've really hit the sync issue pretty hard in side by side desktop/mobile testing before posting, to confirm the comments were grounded. And at least on my networks and clients, the bill of sale on these EN goods is pretty fair. Seems to me there are better feature/UI drums to bang on, or at least lower hanging fruit. To the point that I have a difficulty seeing it as systemic, rather than something individual cases should be pursing with their network suppliers and/or EN support for account/shard/GUID level issues.  Or not.  Most often the SLA's involved here are "best effort".

 

Now I have to sync manually. While I would MUCH prefer the old way to come back of aggressive change syncing, in lieu of that, an easy way to manually sync would be nice.

Reminder again, you do have a least four. V6/ios6 didn't seem to have the same quick sync on refocus (as with swiping down and away, the notification list).  So that's a v7 feature you have now, that you didn't before.  (as part of the exchange in removing the sync control was 2 taps away in v6 that is now 3 taps away).

 

Pull to refresh would be perfect. Every iOS user gets that gesture.

That might be hyperbole. I've bumped into more than a few who didn't know that. Moreover they were prone to be irritated that a manual intervention was needed to re-check. I think we may easily forget just how simple things need to be for the "AOL set". And there's a union of those people, with iphone and to a lessor extent Evernote usage.  They're never going to use or want to see manual junk hanging all over the place for the power users.

Apple has done a lot more study on the end user use cases than we have. I think it behooves developers to follow their lead more often than not, and it behooves us to cut the devs some slack when they do.

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  • Level 5*

They're never going to use or want to see manual junk hanging all over the place for the power users.

It is pull down to sync, so there is nothing to see. It's there if you need it, and invisible if you don't.

Apple has done a lot more study on the end user use cases than we have. I think it behooves developers to follow their lead more often than not, and it behooves us to cut the devs some slack when they do.

Apple has pull down to sync in their Mail app. Evernote can just follow their lead there.
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  • Level 5

Apple doesn't have manual sync in:

Apple has pull down to sync in their Mail app. Evernote can just follow their lead there.

 

Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Reminders, Safari (bookmarks, readinglist, etc), iTunes[Match], Photos/Camera (photostream), Notifications screen sync, iMessage, Calendar, iBooks, (likely forgot some) don't have pull down to sync.  Maybe Evernote is following their lead there.

Of the 450 apps on my phone it's a pretty slim list that have a manual sync control, mostly with backends like non-push email, FTP, RSS.

 

Find my Friends still has skeumorphic leather and stitching too.  Any other sweeping UI standards we want to make in EN based on a couple dated Apple datapoints?

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  • Level 5*

CWB, you like to see yourself type don't you?  :wacko:

 

None of that manifesto you typed on data is relevant. If it was, then when I went into the app and pressed the SYNC NOW button, it wouldn't have sync'd in less than a few seconds. I wasn't timing it, but I swear it was 3 seconds or less, so fast I assumed sync failure until I sync'd my desktop and the change was there. And given how I have an older beta of EN on my iPad and iPhone before the big updates, I know exactly how it worked before, and it is working differently now. The new client isn't as aggressive on the upsync. It isn't consistent, sometimes it is instant. Other times, minutes tick by.

 

And pull-to-refresh for the mail app is new. It was just introduced in iOS 6 last year. I'd hardly call that dated. And even if Apple doesn't use it (they do) a lot of other apps do, so much so pull-to-refresh is a very well known and thus intuitive gesture in iOS.

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  • Level 5*

I think we need to be careful on that and test/check changes on the web or other clients and/or the activity log in Settings.

It puts a lot of faith in the network, and Apple's use of it (very prone to glitches that need resolving with cycling airplane mode/rebooting occasionally etc). Both are far from 100% and EN can't do a thing if either of those get in the way.  

 

We need to remember that our EN client isn't directly connected to Evernote servers..

Actually we don't need to do any of that or any of the laborious testing that you suggested.

Perhaps you have forgotten that the main design of the iPhone/iPad is such that the APP becomes the device an we forget there is a computer under the hood. By far, most iOS users know, nor care, little to nothing about computers. They just expect it to work.

Certainly very few would know how to do network testing. Nor should they need to know how.

I agree 100% with GrumpyMonkey (GM) about the need for a manual "Sync Now" button. Seems to me that the small sync icon/ button could easily be put on then top bar of the main screens without making things cluttered.

Finally, cwb, we really don't need your lectures. I see that you are quite new here. Many of the members you have been lecturing are long-time members who are quite experienced, and are very knowledgable about Evernote. I'd suggest that you observe their posts for a while, and don't be so quick to criticize their posts. This is just common courtesy, observed for many years on the boards.

Different viewpoints/opinions are expected and welcomed here. I'm sure you have a lot to offer, just be respectful in your comments.

BTW, I'm neither an Evernote employee nor a moderator. I'm just an ordinary member, who has been around the block a few times.

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  • Level 5*

BTW, I do want to say that I love the date picker in EN 7 for iOS. I never liked that gray thing in 6.x with shifting columns and whatnot. Plus, I found out a few weeks ago you couldn't set reminders beyond Dec 31, 2014. the new one spun up to 2020 before I stopped (I actually overshot - was aiming for a 2017 date). I think EN7 is back to using the standard iOS date picker, which is good. I like consistency.

 

ANd the sidebar thing is growing on me for iOS. I still think there is a ton of wasted space since about 80% of the iPad screen isn't used for navigation, but overall, I like the organization. I would like to customize the order. I'd prefer Notebooks on top, then shortcuts, then other sections. I'd like to see that option. IN any event, it is better than EN 6 for the iPad, and infinitely better than EN 6 for the iPhone. I neverd like the book analogy there.

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  • Level 5

Goat not gotten, moving on.

 

Already addressed your last sentence.  Yes they do use it.  But they also don't use it far more than they do.  A better study is why and where they use it perhaps.

It's also not overly compelling to include a few others that do.

Far more don't.  (I have 960 apps between my iOS devices, is your sample size sufficient as well?)

Numbers of apps that used to have manual sync updated and don't now.

 

It matters not to me if there's a pull to refresh or not.

If I have a dog in the hunt it's the colossal distraction this small point is when there's surely so much else to work on.

If for no other reason, I wouldn't be surprised if the ios7 thread is ignored now.

Especially when it's not like we're left without alternatives, and quicker ones than we had before.

 

It was two taps to get to manual sync in V5, and three in V7

http://www.uxarchive.com/flows/evernote/searching

(tip: uxarchive.com might be useful to pull out screen captures of old versions for comparison.  it's quite spotty on EN though)

 

But now you can just swipe down/up or up/down from the top or bottom of the screen.

And now do so even if you're in the middle of editing a note, something you couldn't do in V5.x

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  • Level 5

Actually we don't need to do any of that or any of the laborious testing that you suggested.

Perhaps you have forgotten that the main design of the iPhone/iPad is such that the APP becomes the device an we forget there is a computer under the hood. By far, most iOS users know, nor care, little to nothing about computers. They just expect it to work.

Certainly very few would know how to do network testing. Nor should they need to know how.

You do see the irony? (you're perhaps shortchanging yourself of the benefit of the whole thread)

For 3 pages my points have been very much as yours, arguing for the simplicity of the UI, that gets out of the way of the user just using the app and having it work.  Go back to page 5 or so.  Specifically in my view that the sync works as Apple expects their ecosystem apps to work. Without them needing to know or care, and there not needing to be a manual sync button (though it's still there as always, only 1 click deeper), because EN is background syncing based on the users usage.

In that you're arguing the points I've already made.

And then you come back to asking for something manual that a user shouldn't need to worry about.

 

I held off commenting on the whining until page 3, when I tried to turn the boat a little with the things I really liked in v7, (then an interlude on why everyone but EN and the app itself was talking about the new Post-it note stuff), and then bam.  "There's no manual sync any more"

 

So then my screenshot of it still being there...

Then it moved to, it being so much further to get to (3 clicks instead of 2).  And the specious tangents that you can't sync and save a note while editing it (which you never could do, but ironically now you can).

And the at least 4 posted ways you can instantly trigger a manual sync in EN, anytime anywhere.

And on this same thread Grumpy (love ya Grumps, and you know I have your back when you're dead on) was complaining about the lack of diagnostic tools for figuring out why his sync isn't working as he expects. Others on the thread complaining, seemingly won't use the diagnostic tools EN already gives to help validate that they're complaining to the right source.

_I_ don't expect the average user to know or care about the diagnostics already in the product.

Nor does Evernote presumably, but it's the first thing they'll ask you to send on a support request like this.

Because they and I, and those here SHOULD know that there's a lot more reasons for latency on a sync than a myopic view of the coding quality or UI decisions in the v7 EN client.

Also by and large the posters, and certainly the long time posters here, are NOT average users, and can be expected to pull their weight a little more in contributing validated, useful feedback to EN in a thread.

Otherwise one just comes off as lazy, entitled, and whiny, and surely no one is raising their hand as that being the bar their shooting for.

Yes I'm disagreeing with some long timers. On other threads on different topics I've joined along side them.

I'm only recent-ish, to the EN forums, but I'm no newbie to EN, shard 1 and all, having used it as long as most, and I'm an old Geek in IT, in a Development house, which informs the context of my comments, wether it be EN, or any other client/server technology.  My "boarding" starts in the days of 300Bps acoustic coupling an overclocked C-64 to BBS's.  You get an nod but not an immunity pass for being forum dusty.

I've "observed" plenty, but I call it as I see it. Long time forum poster doesn't make one an immutable expert on Development, UI design, or any of the multitudes of disciplines that go into running an Evernote stem to stern, any more than Staying at a Holliday Inn Express last night, and immune to debate.

 

Kryptonite secret though.  The easiest way (other than the ignore button) to silence me is with a cogent argument.  We'll at least agree to disagree, or better still "I totally missed that, you're right! My bad".  But "it's not there, and I want it", doesn't often count as a cogent argument

As for "respect" on balance, unlike some, you'll find my comments are directed at "ideas" and "notions" not people themselves.

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After using EN iOS 7 since the release I have to admit that I really preferred the layout of EN 6. I understand the need/desire to change things up, but I think the current version is a regression of sorts. I do like the quick note feature, hate announcements and market (as a premium user we should be able to remove them), see a lot of wasted space on the iPad, would prefer to see a list view, think tags in EN 6 was a much better layout, ...

My two cents.

Lee

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Ugh, it freezes constantly.  No idea why it worked all weekend (at a conference no less) where I needed to take notes.  Tried to give a report from the app on my phone today and it just kept freezing.  Needed to reinstall to use Evernote but it would freeze again within minutes...so not impressed.  I'm not sure what the problem is or why this is so hard to fix.  D:  edit:iPhone 5, haven't tested the iPad mini in a few days, not sure how it's working there..I'm afraid to.

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  • Level 5

What is the file extension?

It still works for me (forwarding email with voicemail attachments in .mp3 and .wav form to my evernote email address), playback fine.

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  • Level 5

 hate announcements and market (as a premium user we should be able to remove them)

 

 

Tada...  7.1.0.3

 

"New Premium feature - Customize your homescreen layout"

 

Add/remove/re-order any of the sections including announcements and marketplace.

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Font Size Workaround (iPhone)

. create a note in iPhone Note app, using the font you want.

. copy any word you wish (the word template would be useful).

. in Evernote, create a new text note.

. paste the word you copied from Note app. Font size should remain the same.

. call the note template.

. whenever you wish to create a new note ysing this font, select the note called Template and create a duplicate (open the note, touch the icon with three dots at bottom of screen, select Duplicate).

Now you can retitle the duplicate note and type using a font you like.

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