Really unhappy with new [Penultimate] version

[mike12045 31]

It sucks. Pages are rotated 90 degrees. I don't like scrolling; I would rather turn pages. AND WHERE ARE THE COVERS WITH NAMES? (Shout deliberate.) I have dozens of notebooks from client visits. How do I know which is which?

I want my old version back.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Which platform, which EN version are you referring to?

[mike12045 31]

My apologies. I just realized that I had left out that info.

I am referring to the new version of Penultimate, just released. I am using it on an iPad, OS 8.1.

[mike12045 31]

Thank you, sir!

[lldonovan 9]

I agree. I need to scroll by page thru the notebooks I use to teach courses. I have templates in these slides that lost the notes I had scribed onto them and what happened to the ability to see snapshots of all pages in a notebook.

This is a DOWNgrade to say the least.

[GDunc 15]

I have to add my voice of displeasure to the others. Terrible update..

Give us back

Discrete notebooks

Page turning

Full page erasure

Thumbnails

Photo sizing.

I will await updates (soon I hope) or seek out new app.

[tassiecelt 57]

I've only this minute notice the update, I thought...at last! Maybe they have made this app more usable. Two minutes with it told be they have not, it's worse, more unusable than ever. Lack of resizing photos, can't even add a page.

Very disappointing,

[Hockeydave 12]

This app, pre-update, was easily the best note taking app available. Today's (11/13/14) update took away Penultimate's best features, being able to zoom in anywhere on the page and write at your own pace. You're now forced to write in a specified area of the app when zooming in regardless of you're writing style and forced to write at a set speed. The app pre-update allowed the user to customize everything from where they wanted to position the zoomed in feature and at what speed they wanted to write. The app would even stop scrolling when lifting your stylus. Evernote/Penultimate, please correct these two items.

[qingshuigm 10]

I miss the thumb

 

I have to add my voice of displeasure to the others. Terrible update..
Give us back
Discrete notebooks
Page turning
Full page erasure
Thumbnails
Photo sizing.
I will await updates (soon I hope) or seek out new app.

+1

I miss browsing pages using Thumbnail.

Not a big fan of scrolling down and up using fingers. It's too hard to find old pages!!

Does anyone know how to downgrade?

[Beth55 22]

I am pissed! I use penultimate for all my note taking in classes, when my iPad made the update it happend when I was on my way to one of my classes. When I sat down to take notes everything was wrong! I had several notebooks organized according to my classes and now I can't tell witch one is which.

I hate the endless scrolling, I NEED MY PAGES BACK and I can't stand the sensitivity when I try to resize a picture. Because the pages are now GONE I can't find my book marks from browsing the thumbnails and if I want to study I'm going to have to scroll through all my notes just to find what I need. When I do take notes I'm confined to a small area of my tablet and I can't stand that. I tend to jump around my page to add footnotes and reminders and I can't do that anymore. I have to relearn how the whole app works again. I hate everything about it and I want to downgrade NOW!

The only positive thing I can say about the stupid update is the damn highlighter! I really like the highlighter but if they are going to make updates like this, they need to do it gradually so its not so much of a SHOCK when we open the app. I'm an efficient college student who's already stressed out enough as it is, this update is inefficiant and a setback in comparison. If I can't find a way to downgrade the app to its previous update I'm going to get a diffrent app!

[John Harmer 8]

I am very disappointed with this 'upgrade'. It has made an app I was very happy with almost unusable. My biggest complaints are:

 

- Handwriting performance is much worse. The line appears about ¼" above the stylus instead of directly beneath it. This makes my writing look much much worse.

- I really miss the discrete pages. I can understand the desire to write in a continuous scroll, but older, larger notebooks are hard to navigate without pages.

- The covers also helped to organize notebooks.

- For some reason when I switch between portrait and notebook view, it randomly switches to a different notebook.

 

I've switched back to the previous version, turned off auto-updates, and am now looking for a replacement note-taking app.

[MikekiM 13]

I could list all the reasons I dislike the new version...  It would take forever.

 

Couldn't there be two versions instead of forcing everyone into one?

 

Far easier to just say, the only thing I like is blue.

 

This is a catastrophe for me and I'm done with it.  

[tombilson 17]

This is such a bizarre update: Penultimate has evolved from an app which used the visual and structural metaphors of the notebook to good effect into an inscrutable dead end. Sure, the old visual representations of manilla notebooks might look dated in the sleeker, flatter iOS8, but why not turn them into, er, flat notebooks. Replacing them with circles around which you have to chase icons for naming, sharing and deleting is just substituting one visually helpful metaphor with one in which style outweighs substance. And how will I navigate 20 notebooks: only being able to see them represented as large circles (why), won't exactly be an aid to scrolling.
 

There are oddities too: I'd learned to work with the page scrolling in zoom view which kept up speed with my handwriting. I thought this was pretty clever once I got the hang of it. All I now seem to be able to do is chase a rectangular box across the page that runs at its own speed: it feels like a backwards move, from software which worked with me, to software that demands I work with it instead. I look for help on the website and find that the your support pages still refer to the previous version of Penultimate. That's inexcusable. 

Evernote is brilliant. Penultimate was *almost* brilliant: it was easy to see where it could be improved. But this is nothing short of arrogance: is's fine to claim that "Getting there means unbinding the app from the physical notebook metaphor" but in whose opinion: what if you've used page breaks to structure your notebooks? I'd used several as sketchbooks but now that sense of using the page as a frame has been lost: all my drawings run together in a way which now seems meaningless. So why not give people the *choice* of displaying a page view or a continuously scrolling view? In reference to icons the blog states that "There are only two small options visible on the page as you write". Well, that's fine, but when clicking on the pen option brings up NINE nested and functionally disparate choices including paper choice, insert picture, eraser, cut and paste, nib width and ink colour, it doesn't seem such a good idea. It just feels like a lot of stuff piled under one icon for the sake of outwards appearance, which is ironic considering what Evernote is supposed to facilitate as an information management app.

I'm just unable to comprehend how this upgrade was actually created by a team, as a product for people to use as a means of making their lives better and more productive. Do you ever test your products, use focus groups, or solicit feedback during development? For those of us who use Evernote extensively, this update creates a sense of anxiety over its future too.  How safe is it as a product from this sort of destructive overhaul? In future I'll think very hard about clicking the update button, and I'll make sure I have an exit strategy in case Evernote sinks in the same way.

[memax 6]

I am very disappointed with this 'upgrade'. It has made an app I was very happy with almost unusable. My biggest complaints are:

 

- Handwriting performance is much worse. The line appears about ¼" above the stylus instead of directly beneath it. This makes my writing look much much worse.

- I really miss the discrete pages. I can understand the desire to write in a continuous scroll, but older, larger notebooks are hard to navigate without pages.

- The covers also helped to organize notebooks.

- For some reason when I switch between portrait and notebook view, it randomly switches to a different notebook.

 

I've switched back to the previous version, turned off auto-updates, and am now looking for a replacement note-taking app.

[memax 6]

I agree! Really diappointing. Very slow on IPad Air 2. Unusable with Adonit jot touch.

[NeilJ 5]

Anyone know how to EXIT fullscreen?? I cannot see any of the control icons, and IO cannot seem to escape fullscreen.

[NeilJ 5]

AND in fullscreen it seems you cannot scroll or move from one page to the next. HELP! 

[Birma1 3]

Just to add another voice to the "massively disappointed" crowd!

 

I am amazed that the basic writing function has taken such a nose dive.  I can only believe that there has been some less than frank testing of the handwriting.

 

The navigation in note/notebook is now a nightmare.  It is fine to introduce page-less, but how are we supposed to use our files where we are used to the page thumb-nail views?

 

I have gone back to version 5 thanks to a back-up on iTunes on my Mac.  (To do this - delete the app on your device, connect to your PC/Mac, stop the sync process,  add the iTunes version of the app back on to the device.  Re-sync.  Bazinga - you're back in lovely v5!  You will need to basic re-set-up but my notebooks sync'd back from EN with no problems.)

 

Have lost hours of work today -  aaaargh!

[NeilJ 5]

Is anyone at Evernote listening??? This is a really crappy "upgrade". Can I suggest you revert to the previous version until this new version has been thoroughly tested and debugged. It is really disappointing.

[Tracks 7]

I can only subscribe general opinion. This is a HUGE Step Back, a HUGE error. It looks like Evernote wants people to abandon Penultimate in order to focus on its Evernote main business. It has no other explanation.

I can't believe one single user could be happier than before with this new version.

Is there any user happy with the update?

[scoutz 3]

Upgrade has totally destroyed the app. It was wonderful, much like real note taking.

None of the other apps even come close to the previous version.

 

I am going back to pen and paper................

[BobbymacTN 5]

This is HORRIBLE.  I use Penultimate on a daily basis with separate notebooks for various business topics. All gone.  They are just "notes" within a single notebook and I cannot scroll or see other notes.  This is a complete disaster.  Why would Evernote mess with something that was perfect as is. This app is completely worthless to me now. I don't even know how to begin to use it. No need to rehash what others have said above as it is all correct.  I want the old format back with individual notebooks and I like turning the page.

 

 I'll give it a few days for Evernote to get their collective heads out of their butts and go back to what works.  But it's a good thing I bought Notetake HD a few years back.  May have to move over and ditch Penultimate.

[dzsquared 8]

Comments on the blog post are "awaiting moderation".  All this backlash for destroying what was once a very good app is being hidden.  Please honestly address this mistake, Evernote!

[pbr309 3]

GREAT UPDATE, the app updated overnight and I walked into work this morning to find all my notes deleted. Nice work!

 

Luckily, I had Penultimate synced to Evernote and so I was able to email that long string of notes to myself before it synced. I get that new software can have bugs (I work for a software company) but never the type of bug that deletes all the user's content. You just deleted all my work notes... I've been using Evernote for a long time and I just now launched the use of Evernote and Penultimate to my global PMO team - Should I trust your software with our data? 

[avregeasyguy 3]

You STUPPID, STUPPID company!  What a piece of sh*! this APP is now!  I LOVED what it use to be.

 

-One long scrolling piece of paper!  The scroll feature only writes a big line when you try to do it.

 

-Flipping through a note pad style is HOW YOU TAKE FREAKIN NOTES IN THIS WORLD!

 

-The CONSTENT hiding of the features that I need!  Have to constantly touch an icon to get them back

 

-The old way looked classier!

 

-The names for my Note Pads are gone!

 

-I can no longer send A PAGE in an email!  I can no longer see small thumbnails of my single pages.

 

I will be looking for another APP to REPLACE the GARBAGE you have created.  I will rewrite every F-in page in a new APP just to spite what you have done!  I will bad mouth this APP to everyone that will listen

[pbr309 3]

I posted about my deleted notebooks before actually trying the new update out. WHAT THE HELL DID Evernote DO TO THE iOS version? They have rendered this product unusable on an iOS device. 

[teddyf 3]

This is the absolute worst upgrade ever - Can't find anything - can't scroll ---

Was in a meeting this morning - couldn't take notes- to busy trying to figure out this non-sense

[MatthewGreger 5]

I agree this is a very disappointing upgrade. I learned my lesson, don't use auto-update on apps. Version 6 is totally not intuitive. Not only can you NOT figure out how to use it, I can't find any documentation on how to use it. Here's a clue, update your documentation and guides before you release or at least let the user elect the guides for their version (https://evernote.com/penultimate/guide/ios/). How it automatically organized notebooks as notes under one giant circle is absurd, and no titles. I can't find anything. Then when I do, I just can't use it. I had to resort to taking notes this morning with paper and pen. I used to love Penulitmate, it was a natural transition from my old Moleskin notebooks to digital. Thank goodness I had a backup copy of the previous version in iTunes. 2 Hours later and waiting for all my notes to re-sync, I'm back to something I can use. Ugh!

[Frank Robertazzi 4]

I find the new version of Penultimate unusable.

[DarSmithCA 5]

I didn't realize having auto update turned on would mean I lose an app I've come to love.  (Yes this is not an update, it is a totally different application).  The main attraction of Penultimate (IMHO) was that it was an excellent digital representation of the familiar notebook paradigm.  How can I now jump back to an arbitrary page without the page thumbnail view? (You can't search for a page with a drawing that does not have any text on it). The automatic drift feature was great, now I am forced to write a constant speed in the new window at the bottom.  Feedback was obviously not solicited from a focus group of long time users.  Thanks to some posts above, however, I now know how to delete the app and restore from the older copy I have on my PC.

 

I hope Evernote learns an important lesson here about not alienating existing users for the sake of "better integration" or the latest shiny new feature.  Listen to what your loyal customers have to say.  You still have time to recover from this stumble before you start seeing the negative headlines in the news.  If you can't quickly put out an update with options to turn back on some of the lost features people are complaining about, then at least reissue the old version to the App Store.  You can call it "Penultimate Classic".  Charge money for a Penultimate Classic version and I bet people will rather pay to use the app in a familiar, comfortable paradigm than use the latest version for free.

[Martin Lindholm 1]

Really frustrating update. Got my Evernote edition Adonit Jot Script last week and was just beginning to get the hang of it, and then this "better" version of the software came along. Now, the writing seem to render on the page at a much slower pace and with lots of strokes lost in the process. Not good!

I've got the oldest iPad supported (3rd gen.) by the Jot Script, so I can't decide on whether the hardware lacks the processing power needed for Penultimate 6.0 or if the software is just a result of sloppy programming. I read somewhere, though, that someone had the same problem with a new iPad Air 2, so it's probably the latter.

Given the nature of these things (software releases), one can suspect it comes down to changing a few parameters and fine-tuning the software. But for an app that heavily relies on a (digital) pen for input, it must be considered really bad judgement to release the software in its current condition.

[tassiecelt 57]

This version stuffed up a note taken onsite with a job yesterday. The wording was split by a page break and couldn't read it.

So what to do?

I've been reviewing all the writing apps I've tried before settling with Penultimate and I've gone back to Noteshelf app.

While waiting for EN to improve Penultimate, others, like Noteshelf have gone ahead and actually improved the app. Noteshelf syncs nicely with EN, however it does need another app extension to be purchased to do that.

[must 2]

The new penultimate version is horrible

I wish to return back to the old version

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Most of the posters in this thread, thus far, seem to have gone to the trouble to sign up as forum members - just to voice their discontent about the new Penultimate "upgrade". That's got to say something. 

[jjlizzard 1]

New Penultimate - Wow I just lost 3 hours I'll never get back. Fortunately I had an old version on a different iPad. By the time I got it to replace the horribly corrupted version just released and then re-configured my iPad I lost my afternoon. Evernote has been a boon and I've been a user since the early days. Don't do this to me again.

 

I used Penultimate because of its heritage of notebooks - pages, pages that turn, Notebooks that are easy to edit - like say for instance - deleting a page or inserting a new one. I don't want what you've created anymore. 

 

I would ask for a classic version or just fond memories. I can't use the new version.

 

jjlizzard

[qingshuigm 10]

Fortunately, I have the older version backup in my iTunes. I just reinstalled it.

I thought I would lose the .pen files forever since Dropbox doesn't work in PRC.

Well, surprisingly, it seems we can export the .pen files to Evernote. Then open it using Penultimate in Evernote to sync the .pen files

Now same old...

[chris01 3]

YEAAAAA.  I reinstalled Penultimate 5.3 from my Itunes computer account. Luckily it didn't update to 6.  I have installed 6 thru the cloud.  I am happy again!!!  Hopefully others out there will be able to do this.  Make sure you've synced with Evernote then delete Penultimate 6 from ipad and as a safeguard I did a reboot just to make sure 6 was gone.  Connected to computer clicked install old Penultimate and I am now a happy guy.

Evernote fix version 6, LEAVE THE INTERFACE THE SAME AS VERSION 5, add a button zoom in addition to the pinch out gesture, add a check box button so can search in Evernote for To Do's, add function that if you select a note in Evernote it will open your notes in Penultimate automatically (so don't have to open Penultimate to add to existing notes).  And what is with the BIG round circles on the main screen in 6, those stupid things make it very difficult to find your notes.  Whoever was behind the version 6 update should be fired!

[Josh Storey 4]

I use Penultimate every single day.  It's an important part of my daily work flow.  And while I'm all for UI improvements and I'm usually one of the first people to jump on the radical restructuring bandwagon, I've gotta say this update is horrible.  

 

The "full page" writing means our tools are now at least two taps away, totally slowing down my previous work flow.  The old zoom feature -- a feature I waited YEARS for Penultimate to introduce -- has been morphed into the lame semi-zoom thing so many other (inferior) writing apps have relied on.

 

I didn't think anything would make me go back to my old writing app, but I simply can't use this.  It's not that I haven't figured out the new "meta" idea of keeping notes in Evernote notebooks as opposed to arranging them within Penultimate books.  That's easy to grok after a couple minutes.  It's the fact that the awesome old zoom has been replaced with something less useful and the tools are trapped behind too many taps.

 

Horrible.  Horrible.  Horrible.

 

It's pretty, but pretty doesn't mean useful.

[ZORG 1]

:-( Sad Face Penultimate was (emphasis on was) a great app - I agree with the comment on pages. This was essentially a Notebook App and they have pages! I don't want and frankly can't use this scrolling thing.

 

I will be deleting it shortly and searching for a new note app.

 

I have never commented on a forum before

 

Very disappointing.

 

I expect there will be some users who appreciate the new options so how about offering a scroll or page as an option?

 

Agree on the Highlighter being a good call.

 

Also agree on the crazy circle thing - it is just crazy

 

 

 

 

[kcombes 3]

This is truly the worst update I have ever experienced. Been using Penultimate for a few years now and must say...I really regret it now. What was a great app that I could rely on has now turned my well-organized and voluminous notes into an un-usable digital scrapyard. Not only have I lost notes, but the lay out and interface are not intuitive and require extra swipes to access features that in previous versions were just "there". Penultimate...I'm no longer a fan. All I can hope for is that someone from Penultimate is monitoring all this feedback and taking notes on old-fashioned pen & paper...otherwise the app is lost forever.

[singham 5]

I am SO GLAD I'm not  the only one who HATES this new update.  Is it me or is the writing WAAAAY sloppier?  It used to be very neat, I LOVED the way I had different notebooks and different pages for each entry, now  with them putting all the pages together it  isn't as user-friendly for me, also, you can't insert a page like you could before or view all the pages as in the inside front cover!  IS  ANYONE AT EVERNOTE LISTENING?  I'm already looking for another ap.  Anyone have any suggestions?  I really need one that I can have several separate notebooks with titles in, and I WANT the ability to handwrite.  If anyone has any alternatives that would be really great!  What REALLY bothers me is I JUST ORDERED the Evernote Stylus and now I can't even use the program!  UGH!  Really, you guys!?

[rts58 3]

Please, please, please put the old version back or release it under another name.

 

I had to go back to pen and paper.  This new version is just like the other apps out there but with worse recognition.  The old version was near perfect, a logical transition from paper notebooks.  If you wanted to improve it, you could have added the ability to manipulate scrolling speed, and zoom.  Simple, perfect.

[Tippis 45]

Add me to the list of people who had to register just to comment on this downgrade.

 

It is absolutely horrible in every way imaginable — and worse, I did not have a backup of the old version since I don't sync via iTunes, and now I'm stuck with an app I've made a part of my everyday workflow for years and which I now simply cannot use and have to replace with something that works. I am guessing that it would be bad form to ask someone to point me towards a… ehrm… "offsite backup" copy, but I'm really tempted to so I can continue to use the program in a working version.

 

Others have mentioned it, but I'll add my complaints to the list:

• The split-screen zoom is stupid. It makes it impossible to work on larger, more complex figures and the like because you only see a very small portion of it at any given time, compared to before when it was all visible and zoomed in.
• The split-screen zoom is stupid II. The “drift” scroll-ahead has been neutered to no longer respond to how I write. Instead, I have to make sure I think and scribble at the speed of the app, or I'm screwed. It doesn't drift — it just runs away.
• Return of The split screen zoom is stupid. The two screens often bug out and either stop working or go out of sync. I've had the zoomed-out view not update when I write in the zoomed-in part; I've had the zoomed-in part no longer showing anything, but the zoomed-out viewport updating as I poke at the writing area. I've had both seemingly happen, and then catch up, and then go away again because it suddenly remembered that I had clicked undo a couple of time.
• The infinite-screen design is bad. The old page metaphor let me quickly navigate between (and arrange) logically structured parts of the document — any part was within three or four taps from any other part. Now it takes an eon of unresponsive scrolling.
• Revenge of The infinite-screen design is bad. The old page metaphor is obviously still there! Applying any kind of paper style shows the edges of the pages since the lines or squares create a seam where they don't match up. So it's just an ill-conceived UI failure that hides functionality. To make matters worse, this means that you can easily end up with tons of empty pages that you have to scroll through, according to the document structure, but no way of removing that space. I'm looking at one of my newly created notes in Evernote, and it has 7 pages of nothing at the end. It isn't even auto-pruned like it used it, which is nothing short of idiotic now that we have to rely on two-finger scroll.
• The infinite-screen design is bad 3D. The natural borders of the page are gone, which means that you can no longer work at the very edge of those borders. It used to be possible to do very sweeping edge-to-edge selections by penning outside the actual border of the page, and it would continue to track your movement and connect back the way you wanted. Now, working at the edge means going off the touch area, which means the action is interrupted and the selection or line or whatever is force-terminated, never creating the effect you wanted.
• The infinite-screen design is bad IV — Electric Boogaloo. No borders means the tools now have to float on top of the infinite page. This means we have to live with this horrible fold-in-fold-out arrangement that 1. folds up every time you switch documents; 2. inherently means that my tools are instantly not at my fingertips; 3. means that mis-clicking a tool creates garbage on the page; 4. very confusingly creates new tool separations for no good reason (why is colour separate from the pen setting?!). It was not a lot of screen space that was "lost" to the old design, and it is now lost anyway because you cannot possibly have anything useful there.
• The split-screen zoom is stupid V: In space. The empty and featureless page offers no conveyance for the user — it is a laughably silly UX/UI error to make, and you should probably give the intern who made it a stern talking-to. On the off chance that there are any hidden commands or controls beyond the broken ones I've discovered so far, there is absolutely nothing on the screen to say so. The old borders and cleverly hinted tap areas offered good suggestions to the user and showed that there was stuff you can do. Now there is nothing except a very ambiguous arrow…
• The icons are almost as stupid as the split-screen. A circumflex that means "return to the main menu"? The exact same circumflex that means "don't use the stupid split screen any more"? A (what I first read as a) fountain pen for selection and editing? It took a while to register that it was probably the most incorrectly drawn scalpel or paper knife ever — what was wrong with the scissors? And if you want that metaphor, was it quite so necessary to make it look very similar to the marker pen? The only icon that is even remotely correct is the activate drift play button, which signals "let the app run away automatically without your control" as opposed to a more useful scenario where the zoom follows your writing.
• The gestures are just as stupid as the icons, but also badly implemented. Pinch-to-zoom is fine and dandy, but not when it is the result of every gesture you attempt, including the two-finger scrolling that utterly fails to make up for the loss of a thumbnailed page view. It becomes even worse when that not-pinch is sometimes misinterpreted as a pinch-out, sending you straight back to the notebook list when all you wanted to do was scroll down some. If only there had been some kind of distinction or separation between writing area, where you might want to do certain things (like write, or zoom), and action areas, where you might want to do others (like select tools, or change views, or go back to the menu), but alas, such handy things only exist in dreams, I suppose… and in previous versions. Of course, all of this is when it registers a gesture at all and doesn't just draw a line across everything.
• Gestures are slow and unresponsive. The speed of the tracing has gone down with each version, and I can understand that somewhat — there's more to do at once, and it's the same processor that has to do it all. But now it's downright silly, and it seems to be directly connected with the constant failures to figure out what I actually want to do: draw, scroll, zoom etc. The fact that even more things have been relegated to very similar gestures (again, draw ≈ scroll) just creates more pointless and annoying errors for no good reason.

In short, this version that is touted as having a "New UI for focused writing" makes it impossible to focus on writing because it gets in the way of that single activity — the core functionality of the app, mind you — at every turn.

 

Even if the writing wasn't unresponsive, it would be annoying to write in because of the newly broken split view. Even if the split view wasn't broken, it would be annoying to write in because of the newly broken (not actually) infinite page view. Even if it wasn't broken, it would be annoying to write in because of the missing controls over more complex documents. Even if the controls weren't missing, it would be annoying to write in because of the bad mixture between UI elements and writing area.

 

There isn't a single redeeming feature of this version — not even the highlighter, since it has given you the bad idea to separate the colour control from the pen settings and since you've given it an icon that is far too similar to the scissors paper knife.

 

Revert, re-think, re-do. Or just re-release the old version — under a "Penultimate Classic" name if need be — until you are ready to make this one work for its intended purpose.

[Paperstoshuffleendlessly 20]

Yes, add me here too. An interesting silence from Evernote on all this too.

[Beth55 22]

After having cooled down from my previous post:

 

I am pissed! I use penultimate for all my note taking in classes, when my iPad made the update it happend when I was on my way to one of these classes. When I sat down to take notes everything was wrong! I had several notebooks organized according to my classes and now I can't tell witch one is which.

I hate the endless scrolling, I NEED MY PAGES BACK and I can't stand the sensitivity when I try to resize a picture. Because the pages are now GONE I can't find my bookmarks from browsing the thumbnails and if I want to study I'm going to have to scroll through all my notes just to find what I need. When I do take notes I'm confined to a small area of my tablet and I can't stand that. I tend to jump around my page to add footnotes and reminders and I can't do that anymore. I have to relearn how the whole app works again. I hate everything about it and I want to downgrade NOW!

The only positive thing I can say about the stupid update is the damn highlighter! I really like the highlighter but if they are going to make updates like this, they need to do it gradually so its not so much of a SHOCK when we open the app. I'm an efficient college student who's already stressed out enough as it is, this update is inefficient and a setback in comparison. If I can't find a way to downgrade the app to its previous update I'm going to get a different app!

 

I have made an effort to try and understand this new update.

 

I would first like to point out that I am a full time student who used Penultimate everyday for note taking in classes. When I found this app post-update I was looking for an alternative to the physical pen and paper. Carrying around an arm full of notebooks every day with a handful of pens and pencils was just too inefficient and impractical when I had a buttload of textbooks I had to carry too. Post-update was near perfect, it was exactly what I was looking for; notebooks in a digital format. It had features that I thought was absolutely clever, like pasting and resizing photos, zoomed in writing that moved with you, thumnail overview of all your pages, and page insertion. The minimalistic concept of having the core features only a tap away was fast and productive. 

 

Why try and fix what's not broken?

 

All those features that I loved and that became a vital part of my daily routine are now gone. What we have now is a stylized piece of *****. It may look sleek and modern but it is not intuitive at all. After reading through many of the comments it seems that a lot of businessmen and teachers use this app for their daily work routine. Thinking about it, this 6.0 update seems to be geared more towards the younger generation who is growing up in the technological era where the idea of a "notebook" seems obsolete, but for the generation who grew up writing everything using a pen and paper and grew into the computer age, this update is just a setback and is pushing the limits on what "focused writing" really means.

 

I really tried to take notes with the new update, while its not impossible its definitely not practical. Mentioned before, the zoomed in writing is now a split screen which is very distracting and now, instead of writing with you at your own pace -stopping when you stop, speeding up when you speed up, or slowing down when you slow down- it is just a continuous motion that will continue even after you have picked up your pen. This is not efficient at all. The play and pause button is kind of like the anchor they had post-update but if you can't keep up with the continuous motion it is very inconvenient to constantly push that button to make clean and legible notes.

 

Inserting photos and then resizing them has been a hassle for me.The pinching in and out motion with your fingers is not properly sync to the photo and often does not register the first time. I use this feature a lot when taking in class notes. I often take snapshots of diagrams off the classroom board and insert them into my notes. With the small issues I'm having with this feature it makes doing it a bit time consuming which is unacceptable when I need to pay more attention to the lecture rather than making sure I'm resizing a photo correctly into my notes.

 

The two finger swiping motion used to scroll down in the notes is frustrating to say the least. This endless scrolling is the number one thing I am most livid about with this new update. More times than not it doesn't even register and instead makes a line from the pen across my notes, which then in turn has me hitting the undo button only for the swiping to fail again. It would have been much more appealing for this scrolling if it was a one finger swipe. After all, that is the motion we are most familiar with when scrolling on touch pads, such as an iPad, tablet, or phone. The two finger swipe feels very unnatural. The one thing I want more then ever are the pages. That is what a notebook is, a book and that is the number one reason why I believe so many people found wonderful about the app post-update to begin with. Or at least that is the reason why I found the app wonderful.

 

One thing I would like to add is how cluttered this update has made the app. I loved the minimalistic and rustic concept the post-update had. Now rather than having your core writing features a tap away, they are piled up on top of one another requiring me to browse through the options just to get to what I need. Instead of these options being on the outside of the paper they lay on top of it, which gives the general aesthetic a sloppy feel if you have writing underneath them.

 

The organization of notes and notebooks is something I find very weird and once again sloppy and cluttered. After the update was installed onto my iPad my notebooks, which were organized for each of my classes, had been lumped together as individual "notes" in one notebook. I dont see how this is very good organization. I can add a new notebook under a different name but I have not found an option that allowed me to move a "note" over into other notebooks.The very concept of these "notes" is confusing. They almost look like pages, (endless pages) but as far as I have discovered you would need to create every "note" manually and individually. Which doesn't make much sense as to why you would want to do this if you have the endless scrolling to begin with.

 

Overall this update is a huge mistake and as many people have already mentioned, I would like to see Evernote address these issues rather than push them aside hoping it will go away. Somethings you just have to let grow on you but this is not one of them. There concept with these new features by trying to unbind themselve from the "notebook" metaphor seems very appealing on the surface but when put into practice lacks a lot of the luster it once had. Compared to the post-update this app is in no way better and as a result lost stars in the app store, now resulting in only one and half stars. If there isn't any improvement Penultimate is going to lose a lot of trusted long term users, I for one am one of them. Since this post I have restored the penultimate app from iTunes to its update before 6.0 and I will keep it this way until I see notable changes.

 

"A complete redesign of the app for smoother writing and better organization" really makes me wonder who this update was made for because it was certainly not made for the pre existing users, as this forum is clearly proving.

[Benjamin Schuster-Boeckler 13]

Why try and fix what's not broken?

 

This is exactly my feeling, too. Penultimate 5 had its quirks, but it was great for writing with the "smart drift" feature really setting it apart from all the other note apps. Also, crucially, the touch responsiveness was very good, meaning that writing with my Maglus Stylus felt almost like using paper. This update breaks the most important aspect of the app, namely easy and responsive writing. There are tons of apps out there that work with the "Zoom box/autoscroll" but I got Penultimate specifically because I didn't want that. I think you (Evernote) fundamentally didn't understand what your customers actually wanted from the Penultimate app. Instead of making it more appealing, you've effectively ruined what was a perfectly good product.

[dadfap 2]

REALLY BAD update.

Why go to a turn page method that means you have to put the pen down?

Thumbnails! Bring back thumbnails

Erase! Bring back whole page delete

Major backward step!

[mrs. chaiselounge 3]

For more than a year, I've used Penultimate/Evernote to take all my notes at work on the iPad. All of 'em. As a senior-level corporate communicator with a large team, I've got a whole lot of notes. With the new release - which appeared without warning or any documentation - all my organizing methods are vaporized. Someone up the chain referred to this update as "arrogant" - perfectly describes this situation, in which developers' whims clearly have taken precedence over user preferences/requirements. Back to the Levenger notebook for me. Jerks.

[mrs. chaiselounge 3]

Comments on the blog post are "awaiting moderation".  All this backlash for destroying what was once a very good app is being hidden.  Please honestly address this mistake, Evernote!

Not only are they awaiting moderation, but users are being limited with regard to the number of posts they can make to this forum. Nice.

[JTH 3]

Adding my concerns with the new version.

 

Evernote - listen to your customers and return to the prior version.

 

The circle metaphor is just plain dumb.

Notebooks have pages - people look through pages to find what they want - bring that back.

The hand writing engine is a joke, its the nail in this "updates" coffin - makes it unusable.

Bring back drift

 

What were you thinking?  I can only believe that there must be some serious "people problems" on the design team and that the graphic designers overruled the usability experts.

[tassiecelt 57]

Oh well, even Apple don't get everything right, there have been plenty of problems with ios8 and 10.10.

Evernote is a great app, and one many of us depend on. Until Penultimate is fixed (hopefully soon) there are other ways to get drawings and notes into EN.  I'm just testing Myscript.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

As of now, I have only found one favorable comment about the new Penultimate "upgrade" on this blog post:

 

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2014/11/evernote-unfolds-penultimate-6-0-featuring-new-look-infinite-paper-and-more

 

I'm not sure about how practical this "infinite paper" concept is, especially since it obliterates the idea of visualizing "pages" (and easy locating) via thumbnail images.

 

The idea seems more akin to a scroll (you know, papyrus, parchments, etc.). There's a reason we most popularly see scrolls in museums and not in libraries. A book with a spine and page references/ numbers is quite a handy invention.

 

While one can search their handwriting within Penultimate/ Evernote, there are 2 points to consider:

 

• Not all content is writing
• If we have a vague idea of what we're looking for, a visual cue (thumbnails) is more helpful than remembering (i.e. recognition is easier than recall) 

Perhaps the Infinite Paper concept is designed to work nicely in Presentation Mode within Evernote. I haven't tested it yet. In that sense it is a consistent idea, especially, as some have commented with the changes that are rolling out in Presentation mode: most notably the inability for some to navigate between notes within a presentation by using arrow keys on Mac Desktop:

 

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/73403-presentation/#entry319528

 

The justification by Evernote was something to the effect of the user not necessarily wanting to present all notes within a notebook, since they may be unrelated - and their workaround was to create a Table of Contents (BTW, only currently possible on the Desktop client) from which to navigate in Presentation mode. To make a long story short, the "Infinite paper" in Presentation mode might be in line with the same vision.

[adjo 2]

Terrible experience with this new version.

I also miss the add in pages in a notebook function. And copy of several pages in the thumbnail view.

What a bad performance of a team I highly respected untill this upgrade.

Should I switch to the notability app in combination with cloud storage in dropbox?

Or can I get the previous version.

Unfortuniately I installed a new iPad today, so installing a previous installed version is probably a mission impossible.

Gr ad

[chrismbo 3]

How bad is this update? I decided to JAILBREAK my iPad mini just so i can install version 5.3 (can't find previous version 5.3.1 iPa anywhere), this is how AWEFUL this update is!

 

It seems like the new update has the stylus in mind forcing people to buy...

 

Anyway, I installed 5.3 which is working fine expect that I can't seem to import photos from my albums, everything else just like the previous 5.3.1 version.

 

Evernote should revert back to the previous version!!! That felt more like a real notebook with pages that flip, writing was smooth and quick, controls are easy to find and use, this one is just God-aweful!!!

[Tippis 45]

Oh, and one more thing I just noted…

 

Did you reinterpret my old notes to add OBESEPEN PHATSCRIPT to everything?!

 

Any note that I opened in 6.0 now has four times the line width on everything compared to an older 5.0 document that is blissfully unopened and unaffected. You've made my new notes illegible.

 

Compare the following (and no comments on my handwriting please…):

 

 

Both snippets are written in the same version, using the same pen size at the same zoom level, and now displayed at the same zoom level. The upper one has been… ehm… let's call it “creatively reinterpreted” (because the correct description would contain course enough language to leave marks on people's monitors) by 6.0 into a smeared mess. My scribblings are messy to begin with, but as long as I can read them, it's ok; add in the app's decision to make everything bold and suddenly, not even that criterion is met.

 

Other posts around here suggest that any note touched by 6.0 is irredeemably lost even if it's possible to revert to 5.0, presumably because the underlying file format has changed. Even if that wasn't the case, they'd be unretrievable due to this very odd and unalterable change in the pen size of the lines drawn. I'm lucky — I've only lost three fairly recent and short notes due to this; I can't even imagine the mass loss and destruction others will have suffered.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

 

Comments on the blog post are "awaiting moderation".  All this backlash for destroying what was once a very good app is being hidden.  Please honestly address this mistake, Evernote!

Not only are they awaiting moderation, but users are being limited with regard to the number of posts they can make to this forum. Nice.

 

 

How is Evernote limiting the number of posts one can make? Did you hit a limit before making this one? 

 

No, seriously, I'd be interested to know if that is really happening. 

 

What I can see (on a related note) is that this thread shows under the "General Discussion" as having been moved. Probably to the Penultimate section. Whether in part to limit it's exposure (since it would definitely be shown as a "hot" topic - and therefore have prominence)... I have no idea. But I would understand. It's just adding fuel to the fire of a pervading sentiment that is already putting a damper on things.

[Tippis 45]

How is Evernote limiting the number of posts one can make? Did you hit a limit before making this one? 

 

No, seriously, I'd be interested to know if that is really happening. 

 

 

It is. It's probably just a spambot prevention measure, to be honest, but those of us who just registered to take part in the discussion on this downgrade were allotted 5 posts for the first day. It shows up in our reply boxes as a nice green heading saying something along the lines of (in my case)

 

“You can make 2 more posts until Today, 09:11 PM. This restriction is in place until Today, 08:34 PM”

[Youngsook 1]

Hate, hate, hate this upgrade....I  have for last 2 years had an album created for each month as a daily diary....loved it and loved to be able to see my thumbnails of my monthly notes. I never missed a day that I didn't do a little drawing, placed a photo and just noted the activities of the day as well as reminders of my days...just musings....

 

now without any instructions my month of November is one long scroll that Penultimate didn't bother saying was to be looked at by placing 2 fingers and scrolling....really?????? how incompetent and such nonsense. Why for what ever reason did they change something that worked so well and was a really great product...in the name for change for change sake?????

 

Please bring back the albums with pages that you can just flip and give me back my thumbnails of my pages in my albums....So glad that I did convert them to pdf docs and have them to look at...but now it is just a long scroll that doesn't even scroll but contains long colorful lines and marks.

 

Hate this upgrade!!!!!

 

I have lost my daily routine and it really stinks!

 

 

[Youngsook 1]

Hate, hate, hate this upgrade....I  have for last 2 years had an album created for each month as a daily diary....loved it and loved to be able to see my thumbnails of my monthly notes. I never missed a day that I didn't do a little drawing, placed a photo and just noted the activities of the day as well as reminders of my days...just musings....

 

now without any instructions my month of November is one long scroll that Penultimate didn't bother saying was to be looked at by placing 2 fingers and scrolling....really?????? how incompetent and such nonsense. Why for what ever reason did they change something that worked so well and was a really great product...in the name for change for change sake?????

 

Please bring back the albums with pages that you can just flip and give me back my thumbnails of my pages in my albums....So glad that I did convert them to pdf docs and have them to look at...but now it is just a long scroll that doesn't even scroll but contains long colorful lines and marks.

 

Hate this upgrade!!!!!

 

I have lost my daily routine and it really stinks!

 

 

[Youngsook 1]

Hate, hate, hate this upgrade....I  have for last 2 years had an album created for each month as a daily diary....loved it and loved to be able to see my thumbnails of my monthly notes. I never missed a day that I didn't do a little drawing, placed a photo and just noted the activities of the day as well as reminders of my days...just musings....

 

now without any instructions my month of November is one long scroll that Penultimate didn't bother saying was to be looked at by placing 2 fingers and scrolling....really?????? how incompetent and such nonsense. Why for what ever reason did they change something that worked so well and was a really great product...in the name for change for change sake?????

 

Please bring back the albums with pages that you can just flip and give me back my thumbnails of my pages in my albums....So glad that I did convert them to pdf docs and have them to look at...but now it is just a long scroll that doesn't even scroll but contains long colorful lines and marks.

 

Hate this upgrade!!!!!

 

I have lost my daily routine and it really stinks!

 

 

[JoeT. 5]

I have to agree with everything thats been said sofar. 

 

Please get the previous version ASAP back on.

 

Appreciate,

[Frank.dg 1,385]

 

How is Evernote limiting the number of posts one can make? Did you hit a limit before making this one? 

 

No, seriously, I'd be interested to know if that is really happening. 

 

 

It is. It's probably just a spambot prevention measure, to be honest, but those of us who just registered to take part in the discussion on this downgrade were allotted 5 posts for the first day. It shows up in our reply boxes as a nice green heading saying something along the lines of (in my case)

 

“You can make 2 more posts until Today, 09:11 PM. This restriction is in place until Today, 08:34 PM”

 

 

Yes... almost forgot about that. It is in fact a temporary restriction to prevent spam, which is becoming problematic on the forums.  

[marylandline 0]

I have to add my voice of displeasure to the others. Terrible update..

Give us back

Discrete notebooks

Page turning

Full page erasure

Thumbnails

Photo sizing.

I will await updates (soon I hope) or seek out new app.

Me too...

[ChiGrrl 1]

Major Fail!

 

I had created photo boards that are now totally destroyed.  I'll try to roll back to the previous version to get my content and then find another application that will do what I need.  To the developers: you might want to check with the user base to see how they are using the application and what impact your updates will have BEFORE you roll it out.  Obviously what you've done has PO'd a whole lot of people. In trying to swipe to see the other pages (which also works horribly--I might add!) I inadvertently drew on them and those lines wouldn't erase.  Great!  I can't believe you rolled this out without reviewing the major implications it would have to those of us currently using the app.  You should all be fired!

[Beth55 22]

As of now, I have only found one favorable comment about the new Penultimate "upgrade" on this blog post:

 

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2014/11/evernote-unfolds-penultimate-6-0-featuring-new-look-infinite-paper-and-more

 

If you read the article like I have, its pretty clear that this author is not a penultimate user. Not to mention how the comments that litters the bottom of the article is just reiterating what this forum is currently voicing.

 

And if you were to go over to Evernote's pinned thread: 

 

Penultimate 6.0 Released

 

Out of the current 170 replies, almost all of them are discussing how disappointed we are with this new update.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

As of now, I have only found one favorable comment about the new Penultimate "upgrade" on this blog post:

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2014/11/evernote-unfolds-penultimate-6-0-featuring-new-look-infinite-paper-and-more

If you read the article like I have, its pretty clear that this author is not a penultimate user. Not to mention how the comments that litters the bottom of the article is just reiterating what this forum is currently voicing.

And if you were to go over to Evernote's pinned thread:

Penultimate 6.0 Released

Out of the current 170 replies, almost all of them are discussing how disappointed we are with this new update.

My point exactly. Yep... I did read the article, just like you. So we're in agreeance. We're on the same wavelength here.

[tassiecelt 57]

Youngsook, I keep a diary also, have you tried DayOne? It's brilliant, it's not for the artistic like yourself, just text and photos, but it's solid and you could import your drawings as images.

[fgraver 4]

I have gone through the trouble of finding this forum, logging on, creating an account, all for one purpose -- to register my disapproval and disappointment at this upgrade. 

 

Did you consult your users before you did this? 

 

I don't really have anything to add about the features that are now missing (turning pages, moving notebooks, moving pages around, etc. etc.) 

 

When I used the old penultimate in meetings, people would stop me and ask what app I was using, look at the notebooks, and literally write down the name of the app and download it in front of me.

 

NO MORE. Because all of the features that made this so usable / intuitive for use in meetings, etc. are gone. 

 

I have just finished downloading all of the other apps I purchased when I first went searching for a good notetaking app... and I'm going to now have to find a default choice. 

 

YOU HAVE RUINED PENULTIMATE.

 

fred

[fgraver 4]

Just to add another voice to the "massively disappointed" crowd!

 

I am amazed that the basic writing function has taken such a nose dive.  I can only believe that there has been some less than frank testing of the handwriting.

 

The navigation in note/notebook is now a nightmare.  It is fine to introduce page-less, but how are we supposed to use our files where we are used to the page thumb-nail views?

 

I have gone back to version 5 thanks to a back-up on iTunes on my Mac.  (To do this - delete the app on your device, connect to your PC/Mac, stop the sync process,  add the iTunes version of the app back on to the device.  Re-sync.  Bazinga - you're back in lovely v5!  You will need to basic re-set-up but my notebooks sync'd back from EN with no problems.)

 

Have lost hours of work today -  aaaargh!

 

Quick Question -- when you delete the app on your device, are all of your notebooks / settings lost? 

[JTH 3]

I went back to version 5 - but the additional papers which are free to premium users will not "restore".  As anyone figured out how to "restore" the additional papers?  "Restore Purchases" just sits there....

[Dan Tappin 11]

Comments on the blog post are "awaiting moderation". All this backlash for destroying what was once a very good app is being hidden. Please honestly address this mistake, Evernote!

Me too. I was on there right away to voice my anger and my posts are still pending. There are only 35 posts - what does that tell you

[Birma1 3]

Just to add another voice to the "massively disappointed" crowd!

 

I am amazed that the basic writing function has taken such a nose dive.  I can only believe that there has been some less than frank testing of the handwriting.

 

The navigation in note/notebook is now a nightmare.  It is fine to introduce page-less, but how are we supposed to use our files where we are used to the page thumb-nail views?

 

I have gone back to version 5 thanks to a back-up on iTunes on my Mac.  (To do this - delete the app on your device, connect to your PC/Mac, stop the sync process,  add the iTunes version of the app back on to the device.  Re-sync.  Bazinga - you're back in lovely v5!  You will need to basic re-set-up but my notebooks sync'd back from EN with no problems.)

 

Have lost hours of work today -  aaaargh!

 

Quick Question -- when you delete the app on your device, are all of your notebooks / settings lost?

Sadly your app settings are lost. The note books themselves were still there for me on Evernote and sync' back on their own.

[Tippis 45]

 

Comments on the blog post are "awaiting moderation". All this backlash for destroying what was once a very good app is being hidden. Please honestly address this mistake, Evernote!

Me too. I was on there right away to voice my anger and my posts are still pending. There are only 35 posts - what does that tell you

 

 

It's particularly funny how even among those few posts, the blatant astroturfing is being drowned out by people reporting (very early on) about the issues everyone else started seeing as more and more installs got updated. I'm guessing that it was that observation that made them put an end to the comment approval process. 

[AmyRH 0]

Please, please give back the old Penultimate version. I am using iOS 8.1. I tried to access a particular notebook both from within Penultimate and withing Evernote. It was easy to access from within Evernote, but this only allowed me access to the first page of a notebook that was >100 pages. Within Penultimate, I had to search for it (since the notebook titles were not showing!) and could only get to the last page of that particular notebook. Then, I could not edit it or move to other pages...extremely frustrating when you are in the middle of a meeting. There is nothing to like here, and I have many critical notes that I need access to not just the first or last page!

[dadfap 2]

Like many others, I signed up simply to voice my displeasure at such a crappy update. I notice that there is little response from the developers, probably suffering from a case of HUTA syndrome.

So, trialing MOKA note and Smart note. I like that both have dedicated wrist rest areas. The MOKA rest is manually adjustable whereas the Smart NOte tracks automatically with the movement of the writing down the page.

Early days yet but both seem like a viable option at the moment.

Cheers

Dadfap

[gbcb 22]

Another person joining the forum to add my voice to the chorus of complaints. I just sent this email to Phil Libin (Googled his email address):

 

Dear Mr. Libin,

Penultimate was the foundation of my Evernote Premium-centered productivity system. It is ruined. I discovered this when trying to use Penultimate 6.0 for the first time during my mother's admission to a long-term care facility for her late-stage Alzheimer's. I was unable to access and edit my notes on her care to share with her new caregivers.

 

Today, I received an email (included below) encouraging me to "upgrade" after I had already asked for information on how to restore the old, functional version of the program (I have yet to receive a reply).

 

Your company's response to the deluge of criticism has alternated between silence and tone-deafness. It's not that users don't understand or know how to use new features, it's that your company has somehow taken the best note-taking app on the market and reduced it to an unusable mess. An apparent lack of concern about the significant disruptions your users are experiencing doesn't help.

 

I spent several hours with Penultimate 6.0 yesterday to see if I could come to like it. I concluded that the update is even worse than I initially thought. A few notable stinkers: Old notebooks ruined; Confusing UI; No landscape mode; Worse handwriting input; A clumsier implementation of "scroll-as-you-write."

 

With Penultimate 6.0 and the hobbled (if pretty) Evernote Web Beta -- and, incidentally, the promotion of a substandard stylus like the Jot Script (less reliable and little more useful than a dumb Wacom Bamboo) -- your company appears increasingly to prioritize style and form over any kind of function. And, far worse than simply destroying users' productivity systems, the Penultimate update and non-response to users' complaints destroys our trust.

 

From being a Penultimate and Evernote evangelist, I am now actively looking for alternatives.

 

I ask that you take time to think seriously about the direction Evernote and its associated products are heading.

 

Sincerely yours,

gbcb

[GaryClave 0]

Absolutley *****. Sorry I am way beyond disappointed with the new Penultimate. Please give us access to revert back to the old format, OR I will need to look for a new applications, because I simply cannot use the new layout.

[fredl 0]

the new version is unusable and makes no sense at all. I am glad I am not the only one who thinks that this version is *****! why the hell nobody of evernote makes a statement here???

[akym 0]

What a crappy versin 6! I spent the whole afternoon trying to figure out how to flip to the next page of my notes and still cant find it! The quality of handwritten notes is not as good as the previous version. It is so UN-USER FRIENDLY! The Help topics/userguides are useless. If the company doesnt improve and bring back the old version features, i'm switching to Notability!

[Jibbs 1]

As a developer I think I can see what happened.  There were a number of developers left in a room to come up with fantastic new ideas to make the product better, but, at no time did they run it by actual people who used the product.  Or, if they did, those people were ignored with a "they just don't understand how wonderful our ideas are attitude."

 

I will add my voice to those who say that this upgrade is an abomination and I will be looking for a new tool to take notes with if something isn't done about it soon.

[n-says 0]

This upgrade is a downgrade. Between this and no version for 6Plus I'm off to find the next thing. Too bad, this was a favorite.

[MSDFWS 0]

This is a catastrophe for me. I use this for all my work notes and the update is useless. I Like the new color and the highlighter and that's it. I don't have a lot of time to wait and if I can't go back to the old version, I will be getting in line at the app store to start fresh. What a shame.

[fizztalk 0]

I wanted to see if the advertised combination of Adonit Jot Script and Penultimate got anywhere close to seamless handwritten notes stored in Evernote and editable in Penultimate. Following the version 6.0 update I now find something that works very poorly with the Jot Script and works poorly as a note taking app. The Jot Script pen seems to work better with other note taking apps than it does with the app it was supposed to be designed for. A remarkable own-goal by Evernote. I hope they are hearing all the feedback in this topic and are taking swift action to improve the situation. While they are at it, I'm sure I saw in the literature that Penultimate will find any note stored in Evernote containing notes produced by Penultimate and make them available for editing. I don't see that is working.   

[EvNoteUsr 1]

Premium User Since 2011. Penultimate user since it was created. Just registered on the forum and am posting for the first time to say that this update sucks.

(drops microphone)

[eckhartcke 1]

I also have reactivated my account to express how much I dislike this downgrade. My notebooks are now unusable and non-navigable. All of the writing is organized into pages which are now impossible to move through the without scrolling to some uncertain point. The page thumbnail view allowed for easy navigation. I even labeled key pages with large text so I could move quickly to an exact point in a document. This downgrade makes the application completely unusable.

Please return the following lost features, even if they are switchable options:

- discrete notebooks

- restore the page metaphor and the page thumbnail navigation view

- restore page turning by a single swipe gesture, so I don't have to put down the stylus to move to the next page

- leave the typical contirols (pens, erase, undo, etc ) on the contol strip so I can use them with a single styus tap, and see which is in effect.

I will also abandon this application if these mistakes are not fixed in the near future.

[tstrowd 1]

Not only is the new interface more difficult to work with-- but the writing response is so slow, that I can't really use it to take notes any longer. I'm typically pretty flexible, and I'm often willing to accept the 'bad along with the good'-- but I'm struggling to find anything in the new release that I consider to be an improvement.

[ayteeo 1]

I can't believe what has happened to an essential part of my work process. Who asked for a different tool? This stinks! My app updated automatically and turned Penultimate into a something I would never have downloaded if I was paid to. Can I expect such unhinged devastation to be visited on my Evernote account one day? Please restore the old version and send this where ***** belongs.

[PaulMel2 1]

Very disappointed in the  new version, difficult to page though books.  Also the Jot Script fails all the time, loses connection.!!!!!

 

[TR_Markus 1]

This app is now useless to me.. Enjoy my couple of dollars as I mention to everyone I know not to buy this ***** app.

[Ryan Huckabay 1]

The new version is pretty but useless. Don't upgrade people! 

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

This app is now useless to me.. Enjoy my couple of dollars as I mention to everyone I know not to buy this ***** app.

Thankfully it's free.

[patrick.faria 0]

I hate this new version Penultimate. The new feature "Zoom writing" is poor, because the auto-scroll function is faster.

Furthermore, my Jot Pro doesn't have same precision with de old version Penultime.

Anyone could to indicate other app?

Dev Team,

Is there any chance this old features return in this new App?

[kld1956 2]

I agree with everyone. This is a downgrade. ALL of the functionality I came to rely on – on a daily basis – is now gone. This upgrade is unusable for the way I need to use it. Once, I paid for another note taking app, which came highly recommended, but abandoned it for my trusty, tried-and-true Penultimate. Now, it is no more. I stopped using Evernote some time ago, because its "improvements" over time, made it less and less usable. It looks like the same UI genius that ruined Evernote has done the same to Penultimate. Ever hear of usability testing? From the amounts of negative comments posted for this "upgrade", I'd find it hard to believe that many (if any) Penultimate users sent feedback suggesting that all those great features be removed.

 

Hopefully, Evernote will 1) listen to us users, 2) fire whomever presided over this disaster, and 3) make the previous version available in the App Store. I'd really rather use Penultimate.

[Spacerobot 0]

Been using Evernote Premium for years. Started with Penultimate recently. Now, as is written anywhere Penultimate is discussed, I find that this software version 6 is not easy enough to use for note taking. Pen and paper is EXTREMELY hard to replace with glass and a fake pen. The best app will replicate what we have used for our entire note taking life. Easy access to the sheet and quick writing, like pen and paper. The benefit of Penultimate and Evernote is getting your notes into the computer. 

 

If it isn't easy to use it won't be used. I now have pen and paper back on my desk even though I was able to get version 5 back on my iPad. But should I continue to use it? Unless Evernote listens to their users and fixes the software I cannot risk using an old version. Now maybe we should all worry that Evernote will render Evernote useless. 

 

And it's not like a few people hate the new version. Check out the App Store reviews. When I got Penultimate it was 4 plus stars. Now it is 1 star with lots of reviews. You don't need to be a tech genius to figure it out. Evernote, post an apology with a refreshed version 5 and move on. Your next version of Penultimate may be the last.

[kiledos 0]

I've used Evernote for a long while now and only started to use this app at the start of this semester. It was the best out of the free ones available but then I saw fellow students use paid apps like notability so I decided to look at paid alternatives to realize they were truly superior to free note apps like penultimate. I ended up deciding to buy good notes in the end and have not regretted it since leaving penultimate. I wanted to review my old notes stuck on penultimate yesterday but discovered that this new version ruined a lot of features that made penultimate stand out from the other free apps so I am really glad I upgraded to a paid app.

My advice: drop penultimate and switch to a paid app like good notes or notability,they are 100x better than this or other free apps at the cost of a few bucks and definitely worth it now after this update. Did I mention good notes has better support with jot touch/script than penultimate,the native app itself?( it even supports the new bamboo pen now too). The only cool new feature from this update was probably that you can search for words in your own handwriting but good notes has had that feature for a long time now lol.

[gevalim 0]

I have logged in only to express my disappointment with the new update of Penultimate. Off to seek for a different note taking app...

[raphaelsav 0]

This update has to be a joke.  I can't even rest my hand on the screen and write anymore.  The Jot just does nothing.  Nothing!  No one writes with their hand in the air.  When it does write, it is completely illegible no matter how slow I write.  Multi-gesture is off.  Seriously – this app has been totally ruined.

[JTH 3]

Let's all go to the support site and open tickets telling EN to revert back to V5.3.1.

I've done just that. Maybe they'll do the math and figure out that dealing with thousands of support tickets is not profitable.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

Let's all go to the support site and open tickets telling EN to revert back to V5.3.1.

I've done just that. Maybe they'll do the math and figure out that dealing with thousands of support tickets is not profitable.

I don't think they will ever revert. I think they are committed to making this new version "work" (defined however you like). Flooding them with support tickets will likely do little other than slow down support responses for other issues. 

 

I'm not trivializing any of the complaints here, just saying that a re-release of version 5 is likely far-fetched, and flooding support with vague requests like 're-release version 5' is likely to do more harm than good. 

 

if you want to contact support, the most productive way to do so is to make specific reference to the trouble you are having so that support can offer relevant help in return, or forward the issue to the developers in the case of a bug enhancement requests/bugs/feature requests, etc. 

[Josh Storey 4]

 

Let's all go to the support site and open tickets telling EN to revert back to V5.3.1.

I've done just that. Maybe they'll do the math and figure out that dealing with thousands of support tickets is not profitable.

I don't think they will ever revert. I think they are committed to making this new version "work" (defined however you like). Flooding them with support tickets will likely do little other than slow down support responses for other issues. 

 

I'm not trivializing any of the complaints here, just saying that a re-release of version 5 is likely far-fetched, and flooding support with vague requests like 're-release version 5' is likely to do more harm than good. 

 

if you want to contact support, the most productive way to do so is to make specific reference to the trouble you are having so that support can offer relevant help in return, or forward the issue to the developers in the case of a bug. 

 

 

This.  Very much.  Perhaps we should compile a list of reasonable changes we would like to see.  It seems clear that with the continuous scroll feature, Evernote is pushing Penultimate away from a "notebook" app to make it, essentially, a handwritten version of the Evernote note client.  

 

Presuming infinite scroll is here to stay, what changes to the UI are most important us?

 

For me, it would be the reinstitution of the old "full page" zoom, bringing back the auto-drift feature, improving the stylus response time, and making sure the tools are constantly displayed on top of the screen (instead of making us tap two or more times to get at them).

 

It would also be nice if we could export our old "legacy" notebooks as PDFs instead of automatically converting them to the new infinite scroll (especially since that borked a number of users layouts), but I don't know how feasible that is now that it's already happened.