Jump to content

Goodbye Evernote


Recommended Posts

Just wanted to say goodbye to my long-time lasting relationship with the product. I was using Evernote for...hmm...well, it's 5 years today! Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, Surface - on all the platforms and across tons of computers I was exchanging notes for all these years with gigs of data, 1000s of notes on a Premium plan. 

That was a long ride and it left a lot of good memories as long as a lot of disappointments. What's good? I can say that Evernote was the best web clipper I've ever tried and also it was very good in organizing things. Unfortunately that's it.

With all that marketing support and all the inve$$tments it should've been the best product on Earth for storing all kinds of notes. Unfortunately it's still not and I lost hope. Hope for the better editor, that is not buggy, hope for better sync that doesn't generate duplicates. Hope for better UI which does give you more choice and freedom. Hope for a stable, predictable companion. Which Evernote is not.

The bad side of Evernote that it doesn't change much, doesn't listen to user feedback, doesn't improve, doesn't evolve, doesn't want to get out of the box. It basically stays the same beta software I tried a couple years ago. Some shiny features developed by marketing department that I've never really used, some stability improvements that made it a little bit better, integration with more services that I don't use either - but it's year 2016 and even Apple has their note product embedded in the OS that can really compete with the old clunky Evernote.

Even drawing with the stylus on the iPad is a pain in Evernote. Every single detail is a pain. Editor is the huge pain. I have notes that look different all the time when I load them up on different devices. I have notes where all of a sudden text changes formatting so I can't read it. I have old notes that look different all the time when I start editing them. I have notes that disappear and reappear in Sync Conflicts random places. I have notes where I can't change color or size of the text. I have notes that I can't find because they all look the same in Evernote. Changing color of the background? Of course it will never be done, not possible, why am I asking? Changing highlighting in the text? Appeared after 3 years of user ranting. And it's still what? One color? Come on Evernote, versatile editor is the basic feature! Or is it for the development team? 

I dunno, maybe I'm not the target user of your software. I'm just tired. I'm switching. I don't think it's appropriate place to tell where I'm switching to, but you probably already know.

Goodbye and I wish you luck and success.

Link to comment
  • 1 year later...

Thank you for saying what I've been feeling for a year or more.

They had plenty of time to clutter up the app by showing noise and distractions below the note (which I assume someone must have wanted, because otherwise, it looks like nothing so much as co-marketing with content providers), but they can't give us colors for highlighting.

They had plenty of time to take Skitch, which was a GREAT product, rip out ALL the good stuff, and leave us with what I can only describe as "Baby's First Annotator." (It's so bad that I am still running Skitch 1.0.12), but they didn't have time to prevent 3 or 4 "sync conflicts" a day and a "merge" function that doesn't merge, but merely appends the two notes to each other, making it actually _harder_ to resolve conflicts, if you can imagine that.

Right now, OneNote, the open source Simplenote, and a dark horse named Tiddlywiki are leading my considerations.

But what's certain is that Evernote's days are numbered. Truly, the best thing about it at this point is Scannable on iOS.

Converting to another platform is going to be difficult, but working with Evernote is getting worse, not better.

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
4 hours ago, Dave Land said:

They had plenty of time to clutter up the app by showing noise and distractions below the note

Are you referring to  the “context” option?  I turned this off in the preferences setting

>>Converting to another platform is going to be difficult,

On the Evernote  side, it’s extremely easy to export your data on the Mac/Win platforms 

>>But what's certain is that Evernote's days are numbered.

For certain, your days are numbered; my days are numbered.  But while we’re all here, I prefer to make things work as best I can

 

 

 

Link to comment
  • Level 5
On 9/15/2017 at 2:14 AM, Dave Land said:

they didn't have time to prevent 3 or 4 "sync conflicts" a day and a "merge" function that doesn't merge, but merely appends the two notes to each other, making it actually _harder_ to resolve conflicts, if you can imagine that.

For me, that's exactly what I want "merge" to do: merge two distinct notes, not reconcile two versions of the same note that have conflicts. Am I understanding you right that that's what you're looking for? As for preventing sync conflicts, they can easily happen if one works on separate devices without syncing on both ends before and after. But again, I'm not sure I'm clear on the issue, so apologies if I've misunderstood.

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
1 hour ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

For me, that's exactly what I want "merge" to do: merge two distinct notes, not reconcile two versions of the same note that have conflicts.  Am I understanding you right that that's what you're looking for? As for preventing sync conflicts, they can easily happen if one works on separate devices without syncing on both ends before and after. But again, I'm not sure I'm clear on the issue, so apologies if I've misunderstood.

Yep, "merge" is ambiguous (a basic definition: combine or cause to combine to form a single entity). In Evernote 's sense, it's just combining separate notes by appending one after the other.  In software source control, it's combining two (or more) versions of the same note in order to resolve conflicts.  Using "merge" to describe this operation is entirely reasonable; just because Evernote chooses one sense over the other doesn't make it wrong (as @Dave Land implies); it's a de facto useful operation, and I've used it many times. 

Flip side, though, is that it would be indeed be useful to to have a merge operation available for resolving conflicted notes, but even so, merges are not always trivial, particularly as the differences between two versions become large. I'd be curious to see how something like that worked out: if it's at the ENML level, you could seriously ***** up your note by mucking up the internal formatting; if it's at the rendered level, it might be hard to present (I've never really seen any tool that merges separate, say, Word, documents; not saying that they don't exist).

In any case, Evernote continues to chug along for my purposes; I use it every working day, and most others. I'm not saying that I'd be lost without it, or that it's irreplaceable, but it sure does fit what I need pretty well. Simple, and uncluttered. Other folks' mileages may vary, which is always true, and for that, there is no end of other products...

Link to comment
On 9/15/2017 at 3:23 AM, DTLow said:

>>But what's certain is that Evernote's days are numbered.

For certain, your days are numbered; my days are numbered.  But while we’re all here, I prefer to make things work as best I can

Ha! Yes, I am aware that my days are numbered.

What I should have said is that my days using Evernote are numbered, given my dissatisfaction with it of late.

I've been a big fan and have promoted it widely, but as time goes by, I see fewer reasons to stay.

"But while we're all here, I prefer to make things work as best I can" sums up my feelings perfectly: I have installed a fantastic ENML editor (as a Tampermonkey script) that allows me to get features like alternatives for lists other than just Arabic numerals and bullets. But I only have so much time to futz around with source code for a tool that is supposed to help me make the most of my four score and ten.

Link to comment
On 9/19/2017 at 6:13 PM, jefito said:

[J]ust because Evernote chooses one sense over the other doesn't make it wrong (as @Dave Land implies); it's a de facto useful operation, and I've used it many times.

You're quite right: "concatenating" is a valid interpretation of "merge," and I can definitely see uses for it.

I zeroed in on it in the context of multiple sync conflicts because searching the Evernote knowledge base pointed me in that direction: Others, evidently, interpreted it as I did.

I'm tired of getting sync conflict duplicates even while editing a single document on a single device. I don't have access to their source code, so I cannot say anything with 100% certainty, but I'm skeptical that the duplicates are coming from another device because they occur even on new documents that have never been opened on other devices that may be running Evernote, and because they don't happen when I explicitly save, but sometimes right in the middle of typing a word.

I'm delighted that others are still enjoying Evernote. I've done some research on alternatives, and I haven't switched just yet, but wasting time "diff"-ing two notes in a tool that has zero facility for doing so is the very opposite of a productivity tool.

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
16 hours ago, Dave Land said:

I zeroed in on it in the context of multiple sync conflicts because searching the Evernote knowledge base pointed me in that direction: Others, evidently, interpreted it as I did.

Hmm, haven't seen anyone else be confused over the Evernote merge function -- it was introduced and presented as a note concatenation tool, and nothing to do with note conflicts. I read a lot of posts on these forums (though not all), and that was a new one on me.

16 hours ago, Dave Land said:

I'm delighted that others are still enjoying Evernote. I've done some research on alternatives, and I haven't switched just yet, but wasting time "diff"-ing two notes in a tool that has zero facility for doing so is the very opposite of a productivity tool.

For what it's worth, you can diff/merge (my goto is BeyondCompare) the exported ENML versions, if you're using either the Windows or Mac desktop versions.

It does seem odd though. My setup is two accounts, one for work and one for personal. I work at home sometimes, and I find it useful to share my work notebooks to my personal account, and a couple of my personal notebooks to my work account. In particular, my work Todo notebook sees a lot of activity across multiple devices (mostly Windows desktops), and I have rarely (maybe one per year over ~9 years of Evernote) encountered note conflicts. I know that they plague some people, but I can't figure what I might be doing right

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
On 2017-09-21 at 2:41 PM, Dave Land said:

wasting time "diff"-ing two notes in a tool that has zero facility for doing so is the very opposite of a productivity tool.

You might consider using tools that provide “diff” features.

There are various apps, and I uss the web site https://www.diffchecker.com/

Link to comment
11 hours ago, DTLow said:

You might consider using tools that provide “diff” features.

There are various apps, and I uss the web site https://www.diffchecker.com/

I suppose I was unclear: I should have said that I do not think want to waste time on a tool that forces me to use "diff" features to get around its weaknesses.

I get the impression that this is not so much an Evernote user support community as an Evernote fan club, wherein pointing out the product's obvious flaws is unwelcome.

To end this thread entirely: It should not be necessary to use a diff tool to resolve sync errors that should not occur.

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
10 hours ago, Dave Land said:

I suppose I was unclear: I should have said that I do not think want to waste time on a tool that forces me to use "diff" features to get around its weaknesses.

That's an entirely justifiable stance, and nobody's disputing that.

I get the impression that this is not so much an Evernote user support community as an Evernote fan club, wherein pointing out the product's obvious flaws is unwelcome.

You've got that wrong. Pointing out flaws is fine, just as is discussing the relative importance of those flaws, workarounds, etc., but in general the users who stick around most -- like @DTLow -- indeed tend to help other users a good deal of their time here. But some of us take a practical stance: Evernote has value to us in our work and/or personal lives, but we have no control over fixing flaws that people (including us) find, so finding and offering workarounds is pretty common. No offense should be taken in those cases.

Link to comment

Yes, there are quite a number of helpers who seem way more than fan boys - but - there are instances when valid complaints are answered inappropriately.

Nobody needs to hear a hundred times  and more that Evernote never commit themselves to anything, nor why  implementation of another simple but reliable feature would involve sooooo much in development costs.

To heck, I am not a car mechanic and that's why I go to a reliable brand garage where work is done efficiently.  The mechanics at that place are well-trained, 3 yrs apprenticeship plus further training.  The grade and number of staff make a lot of difference. My sentiment is that Evernote maybe had too much brain-drain and possibly already facing cash flow problems.

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
17 minutes ago, JohnLongney said:

Nobody needs to hear a hundred times  and more that Evernote never commit themselves to anything, nor why  implementation of another simple but reliable feature would involve sooooo much in development costs.

We often repeat this stuff because new forum users often haven't seen it before. If you don't like it, maybe you can come up with a better formulation and suggest it. Or just ignore it. What part of your comment was even remotely helpful or topical to the original problem?

19 minutes ago, JohnLongney said:

My sentiment is that Evernote maybe had too much brain-drain and possibly already facing cash flow problems.

Which is all just more unsubstantiated blah-blah-blah...

Link to comment

@Jefito, you claim I am way off.  How would I make all users aware of business policies ? I think I'd opt for a sticky note.

I would not dare claim that  implementing such and such features must inevitably incur costly developments. [inevitably brings back the issue of staff up to the job, as you seem to know on authority that money is no problem]. 

Farewell to hopes that never materialised. :(

 

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
7 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

@Jefito, you claim I am way off.  How would I make all users aware of business policies ? I think I'd opt for a sticky note.

I would not dare claim that  implementing such and such features must inevitably incur costly developments. [inevitably brings back the issue of staff up to the job, as you seem to know on authority that money is no problem]. 

The forum quote function is easy to use. Please quote where I said any of the things that you claim I said or "know on authority".

Oh, and cite sources for your belief that "Evernote maybe had too much brain-drain and possibly already facing cash flow problems".

What do I tend to say about Evernote development -- when I say anything at all -- is that that they almost certainly  prioritize the features that they add based in part on cost of implementation and maintenance, as most businesses do. In other words, I'm claiming that Evernote is acting like a business. Shocking, I know.

7 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

Farewell to hopes that never materialised. :(

*sniff*

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
4 hours ago, jefito said:

What do I tend to say about Evernote development -- when I say anything at all -- is that that they almost certainly  prioritize the features that they add based in part on cost of implementation and maintenance, as most businesses do. In other words, I'm claiming that Evernote is acting like a business. Shocking, I know.

You know, Jeff, I am hopeful of this, but sometimes the logic do escape me..... :blink:   

Particularly with all the minutiae chaos introduced the last few months with the editor and early IOS 8 versions.  Not a business model of which I am familiar.  Still a great piece of software for me, but how great could it be?

Link to comment

As soon as I have figure out a good alternative I will leave EN.  I depend on the web version.  The old version continues to erode, and the new version is stuck on stupid.  The worst part is I don't get the feeling that EN ownership gives a damn.  I have gone from an EN fanatic to feeling like a victim.

Link to comment
  • 1 year later...

I left Evernote recently because the price basically doubled. I was grandfathered into the old premium rate. Evernote stated the old price would be honored as long as I kept my existing account with Evernote. Nope! They raised the price in June and refuse to reduce the rate back to the grandfathered rate they promised. I don't know what's going on at Evernote, but clearly, they are not very concerned keep current consumer subscribers. Maybe their long term plan is to dump subscribers and go enterprise. Who knows. Anyway, I moved to Standard Notes, 5 year subscription for $100, it's open source and doesn't include a billion features I don't need. Oh, did I mention the notes are encrypted by default, so I don't have to worry about Evernote reading them?

Link to comment
On 10/31/2018 at 3:12 AM, Matt Parker said:

I left Evernote recently because the price basically doubled. I was grandfathered into the old premium rate. Evernote stated the old price would be honored as long as I kept my existing account with Evernote. Nope! They raised the price in June and refuse to reduce the rate back to the grandfathered rate they promised. I don't know what's going on at Evernote, but clearly, they are not very concerned keep current consumer subscribers. Maybe their long term plan is to dump subscribers and go enterprise. Who knows. Anyway, I moved to Standard Notes, 5 year subscription for $100, it's open source and doesn't include a billion features I don't need. Oh, did I mention the notes are encrypted by default, so I don't have to worry about Evernote reading them?

Standard Notes looks interesting. Is it an easy transition so far?

UPDATE: Standard Notes is no Evernote. Sorry. At best its just a basic note taking application. Evernote is a lot more than that.

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...