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Show HN: Turtl – A secure, encrypted Evernote alternative

turtl.it

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Re: Show HN: Turtl – A secure, encrypted Evernote alternative

#5
I'm sorry but I don't think you should call this an Evernote alternative.

- No iOS client (Although the site does say coming soon)

- No Firefox webclipper

- No Web interface

- Large / heavy application

- No Drawing / Diagram support

- The app is not native, it's seems it's a web frame

It's interface doesn't feel very snappy, it feels like it's built with in a Javascript framework perhaps?

Evernote has been around for a long time and has grown to 110MB uncompressed / installed, this app is 100MB and it's only in its early stages and has hardly any features implemented yet - that's worrying to me.

Looking at OSX's power utilisation Turtle appears to often utilise one CPU core heavily under load where Evernote seems to thread processes more efficient and ends up using around 60% less power on my 2015 Macbook in the use I put it through which was common activities such as adding and removing notes, copy / pasting text, launching and closing the app etc...

What I do really like is that it uses Markdown, that's something sorely missed in Evernote.

I'm really sorry to be quite harsh, I really do love when people try to improve software by creating their own alternative and that's something that's sorely needed in the land of Evernote like apps, however I don't think this comes close to a possible alternative.

Re: Show HN: Turtl – A secure, encrypted Evernote alternative

#6
Evernote made the mistake of going multiplatform really aggressively and too much scope creep. I'm glad to see they're scaling back a lot of their scope creep.

Goo on you for trying to do this. Be ambitious and swing for the fences. Evernote's product crashes frequently.

Re: Show HN: Turtl – A secure, encrypted Evernote alternative

#7
I was going to rail against another app I could be interested in which forces an Android installation through Google's Play Store.

Then I noticed the link to sources on GitHub and the ability to build the APK oneself.[0] I will certainly try this. Thank you for the option.

[0] https://github.com/turtl/mobile

Re: Show HN: Turtl – A secure, encrypted Evernote alternative

#8
post #6

Evernote made the mistake of going multiplatform really aggressively and too much scope creep. I'm glad to see they're scaling back a lot of their scope creep. Goo on you for trying to do this. Be ambitious and swing for the fences. Evernote's product crashes frequently.

Honestly, one of the main reasons I use Evernote is because it's Mac and iOS clients are so damn good, other than a few performance issues on websites with a lot of elements that have been clipped (and hey even Firefox struggles with those), I honestly can't remember the last time Evernote has crashed on either platform.

Re: Show HN: Turtl – A secure, encrypted Evernote alternative

#9
post #6

Evernote made the mistake of going multiplatform really aggressively and too much scope creep. I'm glad to see they're scaling back a lot of their scope creep. Goo on you for trying to do this. Be ambitious and swing for the fences. Evernote's product crashes frequently.

On which platform? I use Evernote a lot on Windows and Android, and a bit on iOS, and haven't seen a crash in a very long time.

Re: Show HN: Turtl – A secure, encrypted Evernote alternative

#10
post #4

Evernote is so good that I just can't see myself transitioning. I wish the best services would offer strong encryption as a default.

This is the game these companies play - they provide a service so slick that people will use it regardless of the privacy concerns.

And of course I am one of those people... I use Evernote because I can take notes anywhere very easily (in my browser, my OS, my phone) and then have access to them always in sync very easily, online and offline. Couple that with nested tags and saved search queries and I unfortunately see no competition, regardless of privacy measures. I don't care if my data is encrypted properly if I don't have easy access to it.

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