Why Evernote failed to realize its potential • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#121

Post by schnable » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:07 PM UTC

This is the problem with taking on lots of venture capital - the pressure to grow and meet impossible expectations. Evernote could have been a great small-medium sized software company, making it's owners and employees nice money and satisfaction. But instead they needed to make moonshots to make VCs happy.

The shift to business and all the bloated features in the core app became a big turnoff to me.

I switched to Bear, happily paying for it, and haven't looked back. A nice focused app that hopefully will stay focused. https://bear.app

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#122

Post by acct1771 » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:07 PM UTC

huffmsa wrote: post #29

random_kris wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use google keep, it has time and location based reminders. I think there is even an option to create shared note with your SO edit: yes it works :D I managed to share a note with my gf and she sees it. Now she tried to set up a reminder that will ring my phone when either of us gets close a certain groccery store that we visit

Keep is my current go to. They've added a lot to it recently, but I was unaware they've added locations. The ML predictions for grocery items when you're writing a list is a nice touch. I'm trying to get off Google's teat, but it looks like I'm on the Keep train, until they abruptly discontinue it in 12-18 months.

KolabNow Noted (and I'm sure just about any CalDav protocol supported email provider) was a perfect drop in replacement for Goo Keep for my somewhat basic needs.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#123

Post by paultopia » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC

Like many others in this thread, I lost data due to Evernote bugs; I also found their app incredibly slow to use, and then combine that with the price increases as perfectly fine alternatives (OneNote, Apple Notes) were still free or much lower price (Bear plus Drafts on iOS are my current replacement)---I cancelled my account last year.

The headline makes this seem like much more of a mystery than it is. "Offer an unreliable product at a high price" isn't a recipe for commercial success, not unless you're a monopolist (it works for the cable companies).

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#124

Post by lscotte » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:08 PM UTC

acl777 wrote: post #82

happytoexplain wrote: post #71

I have over a thousand notes in Evernote. One day I noticed that one was missing shortly after I created it. Eventually I discovered that the convenient new-note shortcut was failing every time with a database corruption error - but the error only appeared in a system log I was unaware of. There was no indication to the user that the notes were failing. To this day I have no idea how many notes I lost due to this bug…

OneNote. It’s free on all platforms and handles your listed requirements.

I like and use OneNote, but "all platforms" isn't quite correct - there is no native Linux client, so I have to use the browser version, which isn't nearly as good as native versions.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#125

Post by bluedino » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:09 PM UTC

I liked using Evernote for myself, but we subscribed to the team version or whatever they call it, and didn't enjoy it.

"I put that in Evernote. Did you see it?"

Turns out you have to add it to the right notebook. Then you have to explicitly share it with your team members.

THE WHOLE POINT IS SHARING. It should be default. It's too much work to do the one thing I want to use this for.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#126

Post by dolguldur » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #38

I'm a paid customer of Evernote, I must say that it works great and it has no reasonable replacement. I use it for all kinds of notes, like for example short tutorials on the command line, issuing commands that are hard to remember, TODO lists (both at work and for grocery shopping), meeting notes, listing pros and cons, everything. In meetings I like the ability to record audio, or to add pictures I take with my pho…

> I'm a paid customer of Evernote

I think what you want to say is "paying customer"

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#127

Post by lscotte » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC

temo4ka wrote: post #61

Jedd wrote: post #58

I've been trying to retain / sync / archive / etc my electronic notes since the mid 1990's - starting with one of the early Palm models. It's always been a fraught experience, especially if you're relying on someone else's algorithms to give you peace of mind. The most recent experiments were using Evernote, later Nixnote (because Evernote didn't care about anyone using free software operating systems) I've now moved…

Have you tried Syncthing? [1] An open source alternative to Dropbox. [1] https://syncthing.net/

Syncthing is indeed great, and works across all my platforms very well. It's also still actively maintained.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#128

Post by jalopy » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:14 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #71

I have over a thousand notes in Evernote. One day I noticed that one was missing shortly after I created it. Eventually I discovered that the convenient new-note shortcut was failing every time with a database corruption error - but the error only appeared in a system log I was unaware of. There was no indication to the user that the notes were failing. To this day I have no idea how many notes I lost due to this bug…

I've captured (in Evernote, ironically) a few Evernote alternatives. Haven't had time to look them over yet, so not sure how much they address each of your needs:

- https://getpolarized.io/: open source html and pdf document manager. Supports Anki flashcards, local storage, markup of pdfs, tracking reading progress, more

- https://www.notion.so - paid/hosted service

- https://joplin.cozic.net/ - seems like a decent open source project

If you check these out and respond here (or in a new "Tell HN") with your thoughts, I'd love to read it.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#129

Post by icedchai » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

mortdeus wrote: post #27

Honestly, who was sitting there in the middle of a CS class at Standford taking notes and found themselves so absolutely bored to a point of absurdity that they frustratingly sighed out loud, "man, if only there was a way more exciting way to go about doing this."; Which prompted the "ahah" lightbulb moment of the guy sitting just within earshot, one row over, who just so happened to be jotting down his own notes on…

Right. Just send an email to yourself and move on.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#130

Post by drunken-serval » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:27 PM UTC

tnolet wrote: post #68

Am I the only one just using the stock MacOs Notes and Reminders? Does the trick for me. Never lost a thing. Does pictures and text and has basic grouping. Mac only of course.

I'm using them. The web interface is a bit clunky and occasionally hiccups in chrome but otherwise is pretty solid.

I only have 2 issues.

Syncing across 4 different devices (phone, ipad, mac, and web) is eventually consistent. It can take hours for everything to sync up. Most of the time it's instant but I've had plenty of times where syncing on one device gets stuck for hours.

The other issue is locked notes. If I use FaceID/TouchID instead of a password, syncing gets absolutely trashed. It looks like it's re-keying the encryption for every locked note. (I have hundreds of them.) It's easier to just disable FaceID/TouchID for locked notes.