Why Evernote failed to realize its potential • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#131

Post by guiriduro » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #113

guiriduro wrote: post #16

I don't think Evernote need(s/ed) a team version, but I do think its not sufficiently better to current alternatives for note-taking and bookmarking. I use Pocket for tagged bookmarks and OneNote when I want more context. Where there is a gap in the market, tying notation to memory and productivity, would be some kind of notation context and intelligent reminder (e.g these web tabs, that note, this tag) tied to some…

> Where there is a gap in the market, tying notation to memory and productivity, would be some kind of notation context and intelligent reminder If I were running the company, there's no way I would start chasing idea like this. I like how they used to describe the product 10 years ago - your external brain. It's an application for taking notes, not calendaring or task management. There are lots of apps that do exact…

Reminders of that sort are pretty basic; I had something more like "Now where was I?" in mind - recovering the context, or at least easing the context switch cognitive load. E.g. a task which pops out of the backlog based on your current context of being at the hardware store, to remind you to get a claw hammer, along with the why (you may have forgotten). A memory aid as a synergy of todos, note-taking and reminders basically. It also reduces the constant re-iteration and procrastination over important but not urgent items or ideas that you can push off the top of mind to your note taking app if you can trust it to bring it back at the right time and place or in the right context.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#132

Post by lunchables » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:38 PM UTC

taude wrote: post #69

I haven't seen too many people mentioning the onslaught of Microsoft One Note in developing a great note-taking tool, that syncs well in the cloud, and integrates with several of their other tools like Word and Outlook. Personallly, as a early Evernote User, once One Note came out for Mac, I switched. And then getting a job somewhere where we used Windows PCs, just solidified it for me, and I never found the need to…

I use Onenote because it comes with Office on our work computers, but it's still an annoying mess. The notes are in some kind of weird text box inside the page, which can scroll in weird directions? I don't understand it, maybe it's user error, but it feels clunky. Sometimes I open Onenote after rebooting and it just decides to not find my Notebook? Also, how come if I type a title and then hit the down arrow (and again, because the first time it goes to date), I'm now on the second line of the text area, and have to press up to get to the first line? I have no idea why this bothers me so much, but these little weird behaviors drive me insane.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#133

Post by sandgiant » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

Evernote is still the only accessible note taking solution to offer OCR + related notes search. I've tried moving away from Evernote many times, but I always come back because of this.

Example 1:

1. Snap photo of document on table

2. Seconds later: Open in Evernote and see related documents

Example 2:

1. Take notes on laptop at lecture/meeting

2. Evernote presents photos of slides and handwritten notes about same topic

If it wasn't for Evernote I would never revisit my handwritten notes, ever. And I would have lost countless important receipts, bills, etc. I have tried various open source home made setups but nothing has come close to the portability and ease of use of Evernote. This is why I keep using Evernote to this date.

I just wish they would fix basic issues such as slow, or completely broken, search on mobile, etc. I think if they can strengthen their core product they still have something unique that I think many people would use, and possibly pay for, if they knew about it.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#134

Post by macspoofing » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

acct1771 wrote: post #111

macspoofing wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. I had an Evernote subscription, but I used OneNote at work - and it's just better. Letting you place snippets and notes on the vertical AND horizontal plane makes sense for quick note taking. Anyway, I switched last year and the fact that OneNote had a convenient note importer for Evernote was icing on the cake. Evernote never seemed to evolve either. It was the same product 5 years ago, as it was last year…

Anyone know if they're involved in selling metadata/data?

Microsoft or Evernote?

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#135

Post by tnolet » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

drunken-serval wrote: post #130

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 u…

I didn't even know they had a web interface! I just logged into iCloud in the browser for the first time...

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#136

Post by bloopernova » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:48 PM UTC

ubermonkey wrote: post #103

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…

For me? OrgMode. I'm 100% done trusting proprietary formats for this data. My OrgMode files are all plain text, so they can be read on any platform.

I was going to comment to recommend orgmode too. Like you said, the org files are plain text, they can be opened by practically anything, and can be saved practically anywhere.

I use Orgzly on Android, which syncs manually to DropBox. A free dropbox 2GB space is going to store a lot of orgmode files! I edit mostly through Orgzly, although I do use the orgmode extension in Visual Studio Code to edit on my laptop.

http://www.orgzly.com/

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#137

Post by vernie » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:49 PM UTC

sgt wrote: post #42

Due to some weird bug in Evernote, I lost about 10% of all my notes. Some of them critical. This happened about a year ago, and I never found out the actual cause. I think it was some kind of bug triggered by the combination of syncing from/to the mobile app and the desktop app. But I completely stopped trusting Evernote after this and stopped using it.

I've always had a terrible experience using Evernote across multiple devices. Editing a note on mobile seemed like a surefire way to get a merge conflict. I believe I also experienced a mysterious disappearance of a large chunk of my notes.

I just opened for Evernote for the first time in years and it looks like all my notes are now duplicated for some reason. Awesome.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#138

Post by criddell » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

landonxjames wrote: post #115

criddell wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the OCR in OneNote now? One of the features keeping me on Evernote is being able to take a photo of a whiteboard and put it in Evernote which then does a surprisingly good job of recognizing the text and making the photo searchable.

Not bad at all, even with my atrocious handwriting it manages to be around 85% accurate.

I'll have to check it out again.

Last time I spent some time with it, the UI just never clicked for me. My main notetaking device is my iPad with a Pencil stylus and GoodNotes. It does a great job of interpreting my handwriting and then I can export a searchable PDF to Evernote, or I guess, OneNote.

Is the metadata search in OneNote decent? For example, can I search for notes I created in Houston?

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#139

Post by gritzko » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:50 PM UTC

We contacted Evernote in 2012, 13, 14 begging them to try CRDT based synchronisation.

First, it might have fixed their sync glitches. Second, that would make the client a full copy of the data, very much like a git repo. You can't lose data that way. Third, that would be a step towards collaborative features.

We got brushed off. We used personal connections as well as official channels. In 2014 we annoyed them so much, we're got a very confident response: sync is not a problem. Ironically, in a couple of months that "bug ridden elephant" post was out with all the reputational consequences.

Re: Why Evernote failed to realize its potential

#140

Post by toss1 » Tue, Apr 02, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

"To Pachikov (one of the founders), Evernote wasn’t just another app or a way to capitalize on Silicon Valley’s burgeoning obsession with personal productivity. It was an extension of the human mind itself that would let users remember everything."

TFA made many good points about distractions into merchandise, missing the group discussion opportunity, etc.

But the critical element that killed Evenote is it's unreliability and data loss/corruption.

If anyone actually uses Evernote as intended -- the tool to extend your memory -- the sync and storage functions simply can NEVER lose or corrupt data.

Absolute reliability is more critical than any other feature.

Yet they failed on this one key function.

My anecdata is that while evaluating apps for gathering info & taking notes, Evernote's feature list came out on top in nearly every comparison -- but it had significant reports of unreliability. Disqualified. Period. Never looked back and no regrets, especially since it is still evidently not fixed.

Developers must distinguish between general usability features (e.g., supporting platform X or data format Y) and critical functions.

General features will lose you some users, but you can get them once you get around to implementing.

Critical functions failing or missing will keep people away no matter what you do, forever. And beyond that is the general damage you'll cause to other people's lives by, in this case, corrupting their highly valuable data and memories.