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Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

evernote.com

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Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#31
post #22
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seemingly producers of a random set of mobile apps [0] including a video editor, a basic photo retouching app, and a fitness routine tracker. As an aside, their site is also aggravatingly self-absorbed, at least as it seems to me. Copy about how "we create our own cutting-edge technologies" and "Impossible. Maybe." just hurts to read when they're talking about a 30 day fitness app. [0] https://bendingspoons.com/produ…

I just got the reference. Bending spoons, doing the impossible, like in the matrix. At least the name makes sense now.

Isn't spoon-bending a "hoaxy" magic trick?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_bending

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#33
post #3

evernote was one of the programs that trapped me, it took some effort to finally migrate my data (I'm now using md files/ obsidian for mobile frontend synced with syncthing)

I'm curious; what are the benefits of using syncthing over the git plugin, if any?

I understand if you already use syncthing for other stuff, but having the power of git for my notes is quite nice.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#34

I really liked Evernote. Yearly subscription instead of the monthly Netflix like prices that ever half baked app asks for these days. Integration amongst all my devices phone, table, various desktops. All nice. And no further dependency on Microsoft, Google or Meta. Product development stalled a long time ago though. I do hope this thing stays in the air, cause I got a lot of notes in there.

I loved the integration among all my devices as well. I think that's table stakes for note-taking apps. So often I jot something down at my computer and then walk out the door with only my phone.

However, their constant UI changes were maddening. The breaking point for me, which resulted in me now using several different competitors until I settle on one, was they decided that your cursor should start in the body for a new note instead of in the title field. I get that searching is supposed to replace every other single form of organization, but note titles are important in their interface, and actually really vital when searching! They got way out over their skis, discouraging you from adding titles when their own UI makes it a nightmare to have a lot of untitled notes. And it really was an effective nudge — after the change I struggled to consistently add titles even though titles are important for my workflow. I struggled between having a mess of untitled notes or applying constant discipline to fight the nudge, and I finally gave up.

That was just the straw that broke the camel's back. There were so many other fiddly UI changes that constantly forced me to learn new habits. I would gladly pay $30 per month (not kidding) just to have a version of Evernote frozen in time. I remember loving it for years starting around 2012 or so, then a few years of horrible quality problems that I wouldn't want to revisit, and then it was fine except for constant annoying changes.

I'll be paying my subscription until I settle on a replacement and figure out a workable export/import process to transition my notes to it (which I expect to be a struggle, based on the tools I've tried.)

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#35
I learned three things watching EN snatch defeat from the jaws of victory:

1) There is almost never a case for a total ground up rewrite of your core product. Just don’t do it.

2) Don’t abandon the users who made you successful in the first place. They’re the ones who advocate for you and get your foot in the door.

3) real time google docs style collaborative editing is table stakes for this software category. Build your V1 with it in mind. Otherwise you’ll have to do a rewrite later. See 1.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#36
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not stalled. They created Tasks, which I use every single day!

If tasks is their big accomplishment they are screwed. How about allowing you to change the default font on a note or a task? I've been using Evernote for a while now, and I just don't get the pace of their development. Their changes seem almost incremental and take forever.

Recently their development pace really picked up. Unfortunately that was due to them replatforming as an electron app. Development speed improved, but the app itself felt sluggish and I had really started to hate it.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#37
post #26
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The final thing that has me trapped with Evernote is the very good OCR for both images and PDFs. The second I figure out a replacement for that which works great on Mac and iOS I am gone.

On ios this is now baked into Notes.app I use swiftscan because I've been using it a long time (same reason you use evernote) but the Notes scanner is pretty effective if Notes works for you.

Do you know if Notes performs the OCR on files that [are imported over from Evernote?](https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205793) I have many hundreds (maybe low-thousands) of PDFs and images that I need to be able to access once in a blue moon, but when I need them Evernote's OCR makes it easy.

I guess I could just try it out with a subsection of notes.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#38
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got the reference. Bending spoons, doing the impossible, like in the matrix. At least the name makes sense now.

Isn't spoon-bending a "hoaxy" magic trick? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_bending

Yeah, maybe to young people that means "doing the impossible" but to me it means "tricking people into thinking you're doing something impossible" or "scam" for short.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#39
post #3

evernote was one of the programs that trapped me, it took some effort to finally migrate my data (I'm now using md files/ obsidian for mobile frontend synced with syncthing)

I migrated to Joplin some time ago. Evernote was great but you could see them slowly trying to build that 'walled garden".

I'd prefer flat MD files and a fairly decent GUI. Joplin has zero hold on me and this is a great thing.

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