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Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

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Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#311

Post by goto11 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #103
asdajksah2123 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> rewrote huge, major pieces of their infrastructure multiple times and did so successfully I think that's different from a user facing rewrite. I suspect while Google did its infrastructure rewrites, users didn't notice a difference. Additionally, Google probably had the resources to continue delivering features to users while the infrastructure was being developed. The problem with a front end rewrite is (a) things…

Google isn't the only example here. Heck, just look at the transition from Classic MacOS to OS X. I definitely think Apple would have been dead long ago if they said "A rewrite is too expensive/risky, let's just incrementally improve Classic MacOS". I guess my point is that there are right ways and wrong ways to do ground-up rewrites, and the fact that a lot of people do them the wrong way shouldn't mean the lesson s…

Apple actually tried to rewrite the classic OS from scratch with the Copland project and it failed (at enormous cost). OS X was not a rewrite-from-scratch since they acquired an already working OS from Next. The had to add compatibility layers (which was in itself a major undertaking) but they didn't write the OS from scratch.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#312

Post by bayindirh »

wyclif wrote: post #310
bayindirh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, their experience is pretty pleasant and the product works very well after they have rebuilt their apps. They don’t need to be jealous. Their relative utilitarian take on the matter is what makes them so unique and powerful in the market. Yes, I love markdown, and Evernote just provides a slightly more powerful, WYSIWYG version of it. I neither want “everything and the kitchen sink” vision of Notion, and des…

You know what, though? I've had a better experience with Obsidian because it's desktop centric. Trying hard not to be anecdotal, but I can't think of anybody I know that uses a note taking app that enjoys taking notes on a mobile device.

> Trying hard not to be anecdotal, but I can't think of anybody I know that uses a note taking app that enjoys taking notes on a mobile device.

And having this view is OK and valid. On the other hand, I tend to use Evernote a lot on my mobile device, mostly in read-only mode.

I keep a lot of technical documents and cheat sheets I've written and sometimes need them while only having my mobile device with me, and it saves a lot of time.

I also scan hand-written notes for later digitizing them, and Evernote OCRs them at the background, saving me time in the process.

It's definitely a horses for courses issue, and if Obsidian works for you, go ahead, use it with its full potential.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#313

Post by zild3d »

offtotheraces wrote: post #65

This is going to be a disaster - Bending Spoons is not a good actor: “let’s talk about Bending Spoons’ business model. The basic concept is very simple: - Find a solid app that someone else built and buy it from them (see Splice (acquired from GoPro) and 30 Day Fitness) - Optimize the monetization of said app (by implementing from scratch or fine-tuning existing subscriptions), thereby driving higher lifetime value (…

> Does anyone really think it’s appropriate to pay $10 a week for a photo editing app?

Apparently yes, otherwise it would have just been a failed experiment and revert back to $X/month

Even if they charged $100/week I don't see how it makes them a bad actor. If the pricing/cancellation policies are deceptive then sure, but that is irrelevant to the price.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#314

Post by pqs »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #296
bayindirh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, their experience is pretty pleasant and the product works very well after they have rebuilt their apps. They don’t need to be jealous. Their relative utilitarian take on the matter is what makes them so unique and powerful in the market. Yes, I love markdown, and Evernote just provides a slightly more powerful, WYSIWYG version of it. I neither want “everything and the kitchen sink” vision of Notion, and des…

Yes, I thought I was going nuts after seeing all the negative comments about Evernote here. Personally, I started using Evernote seriously only a month ago after several years, and recently trying pretty much everything else (notion, obsidian, joplin, workflowy and 10s more..). So I don't have any of the baggage from whatever mistakes they made years ago. It's been awesome. Very wide featureset like more than just ma…

I wonder if this backslash is based on reality or not. I mean, what is gonna happen? Maybe these guys are able to solve the technical problems that Evernote has been having. Maybe the product, which now works well on desktop, but slow on mobile, improves and they just sustain it without increasing prices. But it may also happen that they try to squeeze every penny from Evernote before dumping it into the trash. Who knows!

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#315

Post by joker99 »

chillfox wrote: post #294
seti0Cha wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree on #3. Social & collaborative features are the bane of my existence. No I don't want to share all my scraps of information, no I don't want to let my friends know what I'm listening to, no, I don't want to publish product purchases I make to twitter. I think a better #3 would be: decide whether your audience is individuals or businesses, then build for that.

I agree about the general anti social feature sentiment. Collaborative editing makes sense for business users (taking meeting notes) and not much for individuals. That said, the tech that enables collaborative editing is kinda the same that allows solid sync and picking up your note taking session on a different device seconds after you put down another, which is something individuals do benefit from. I like being ab…

I disagree. It even makes sense in a personal environment where I want to collaborate with my wife for example: shared to do lists, shopping lists we edit concurrently, shared ideas for vacations, packing lists, ideas for date nights, important phone numbers in regards to our kids, places and bars we've been to and would recommend to friends and visitors, etc etc.

We regularly collaborate on this stuff and for our intents and purposes, apple notes provides all we need

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#316

Post by brailsafe »

HuwFulcher wrote: post #308
brailsafe wrote: post #280

Wow, I'm sure I'm not alone in having completely forgot about Evernote after importing all my notes into Bear. They fell off my radar with such force that I literally haven't even thought of them in years, except for one moment months ago when I noticed their logo on maybe a physical notepad sitting in some old bookstore window. Other than that, I have not even seen the logo anywhere else. Like others, it was the dev…

I love Bear but it's been a big disappointment in how quickly it ships features. They've been working on the web version for what seems like a few years now. If you're 100% in the Apple ecosystem it's great. I have an iPhone and M1 Air for personal use but my last 3 jobs have used Windows, being able to transfer knowledge across devices is a massive pain. I ended up switching to Obsidian due to that. There must be a…

Agreed on all points. I just happen to only use it on mac. My guess is that other things came up, or it just wasn't as lucrative as they were hoping. For most non-markdown notes I just use physical notebooks with satisfying Muji pens.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#318

Post by deafpolygon »

dahdum wrote: post #41

I loved Evernote and was a paying subscriber right up until they changed their TOS to let their employees read all my notes to work on ad targeting. They backpedaled after a while but trust was lost, I cancelled immediately. I have no sympathy for their failure.

This was right around the time I exited as well. They backpedaled, sure, then charged forward with it anyways.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#319

Post by pqs »

deafpolygon wrote: post #317

Looks like the acquisition is for the customer base and data (for AI training). Bending Spoons is leaning on AI tech and Evernote has both customers and data they need for training their AI.

That's what I thought and I don't like it at all. My private notes, being used to train an AI. I have boarding passes and alike in there, which probably have my ID card number. Then, an AI somwhere will print my private data. Yes, they try to filter these things out, but we know how hard this is, as we saw with GitHub Copilot.

Re: Evernote to be acquired by Bending Spoons

#320

Post by HuwFulcher »

brailsafe wrote: post #316
HuwFulcher wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Bear but it's been a big disappointment in how quickly it ships features. They've been working on the web version for what seems like a few years now. If you're 100% in the Apple ecosystem it's great. I have an iPhone and M1 Air for personal use but my last 3 jobs have used Windows, being able to transfer knowledge across devices is a massive pain. I ended up switching to Obsidian due to that. There must be a…

Agreed on all points. I just happen to only use it on mac. My guess is that other things came up, or it just wasn't as lucrative as they were hoping. For most non-markdown notes I just use physical notebooks with satisfying Muji pens.

Yeah I think they started with good intentions and hit some kind of blocker
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