Evernote Note Taking Application Review
I have got quite a few reviews stacked up for release on this blog and I cannot believe that I have never published a review of Evernote before.
I did review the Evernote iPhone application a few months ago. I love Evernote and it really is one of those applications that I use on a daily basis.
Evernote is one of the most well-known organizational programs on the internet and is a great choice for users looking for a GTD application or just a better, general tool to help sort out their daily lives.
Its “remember everything” slogan encapsulates the main goal of the app; to provide an easy and convenient method of taking digital notes from the user’s daily life.
Visually, Evernote is outstanding. The simple yet detailed aesthetic cultivated by the developers makes the program very welcoming and a joy to check into.
Evernote’s main features are all clearly laid out and easy to access for new users or those who only ever really use the program at a basic, surface level.
Each form of the system from the no-download web access to portable phone usage looks and navigates extremely well so users shouldn’t be worried about how their operating system or choice in medium will be able to handle it.
The developers of Evernote have obviously spent a lot of time packing the program with important features. Interface support is, frankly, quite astonishing.
As mentioned before, Evernote can be used on the web, on a Windows or Mac Client and also on mobile devices including the Apple iPhone. The option of signing in and using the whole array of tools without a download is also great for users who wish to access the program from various computers.
Some of the more innovative aspects of the application include incredibly simple copy and pasting from the web (both words and pictures) into Evernote and text searching within images.
The “Endless Tape” view through Evernote Windows is also interesting in that it allows users to scroll through all of the ‘memories’ they’ve pasted into the program — a great feature for those who want to make sure absolutely everything gets sorted from within their various files.
Once notes have been taken it’s also quite easy to organize, store and peruse your various work which makes it an excellent choice for those who want to incorporate the program into a GTD philosophy of work.
There aren’t too many faults worth mentioning with Evernote when considering the large amount of attention and continued work that has obviously gone into the program. While it may have a fairly overwhelming number of features this is ultimately a pretty difficult aspect of the program to consider negative.
The community attached to the program should help to make the learning curve relatively gradual and exciting. In future versions it would be good to see a greater emphasis on sorting information into more detailed categories, tasks and next actions although users are still able to make this happen on their own accord with a bit of effort.
The support is pretty remarkable and it’s obvious that the popularity of the program has lead to a great, helpful community. From Evernote’s homepage users can peruse press releases, news, updates, tours and manuals along with a quick video tour which highlights the main program features for the uninitiated.
RSS feeds, Facebook fan pages, FriendFeed and Twitter options all help to further increase the level of involvement with the Evernote world that dedicated fans can choose to get into as well.
Users will no doubt be impressed by Evernote and its wealth of features no matter what kind of organizational tool they’re interested in.
Whether accessed through the website, offline mode or via a mobile phone the program is a great bet for the busy user interested in introducing a little more order to their day to day lives.
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I too can’t believe that you haven’t done a review until now! How busy we all get and how many applications to review?
We integrated our project collaboration system with Evernote. You can find some use cases on our website. We understood that Evernote is a great Ubiquitous Capture mechanism and we should tie into that. Now you can take a voice, image, or text note in Evernote and then turn that into a task or message within Pelotonics. It’s a great marriage of Group Productivity tools and Personal Productivity tools.
Thanks for taking the time to do a great review of Evernote!
Troy Malone
ReplyPelotonics
Is that a review or an ad?
ReplyFrom my stand point, Evernote is a good taking-notes app (and possibility the best), but far away from a ‘GTD’ compliant tool. We miss a lot of GTD oriented features (context on todo, as single sample of missing feature).
@pd:
Hi, it is a review but I do love Evernote!
I agree that Evernote is not a full GTD app but I use it as part of my GTD suite of apps. From a collecting point of view it is awesome and gives you what GTD apps such as Things and OmniFocus do not.
Thanks for your comment.
ReplyEvernote lacks some important features for me:
Ability to change note header color
Correct keyboard navigation of lists (tab does not indent a bulleted list)
Ability to properly paste tables
Ability to change a notes’ background color (or just change all the notes’ background colors)
Ability to minimize to tray
I’ve suggested more than one of these on their forums, but yet to see any of them implemented. Also, the ability to minimize installed (not portable) Evernote to the tray. There was a bug a few versions back that did this automatically, but once Evernote is upgraded, it disappeared. I’ve talked on the forums about this and they never designed it to minimize to tray, but for some users it did do this. I would like to have that functionality all the time.
ReplyCan Evernote import notes from Info Select? I have used Info Select for many years and still stick to the basic version for Windows as the subsequent versions became too complex. It has been and is like a second brain. All information in one big barrel and absolutely instant access to anything. The lack of support for the basic version and the complexity of the newer versions has had me hunting for a long time for an alternative that will operate on the Mac platform as well.
Evernote seems to have the potential.
Gerhard
Reply@Gerhard@sunstays:
Must admit that I have never used Select but Evernote does have a lot of import options. I have been using it as my main note taker and keeper for the past year and I love it.
Thanks for the comment.
ReplyI installed Evernote today, and as soon as I did my computer froze then completely crashed and I had to restart 5 times before my computer would boot normally, possibly a “Vista” problem? Once I realized you had to create an “online account” I decided to uninstall it. First I won’t pay for this service, and second, if corporations as large and seemingly loyal as AT&T will volunteer to hand over all information about you and offer to tap your phone, against your constitutional rights, I refuse to trust online storage solutions.
ReplyCan anyone comment on or direct me to a good review or discussion comparing Evernote to Microsoft OneNote? I find I can intuitively use OneNote better than I can Evernote, probably because of its similarity to MS Office and because I’m a file tab kind of guy.
Also, I understand Evernote and Google Desktop may not play well together — I have both and I can’t decide if that’s why some things keep crashing on my computer.
ReplyI had been using evernote for few months, this article show me more new tricks.
Thanks!
Reply@Seth:
A user-space app like Evernote should never be able to crash your computer or prevent it from booting. Try upgrading your device drivers or check the crash dumps.
If you don’t want your information in the hands of corporations, then you can’t use the Internet. Your ISP can see everything you do online.
ReplyHey!. Evernote is really great, why you don’t check out this google Chrome extension, it help me a lot!
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