# Somebody is drinking the Evernote kool-aid; is it you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 23, 2014, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290 "2014-10-23T22:17:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![gwendee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@gwendee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gwendee)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/21 "2014-10-25T04:20:48Z")
> [@Suburban\_Plankton](#): > > I use the free version of Evernote. I have the browser extension on my computer and the Android app on my phone. It’s quite handy for jotting down notes and having access to them basically anywhere, anytime. Ditto. I’m single and run a sole proprietorship so I don’t need to share access to any files or notes and therefore don’t use all of the features. I’ve looked at some secondary source materials online about intricate systems of tags to manage all your separate notes but haven’t implemented any of them. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/22 "2014-10-25T09:22:48Z")
I’ve never used Evernote. I’ve used GTasks ever since I got my first smart phone just so I could have access to my Google Tasks. I later picked up a little app called ColorNote that synchronizes with GTasks, and allows me to place little sticky notes on my phone’s home screen. My latest phone – a Samsung Galaxy Note II – came with S Note preinstalled. I actually use this quite a bit to jot down quick notes or save screenshots; however, I haven’t switched over to it completely since I can’t synchronize or backup the notes. I’ve also used OneNote on my computer; I’ve been very pleased with it. ---
**Author:** ![freckafree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/freckafree/32/3050_2.png) [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/23 "2014-10-25T12:05:18Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I’m not emotionally wedded to Evernote. If there is some other better way of allowing me to enter and access the same set of notes across my iPhone, iPad, any home desktop and my work desktop, I’m all ears. Me, too. I can’t quite figure out how to use Evernote and am perplexed by the fact that most note-taking apps tout the ability to incorporate photographs, which is a feature I almost never use. Now that I have an iPad, it has become my tool of preference for taking notes in a meeting. What I want to be able to do is take stream of consciousness notes that I can go back to later and make certain things into calendar or to-do items. If Evernote can do that, I haven’t figured out how. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/24 "2014-10-25T13:18:37Z")
[Here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_notetaking_software) is a pretty good comparison of notetaking software via Wikipedia. mmm ---
**Author:** ![lazybratsche](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ba8739/32.png) [@lazybratsche](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lazybratsche)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/25 "2014-10-25T15:20:20Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > I just noticed that Evernote has a beta of their new web interface. In short, it represents everything I hate about modern UI design. Acres of useless white space, and anything useful is hidden by default behind impenetrable icons. What once took one click now takes three, and worse, because the UI elements (like the notebook and notes lists) don’t show themselves until clicked on, I have to visually scan the list for the thing I want each time I bring up the list. Before, they would sit quietly in my peripheral vision, and I could always have a basic idea of where the important stuff sits. Obviously, they’ve also added loathsome animations to everything, wasting even more of my time. > > If they ever force this new UI, I’ll certainly stop using Evernote. Text files work just fine for me, and I can sync them to the cloud almost as easily as in Evernote. Damn, that is terrible, and an obscene waste of space on a desktop monitor. Someone else in my lab was also starting to use Evernote, and while they liked the desktop client well enough, the found that their ipad app was nearly unusable for navigating between several notebooks and notes. The android app is similarly minimal but at least that sort of works for light usage on my phone. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/26 "2014-10-25T15:34:07Z")
The recent Android update seems to have gone to this vaguely Windows-8 icon-ish layout. I find it much harder to wade through springy, icon-y menus to take that simple whiteboard shot that’s a daily task for me. The desktop version seems okay, but I tend to use it only in reading mode. (Reading and clipping notes I’ve made while away, that is.) ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/27 "2014-10-25T17:14:51Z")
I started to use Evernote about two years ago because it came as part of a bundle of Mac applications I purchased. Well, Evernote is free, obviously, but the bundle included a year of the premium upgrade. As others here have said, I’m not particularly emotionally invested in Evernote, so I’m not sure I understand the Kool-Aid angle. I use it pretty simply. I always have a few different creative projects going on at once, and I’m not exactly the world’s most organized person under the best of circumstances, so it’s nice to have a central repository where I can jot down notes, thoughts, ideas, sketches (their iPad drawing/handwriting app Penultimate works great and auto-syncs with Evernote), photos, etc., no matter where I am - whether I’m out and about with my phone, sitting in front of the computer, or lounging on the beach with my iPad (which I realize all sounds like bad first-draft copy from a magazine ad, but it’s true). And to have it all sync up so I continue to have access to all that, neatly organized, no matter where I am with whatever platform I have handy when I next want to access those ideas. It really is pretty perfect for a naturally disorganized person like me. Note links are super handy. Creating hyperlinks between related notes. Especially handy as projects get larger and include many different notes. For non-work related uses, I like their web browser plugin, where with a push of a button, I can save a webpage (either a simplified version, the whole page as-is, or a screenshot) for later reading. All ending up nicely in an Evernote notebook for that purpose. You never know when you’re going to end up in a place desperate for reading material, and the back of a toothpaste tube is only going to get you so far! I’m in the middle of doing my family’s genealogy, and while most of my work is done directly on [ancestry.com](http://ancestry.com), I’m finding it really handy to have an Evernote notebook devoted to taking random notes. Much easier than using some of ancestry’s note taking features. And again, easier to access when I’m out and about if I need to pull it up. I haven’t used it very often, but the audio note taking feature has come in handy a few times. I know perfectly well that Evernote isn’t the only way to do any individual thing I mention here, but having it all organized in one application is pretty damn useful to me. OneNote may very well do all this as well, and may do it just as well or even better, but I like the way Evernote is set up, it works for me, and I’ve been using it for a while so I know how it works well. No Kool-Aid; just a useful tool I find handy. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/28 "2014-10-25T20:35:30Z")
i tried it a few times, it never clicked. The two functions I need that I think it provides, saving web articles and making shopping and to-do lists, I do with Pocket and Google Keep. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/29 "2014-10-25T21:13:49Z")
I quite like Evernote, but I think that OneNote is Microsoft’s true under-appreciated gem. It really is incredibly powerful, and is a great way to store all sorts of different types of information in one easy-to-browse and easy-to-search place. It’s a much better piece of software, i think, that Word and most of the other MS Office stuff that people use. One feature that i find incredibly useful is OneNote’s automatic OCR feature. If you import an image with text in it, OneNote will automatically recognize the text and make it searchable, as well as making it possible to copy text from the images. This is particularly useful for my historical research, where i often use scans of old newspapers and documents. Evernote can, i believe, do something similar, but i think that it will only do it in the cloud, rather than on your device. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2014, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/30 "2014-10-25T22:04:42Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > The android app is similarly minimal but at least that sort of works for light usage on my phone. The way I see it, the fundamental way that UI design is going wrong is the misconception that mobile-oriented design is desirable in and of itself, as opposed to just being a severe compromise stemming from the limitations of mobile devices. Minimal interfaces make sense on phones and tablets because there just isn’t much real estate. As do buttons and other elements that are designed for fingers instead of precise mouse cursors. But I have lots of pixels on my desktop and there’s no need to cut down on information content. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2014, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/31 "2014-10-26T15:49:50Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > I also use frequently use it as a jazz singer: I keep a list of my songs and keys, and it’s great to be able to pull that up anywhere (and only have one master list to maintain). Actually the biggest reason I installed the app on my watch was for this. On your watch? What watch? ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2014, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/32 "2014-10-27T14:58:59Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > On your watch? What watch? The one I linked to earlier in the same post you quoted. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290/33 "2014-10-27T15:40:32Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > On your watch? What watch? Five watch, dearest. (_Casablanca_…) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/somebody-is-drinking-the-evernote-kool-aid-is-it-you/702290.md?page=1)