Get the latest on all things Evernote. Check out our tips, news, and cool ways people are making their world more notable.

 
 

With a Lot of Help from Our Friends

May 16, 2012 | Posted by Phil Libin in Our Notes
 
2 comments
 

Remember that $70 million round of funding we announced way back a week and a half ago? A crazy amount of stuff has happened since then, but I wanted to go back to the topic of the funding announcement and add a cool new detail: there’s a small “CEO Club” that’s helping to build Evernote.

In addition to the VCs and professional investors who participated, we set aside 10% of the round for a small group of founders and CEOs who have been my friends, mentors and main sources of inspiration ever since I moved to Silicon Valley five years ago. I’m deeply honored that these six great entrepreneurs accepted our invitation to invest in Evernote and help us build a hundred year startup:

  • Marc Benioff, Founder and CEO of Salesforce.com
  • Jerry Yang, Founder and CEO of Yahoo
  • Hiroshi Mikitani, Founder and CEO of Rakuten
  • Sky Dayton, Founder and CEO of Earthlink, eCompanies, Boingo and Helio
  • Loïc Le Meur, Founder and CEO of Seesmic and LeWeb
  • Alexis Ohanian, Co-founder of Reddit and Hipmunk

Each of these people managed to build companies from scratch that succeeded in changing the world and, in many cases, are still changing it.

Marc was my main inspiration for thinking about the cloud and was one of the first people to turn me on to the magic of Japan. Jerry built one of the first, great Internet companies and gave me invaluable advice for keeping the culture of a team intact through rapid growth. Mikitani-san is the strongest thinker I’ve ever met on what it means to be a truly international company; a company that doesn’t just sell everywhere, but builds everywhere as well. Sky is the textbook serial entrepreneur, a great simplifier of complexity, and once helped me meet an important New Year’s Resolution. Loïc is a true statesman, a genius at spotting talent and one of the first people to really give Evernote a boost. Alexis is the leading authority on making information overload fun, adorable corporate mascots and how to make products beloved by Stephen Colbert.

When I think about what these people have created, I am reminded that Evernote is just at the very start of our journey. We’re 1% done and have a colossal amount of work ahead. All of our accomplishments over the past five years are just a drop in the bucket and we aren’t really sure of what we’re doing. This is humbling and slightly scary.

And then I remember that until they managed to build world-changing, multi-billion-dollar public companies out of nothing, they’d never done it before either.

And that’s an encouraging thought.

 
 

The All New Evernote 4.0 for Android

May 15, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Product updates
 
24 comments
 

Major operating system updates are a great opportunity for us to rethink our apps. That’s exactly what happened when Google released the Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Today, we’re excited to unveil the completely redesigned Evernote 4.0 for Android. It’s more than just a new look, it’s the most powerful Evernote for Android, ever.

Get Evernote for Android

The All-New Look of Evernote for Android

Whether it’s a completely makeover or a simple touch-up, every single screen of the app have been redesigned to be easier to use, faster and more intuitive.

The new Home Screen
The new home screen is completely different from anything we’ve done before. The screen combines note creation options with buttons that take you directly into notebooks, tags and places (more on that later).


What makes the new home screen great, is how easy it is to use and how fast you can jump to it—swipe right or tap the elephant and you’re back.

Improved note and notebook list
The app’s note and notebooks lists got a major upgrade in this update. We redesigned the look of the note list to make it easier to browse content and to find what you’re looking for. For the notebook list, we brought together your personal notebooks and the ones that others have shared with you into a single view.

Action Bars
The latest update includes new contextual Action Bars that runs along the bottom of several screens. The bar shows options that relate to the screen that you’re on. For example, if you’re viewing a note, the Action Bar allows you to edit, share, tag, and perform other note-related actions. On the note list, tapping the Action Bar can launch a new note, search through notes, and change the sort order. Look for the Action Bar whenever you want to do more on the screen that you’re in.

Easy reading

We believe that the best interfaces are the ones that appear when you need them and become invisible when you don’t. That thinking led to our new note view. When reading a note, as you start scrolling, all navigation slides away, giving you a full-screen reading view. Then, when you need to edit, share or return to the note list, just tap the screen.

Swipe navigation

Horizontal swiping is now a major way to navigate through the app. When you’re viewing Notebooks, Tags, and Places, horizontal swiping moves you from one category to the next. If you’re in the home screen, a swipe to the left jumps you into the note list. Swipe back any time and you return to the home screen.

Places!

If you have “location services” enabled on your device, then Evernote assigns a place to each note you make. The new Places screen displays notes by creation location. Tap the map icon in the Action Bar to see your notes on a map.

New Settings

One of the other very visible interface features is the appearance of your username in the top left corner of the home screen. Tapping the username, shows your remaining monthly allowance and gives you access to additional settings.

Next to the username is a profile icon. This icon shows your account type: it’s a simple profile icon for Free users, and shiny crest if you’re Premium. In addition, at a glance, the icon shows you if you’re nearing your monthly allowance limit.

Much more…

As always, the visible things are only part of the story. There are lots of enhancements and fixes that will make your experience of using Evernote the best it’s ever been. Also, be sure to tap on the feature discovery lightbulb to see what’s new in this update and to get other useful tips.

 
 

Let’s Get Cooking: The First Evernote Cook-Along with Home Cooking Ambassador

May 14, 2012 | Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey in Tips and Stories
 
1 comment
 

After welcoming our Home Cooking Ambassador to the Ambassador Program, we naturally wanted to cook something. Since so many of you already use Evernote and Evernote Food to manage recipes and capture your cooking and eating experiences, we thought it would be fun for Lauren to lead a community cook-along event that lets us connect by sharing our experiences using Evernote and Evernote Food.

The First Evernote Cook-Along

For our first Evernote Cook-Along, Lauren has chosen a recipe that can be customized in a myriad of different ways. We’re making crepes! To participate, you can use Evernote and Evernote Food. Here’s how it’s going to work:

  1. The Cook-Along will be happening on Saturday, May 19th. If you’re cooking along, RSVP to the event on Facebook. Leading up to the Cook-Along, and over the course of the event, post your favorite crepe recipes, ask Lauren questions, share kitchen tips, and Evernote-related tips.
  2. Use the Evernote Web Clipper to clip Lauren’s basic crepe recipe to your Evernote account, so you can easily reference it while you’re in the kitchen.
  3. Customize the crepe recipe however you like: make them sweet, make them savory. Top with sugar, butter, eggs, Nutella…whatever you like! Choose and purchase your ingredients ahead of the event.
  4. On Saturday, May 19th, it’s time to get cooking! Bring whatever device you’re using to reference the recipe into your kitchen for easy access to your Evernote account. As you’re cooking, use Evernote Food (or Evernote on your mobile device) to capture snapshots of the process. Then, be sure to snap some photos of the finished product.
  5. Share your creation to your Facebook page, Twitter, and your blog (if you have one!) anytime between May 19th and May 26th. Use the hashtag #evernotecookalong when sharing your notes.

To share your Meal from Evernote Food: Tap the arrow icon in the lower right-hand corner. Select Facebook or Twitter. Be sure to add the hashtag #evernotecookalong! All of your Evernote Food notes automatically sync to your Evernote account, so you have the opportunity to make them public. Select ‘Copy Share URL to Clipboard,’ then use this link to post to the Cook-Along Facebook page, your blog, and the Lifestyle Forum.

To share photos from your Evernote account: Select Post to Facebook, Post to Twitter, or Copy Share URL to Clipboard.

Win Prizes!

Over the course of the Cook-Along, we’ll select 5 random winners, who will all receive a bag of Evernote goodies including a t-shirt, tote bag, stickers, and more.

Let’s get cooking!

Want more ways to connect with Evernote Ambassadors? Visit our Ambassador Page and Lifestyle forum.

Have an idea for a community Evernote event? Share it in the comments!

 
 

Week in Review: A Recap of This Week’s Posts

May 13, 2012 | Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey in Our Notes
 
No comments
 

Here’s a quick recap of blog posts you may have missed this week.

Evernote Acquires Penultimate
The beautifully simple handwriting app for iPad is now a part of the Evernote family. Learn more about this new addition.

The Evernote Trunk Conference is back!
Mark your calendars: on August 24th, the Evernote Trunk Conference makes its return to San Francisco. This year, expect developer and user sessions, as well as weekend events led by our Ambassadors! Get the details and RSVP.

Ben Zotto, Penultimate Founder, Says ‘The Future is Bright’
Penultimate founder Ben Zotto sounds off on what’s in store for Penultimate, now that it has joined the Evernote family. Read Ben’s thoughts.

Evernote for Mac Update: Card View, Word Count, New Save Features, and More
The new Evernote for Mac includes many user-requested new features and updates. Learn more and get it for your Mac today.

Evernote for iOS Update: Redesigned Screens, Improved Usability, New Settings, and More
It was a big week for product updates; Evernote for iOS includes redesigned note screens, improved editing, new ways to save attachments from your Evernote account and more. See what’s new and download.

Evernote Launches Separate Chinese Service
We launched a completely separate Chinese Service called Yinxiang Biji (印象笔记) to give our users in China a great Evernote experience. Read more about it.

 
 

The Evernote Trunk Conference is back!

May 11, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Our Notes
 
No comments
 

We’re excited to announce our second annual Evernote Trunk Conference. This year, it’s taking place in San Francisco on August 24th. Reserve your spot today »

The goal of ETC is to bring together the global community of Evernote developers, users, and partners for a single day of great talks, sessions, and workshops. It’s an opportunity to exchange ideas, expand your Evernote knowledge, and build lasting connections with fellow users and developers.

Focused on you

We want to make ETC a great experience for the entire community, so we’re planning dedicated, separate tracks for developer and users. You’ll get to hear from members of the Evernote team, developers, Trunk partners, Evernote Ambassadors, and many more. Our complete conference agenda will be available very soon.

More than a conference. It’s a destination.

Last year, hundreds of people came to San Francisco for our one-day conference. This year, we decided to make ETC a memorable weekend. In addition to the conference, we’re working with our Ambassadors and team members to build a schedule of Evernote-themed activities, ranging from walking tours around San Francisco to Evernote boot camps.

DEVCUP

A couple of weeks ago we kicked off Devcup, our annual developer competition. Your great Evernote integration idea can win you a piece of $100,000 in prizes. Winners will be announced at ETC. For more information, visit the Devcup site.

Join us

Don’t miss this opportunity to join fellow Evernote enthusiasts, members of the developer community, partners, and Evernote employees from around the world to learn, get inspired, and geek out over all things Evernote.

  • When: Friday, August 24th 2012
  • Where: San Francisco Design Center – 635 8th Street, San Francisco, CA
  • Price: $100
  • RSVP now »

Don’t forget to let your friends know that you’ll be attending ETC on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks.

See you there!

 
 

Evernote Launches Separate Chinese Service

May 09, 2012 | Posted by Phil Libin in Our Notes
 
15 comments
 

Today, Evernote unveiled its new, completely separate, Chinese service called Yinxiang Biji (印象笔记) to give our users in China a great Evernote experience. The name means Memory Notes or Impression Notes. As a happy coincidence, the second character, 象, means elephant. The previously existing Evernote service is not affected and will continue to run separately.

We’ve been hard at work on this for months: building a great team in Beijing, engineering new products, and setting up our new data centers. Minutes ago, we flipped the switch.

Here’s what it’s all about, why we did it, and what it means for you.

Why launch a separate service in China?

Our goal is to improve the lives of everyone around the world by giving them a second brain and a perfect memory. Our user base in China is growing quickly; with over a million users, it’s already our third largest country and at the current rate it’ll soon top Japan to move into second place. We’re really pleased with this, but, frankly, using Evernote in China hasn’t been a great experience.

The most common request we get from our Chinese users is to make Evernote faster, more reliable and better integrated with the rest of the Chinese Internet. Due to poor network connectivity between the US and China, there’s only one way to definitively fix the problem: have a separate service in China. That’s what we built.

In addition to dramatically improving the Chinese user experience, Yinxiang Biji also offers a number of other benefits:

  • The new Yinxiang Biji API will make it much easier for Chinese developers to build great apps and integrations. Once built, developers will be able to choose whether to have their apps work with Yinxiang Biji, Evernote, or both.
  • The service will work with Chinese partners and payment methods to match Chinese Internet expectations.
  • Yinxiang Biji will provide Chinese-language customer support based in China.

Evernote and Yinxiang Biji will be developed in parallel and share much of the code-base and features. Initially, Yinxiang Biji will not have support for sharing and social features until we complete the integration with Chinese social networking companies (Evernote’s current sharing and social features don’t work well in China anyway and are rarely used). All of our own major apps will be updated to know how to log in to either service.

What does this mean for our users inside China?

People in China now have the choice to create an account on Yinxiang Biji. Existing Evernote users may copy some or all of their notes and notebooks to a new account on the Chinese service, which will give these users all the speed and reliability advantages of the local service. Instructions on copying data to Yinxiang Biji are available here. The existing Evernote service will continue to work exactly as before, of course.

What does this mean for our users outside of China?

Absolutely nothing. Evernote and Yinxiang Biji are completely separate services with no connection to one another. Evernote data will not be stored on Yinxiang Biji servers, and vice-versa. Even though the two services are distinct, we think that over time the global community of Evernote users will benefit from great apps and integrations developed for Yinxiang Biji and configured to work with Evernote.

What about data privacy?

We will always strive to preserve the privacy of your data. Our three laws of data protection apply to both Yinxiang Biji and the Evernote Service:

  • Your data is yours
  • Your data is protected
  • Your data is portable

You can read a longer explanation of our three laws here, but the short version is that we will not share your data with any partners, analyze or data-mine it for the purposes of serving ads or other “big data” monetization schemes, or put up any obstacles to you getting your data out at any time.

This still leaves the question of government access. The laws and practices controlling data stored on servers in China are evolving rapidly and Yinxiang Biji will comply with Chinese regulations applicable to the service. This means users of Yinxiang Biji should be aware that Chinese authorities may have the right to access their data according to current regulations.

The existing Evernote service will continue to operate out of servers located in California under the protection of US privacy laws.

Our big adventure

Doing business in China is notoriously hard for western companies. We understand this and we understand that we don’t have all the answers. We thought about taking the easy road and ignoring China altogether, but that approach just isn’t Evernote-y. In a perfect world, great companies with roots in Silicon Valley should be able to succeed in China and great companies with roots in Beijing should be able to succeed in San Francisco. Most importantly, global products designed and developed through the cross-pollination of the world’s top centers of entrepreneurship and innovation will be better than products built in a vacuum.

We don’t live in a perfect world, but through hard work, innovation, optimism and transparency, we think we can nudge it along a little.

I’m really excited about this launch.

If you have questions, please ask them in the comments.

 
 

Evernote for Mac Update: Card View, Word Count, New Save Features, and More

May 08, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Product updates
 
62 comments
 

Today, Evernote for Mac gets a pretty great update (v 3.1) full of new features, redesigned screens and stability improvements. We’ve added a completely new Card View, word and character counts for notes, easier attachment export, and much more. Let’s take a look:

Get Evernote for Mac

The New Card View

We replaced our thumbnail view with a completely new Card View. The design of this view will be familiar to Evernote for iPad users and those that have tried using Evernote for Mac in fullscreen mode.

There are several reasons to love Card View. First, you get much more information about the content of the note at a glance. If your note contains only text, then you’ll see the first couple of sentences in the card. If it’s just an image, then the card will present a well-formatted thumbnail.

The Card View action bar
At the top of the Card View, there are several useful options. At left, you can select a sorting method. In the middle, choose from one of two card sizes. On the right, choose to hide the note pane and expand Card View. You should definitely try that last one. Hide the note pane and also hide the left notebook panel using the Favorites Bar. The result: a full app window of note cards, which is a great new way to browse your notes.

Word and character count!

You asked for it, and here it is. Evernote for Mac now has word and character count totals for each note. To view the counts, tap on the “i” in the top right corner of a note. The numbers are displayed in the Size section. To view the counts quickly, try the CMD+Shift+I keyboard shortcut.

Redesigned account info screen

We spruced up the account info screen inside the app to make it easier to read important information, such as your remaining monthly allowance (60MB for Free users and 1GB for Premium). Also, Free users can now upgrade to Premium by clicking a new upgrade button in the account info screen.

Save all attachments

Dragging something out of a note onto your desktop is simple enough when you only want one file, but what if you want to export all the files and attachments in a note? Now, we have the answer. Click on a note, or select multiple notes, then right click and choose Save Attachments. You’ll be asked to choose a destination folder. That’s all. Every file, image, PDF, and audio clip are now in that folder. This is just one of the many ways that we make it easy for you get your content out of Evernote.

Better printing

You’ve asked us to add more context to notes that you print and, in this update, we did. In the print settings, click on Show Details. Next, click the checkbox labeled Print Headers. Now, your notes will print with all their header information, including title, dates, tags, and notebook.

Date and time stamp

We’ve added a couple of useful keyboard shortcuts that let you add a quick date and time into the body of a note as you type.

  • For date: Press CMD+Shift+D
  • For time: Press CMD+Shift+Option+D

These shortcuts are great if you’re taking accurate meeting minutes or trying to associate your lecture audio recording with the notes you’ve taken. If you’d like to change the date formatting, you can set it in the new Formatting tab in Evernote Settings.

And much more…

In addition to all of these great new capabilities, we also improved bullets and numbered lists, made result highlighting in PDFs more accurate, and fixed tons of other issues. You’ll find the app is more stable and reliable than ever. We hope you like our latest version of Evernote for Mac. Let us know what you think in the comments.

 
 

Evernote for iOS Update: Redesigned Screens, Improved Usability, New Settings, and More

May 08, 2012 | Posted by Andrew Sinkov in Product updates
 
35 comments
 

This has been quite a week already, and it’s only Tuesday! Today, we have a major update for iOS 5 that includes redesigned note screens, improved editing, better checkboxes, new attachment options, and more. Let’s take a look.

Get Evernote for iOS »

iOS 5 iPhone: Major note editor upgrade and redesign for iOS 5

The first thing iPhone users will notice is the completely redesigned note editor. We’ve spent the past few months exploring ways to make the interface more intuitive and easier to use, and we’re very excited about the result.

Attachments on top
All of the attachment options now run along the top of the note editor, so you can add a photo or audio recording with fewer taps.

Intuitive text styling
The text styling options are now accessible from a new tab that appears above the keyboard. When you tap on the styling tab, the keyboard is replaced with formatting options. This way you can place the cursor where you want, set the style, then flip back to the keyboard to keep typing.

Redesigned note info
Tapping the “i” in the top right corner of the note brings up the newly redesigned note info screen. Here you can quickly set the notebook, add tags and see the location of the note on a map.

iOS 5 iPhone: Better checkboxes

Making lists in Evernote is really straightforward. Create a checkbox from the formatting tab, and off you go. With this update, we made checkboxes more intuitive, and more useful to the super checkbox users out there. First, when you’re in a checkbox list and create a new line, Evernote will automatically add a checkbox to that line. Additionally, we now allow you to indent your checkboxes, great if you’re making lists within lists.

Improved attachments

Above, we mentioned the new location of the attachment options in the note editor, but that’s not all we changed. We improved how these functions work, too.

New recorder
The audio recorder has been beautifully redesigned. Now, when you tap the microphone icon, the entire top bar transforms into the recorder, showing you audio levels and recording time. When you’re finished recording, tap Done.

Your recording will appear in the body of the note. You can even play it back right away to make sure you like what you captured. If you don’t, simply delete the audio and record again.

Photo Stream
If you use iCloud to sync your images between your devices, then you have a Photo Stream group in your photo library. The new Evernote update allows you to attach these images to your notes.

More control

The latest update also adds a couple of new settings that let you better control your Evernote experience.

Auto-titling settings
In Settings, you can now turn Note Auto-titling ON or OFF. Note Auto-titling is the feature that predicts a note title based on your location, calendar events or contents of the note. The feature is on by default, but if you prefer not to get title suggestions, then simply turn it off.

Save to Camera Roll
One more feature that you can now disable is automatically adding snapshots you make in Evernote to your Camera Roll. If you would prefer not having the same image in Evernote and in your Camera Roll, then disable the function and the app will only save the snapshot in Evernote.

And more…

In addition to all the visible changes described above, there are lots of improvements and fixes that make this version of Evernote even more reliable. There’s more to come.

 
 

Ben Zotto, Penultimate Founder, Says ‘The Future is Bright’

May 07, 2012 | Posted by Kasey Fleisher Hickey in Our Notes
 
4 comments
 

Ben Zotto, the founder of Penultimate, a company that is now a part of the Evernote family, shares his thoughts on the future. This blog post originally appeared on the Cocoa Box blog.

I’m Ben, the creator of Penultimate, and today I’m proud to announce that Penultimate is becoming part of the Evernote family. Penultimate is the best and best-selling handwriting app for iPad. Evernote is a company whose mission is to help you “remember everything,” with a popular and powerful service for creating notes of all kinds and making them searchable and findable anywhere. They have a longstanding commitment to handwriting recognition — members of the core Evernote team have been building handwriting technology since the Apple Newton (really). Penultimate already offers basic Evernote integration, and tons of people are right now using Evernote’s recognition, search, and organization for their Penultimate notes.

Realizing that Evernote and Penultimate have such obviously complementary technologies, we’re teaming up. Evernote has acquired Penultimate, and I’ll be joining Evernote to help bring their significant resources to bear on making Penultimate better, faster. You’ll also start seeing Penultimate (finally!) on other devices, and we’ll be bringing great handwriting into other parts of Evernote.

Importantly, Penultimate is not going away: it remains an independent application, and will continue to espouse the virtues of ease of use, elegance, and “that special something” that have kept you coming back. But I also think you’ll be thrilled, and even surprised, by how much more the app will be able to do for you as we work together to improve it and connect more profoundly with Evernote’s capabilities.

Penultimate has come a long way since its launch as the original dedicated handwriting app for Apple’s first iPad two years ago. It now offers scores of powerful features within that same accessible and attractive design. It’s remained a top-selling app, and millions of people have showed us that they’re doing things with Penultimate we never imagined. I’ve been amazed and humbled by all of the passionate users I’ve encountered — you have offered your valuable feedback, support, and candid (!) critiques. Penultimate would not be what it is without you. I believe that this partnership makes a lot of sense, and Penultimate is only going to get better from here. Not just incrementally better, but WAY better, and quickly. I’m excited about the future of the app, and I sincerely hope that you will be too.

 
 

Evernote Acquires Penultimate

May 07, 2012 | Posted by Phil Libin in Our Notes
 
34 comments
 

Cocoa Box’s Penultimate, the beautifully simple handwriting app for iPad, has been one of our favorites pretty much since it came out two years ago, so we’re very thrilled to announce that we’ve acquired the company and that Penultimate is now part of the Evernote family!

Penultimate is hugely popular. In fact, according to Apple, it’s the #4 best-selling paid iPad app of all time. When you have such a great product, the last thing you want to do is mess with it. That’s why Penultimate creator, Ben Zotto, is joining Evernote to head up future app development. Penultimate will stay a separate, elegant application and will get many much-requested Evernote-y improvements including full search and synchronization. Ben will also lead the effort to put handwriting and digital ink functionality into other Evernote products and platforms, so you’ll see handwriting cross-pollination popping up everywhere.

We couldn’t be more excited that Penultimate is joining Evernote. Our team has been working on handwriting recognition and digital ink forever and it feels like for the very first time, the experience of writing on a tablet is actually great. That’s what Penultimate has done. Now that we can add Evernote’s technology and expertise, it’s about to get a lot more powerful. Just wait till you see what we’ve got in store.

Penultimate is available for $0.99 from the iTunes App Store.