Archive for July, 2008

In the past week, we released new versions of Evernote for Windows and Evernote Web. Here are some of the noteworthy enhancements.

Evernote Web

Rich text editing: The new text editing feature on Evernote Web allows you to add formatting and style to your notes. The editor lets you to add:

• Bullets and numbering
• Indentation
• Fonts, colors, and styles

Web Clipper Firefox extension: The Web Clipper Firefox extension (click to install) works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It lets you clip webpage content, including links, images, and text, directly into your Evernote Web account. If you have Evernote for Windows installed, the Firefox extension will automatically clip web content into the Windows client.

Mobile Web text note editing: We’ve added the ability to edit text notes on Evernote Mobile Web. This feature is coming soon to Evernote for iPhone. Evernote Mobile Web (www.evernote.com/m) is a version of Evernote optimized for mobile browsers.

Evernote for Windows

Numerous updates: The latest Evernote for Windows release contains tons of enhancements, usability improvements, and bug fixes. Our release notes are available here.

We are amazed at the number of Evernote accounts created since we launched Evernote for iPhone a few days ago! The feedback keeps pouring in and we’re pleased to say that we’ve just released an update (version 1.0.1) that addresses some of your most common requests. If you have the 1.0 version installed, your iPhone should alert you to the upgrade via the App Store icon. You can also just re-download Evernote directly from the phone or from this iTunes link and you’ll get 1.0.1.  As always, the Evernote iPhone app is free.

Here is the list of changes in Evernote for iPhone 1.0.1:

NOTE: Upgrading to 1.0.1 will delete any notes you currently have pending for upload in 1.0.  This won’t be the case in future updates.

• Snapshot notes are now sent in full size, for much more flexibility with display, sizing and recognition later on. You can also pinch and crop a snapshot before sending. Try it.
• The default zoom level is now set correctly when viewing text notes and small image notes, so you can read without any further zooming. This required both a change in the client and a server update, which went live this morning.
• The “pending” experience is greatly improved. Individual pending notes now display their status. We’ve also revamped the network code to prevent some notes from getting stuck in the queue. There’s also an indicator to tell you whether the phone is online and sending. Please note that sending full-size snapshot and long audio notes over the original iPhone’s EDGE network connection is pretty slow. Performance is much improved with 3G (best four hours you’ve ever spent in line), and performance over WiFi is very fast. Pending notes will continue to be sent even if you’re taking new notes, browsing existing notes, or making changes to your account setting. Due to restrictions in the Apple API, they will NOT be sent if you exit the Evernote application, but will remain in the pending queue until the next time you launch the app.
• The login experience has been improved to better handle user authentication, registration, incorrect passwords, etc.
• Search on the iPhone client is now improved and full-featured; you can search on any combination of keywords, tags and attributes. We replaced that icon to the right of the search box that no one understood. It was supposed to be a funnel. It will be missed.
• Snapshot orientation detection is improved.
• Memory handling has been optimized for a snappier overall experience.

Editing notes directly on the iPhone is coming soon! It’s a highly requested feature (by me, let alone all the rest of our users), but anything that involves changing the content of your memories on the primitive iPhone editor is just too risky to jump into without thorough planning and testing. We’ll roll out a way to edit text-notes on the iPhone (and our other mobile platforms) in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, since Evernote keeps all of your memories synchronized, you can easily edit notes on our Windows, Mac and Web clients and have the changes automatically show up on your iPhone.

This brand new platform presents us with lots of exciting, unexpected possibilities (and exciting, unexpected obstacles). We’re thrilled with the progress we’ve made on the iPhone so far and are busy figuring out more ways to make Evernote on the iPhone your shiny external brain.

If you like the idea of Evernote on the iPhone, please download the client, write a review in the App Store, and tell your friends! Thanks again for helping us make a better Evernote.

Apple just launched the App Store for iPhone and it’s got a shiny new Evernote! Our iPhone app is the best Evernote experience on a mobile phone yet; it’ll let you capture image, voice and text notes and automagically zap them to your Evernote account. You can also find, browse and search your notes with full tag, attribute and keyword support. All this without having to futz around with email or the web browser.

Oh, and since your iPhone knows where you are, it’ll geo-tag anything you capture! Having location information in your notes is going to open up lots of new possibilities and future enhancements.

Of course, any self-respecting external brain is the same no matter what device you use to get at it, so the new iPhone version of Evernote automatically synchronizes with all of our other PC, Mac, Web and mobile versions.

Evernote for iPhone works on first generation iPhones (just download the iTunes 7.7 which came out today and upgrade to the 2.0 firmware), as well as the iPhone 3G that comes out tomorrow. To get it, go to the new Apple App Store, or visit our new iPhone download page. Like all of our clients, the new iPhone version is free to download and works with both free and premium Evernote accounts..

We’re really psyched about this new platform for Evernote and are already planning lots of additions and enhancements. Evernote for iPhone is just scratching the surface compared to what’s coming, but it’s a pretty nifty scratch. Check it out and let us know what you think!

[Update: Some people in the comments are reporting problems with notes lingering in the ‘Pending’ section of the app. This is partially caused by the slowness of the iPhone’s EDGE network which has been hit particularly hard in these past few days. The phone will sometimes go to sleep while sending a note and it doesn’t always wake up smoothly. Syncing works better over WiFi and 3G.  We’ve also submitted a new version of the Evernote client to Apple that improves syncing performance across all networks and has a few feature enhancements. You’ll be able to auto-update as soon as Apple starts pushing out application changes to the App Store. We expect this to happen soon, but - since Apple has a lot on their hands today - we’re not sure when.

Thanks again for helping us make Evernote the best it can be!]

The great folks at the local print shop are working overtime to get our shirts printed and out the door to all of you annual subscribers.

Is it strange that Evernote t-shirts now represent about half of my wardrobe?