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Evernote for Windows Update

March 12th, 2009

For some time now, we have been hard at work on a huge revision to our Windows client. We aren’t ready to release it just yet, but the latest version of Evernote for Windows (3.1) lays some critical groundwork for things to come.

Server-side recognition

In this release, we removed client-side image recognition. This means that images will now be processed on the Evernote servers, and not locally on your Windows desktop. We have a number of reasons for doing this. Mainly, it’s to provide you with better quality recognition. Up to now, whenever we made tweaks and improvements to our recognition technology, we were forced to tie that change to a Windows release (and a lengthy QA cycle) in order to ensure consistent results. By moving all image processing into the cloud, we can be much more aggressive in improving our recognition technology, which benefits all Evernote users.

This change also decreases CPU and RAM usage, which allows Evernote for Windows to run faster and more reliably on a wider range of computers; and it’s a much smaller download –down from a hefty 56MB to a svelte 21MB.

This change does have one significant side-effect. There will no longer be image processing in local-only notebooks, but we feel that this is a good long-term tradeoff.

Improvements all around

We’ve made some nice enhancement to existing features, including:

Merged notes will now maintain any associated attributes
Better indexing of tags and PDFs
Improved handing of Outlook file attachments

Promo Display

The lower left corner of the navigation now has a promo display. Look to that space for update information, tips on how to use Evernote, and (eventually) promotions. Premium subscribers have the option of hiding the display if they wish. Rest assured, none of your data in Evernote will ever be sent or shared with any external companies.

All this, in addition to numerous under-the-hood tweaks and big fixes. We hope you like it. Stay tuned, there are big (BIG) things in the works for Evernote for Windows.

74 Comments

Pyatno
March 17, 2009
11:00 am

I’m a OneNote user and have been using the free version of Evernote for month or so now, to try it out. I really liked it. After using Onenote, Evernote is a dream, especially the tagging.

But…
The free-version ad screen blew that out of the water. It’s placed to interfere with the tags. It doesn’t just sit there, it’s an actual loss of functionality. In all honesty I would have preferred reduced account space to the ad box. Yes, you want to monetize the free version, but something about its placement comes across as a big “eff you” to the users of the free version. Most people are going to use the free version before upgrading. Reducing its functionality may not be the way to go.

I’d happily pay $45 for this program. $90, assuming I use it for 2 years? No. I am not sure what I am renting there. Permanent storage on someone else’s servers? I don’t need that. All I need is syncing between computers. Image indexing only when I am on-line? That’s another net *loss* of functionality.

I can certainly see where some people would find these useful features, enough that they would pay $45/year or $5/month ($1 for 100Mb of storage!?). Unfortunately there are a lot who don’t need that. I am already renting third-party server space, I don’t want more.

You have a great product, but I am not sure about your pricing structure. Onenote is bloated, clunky, and the tagging is a trainwreck. But it is more economical over the long term. Even if it doesn’t do it well, it does what I need. All the useless crap on it that I don’t need? At least I only paid for it once.

clartusk
March 17, 2009
6:59 pm

I paid for 2.2 but was happy to move to 3 when it provided a cross-platform solution.

But more adware?! Not on my boxes. I’ll miss the image recognition stuff a little, but will gladly forgo it rather than have yet another nag added to my life.

Bye.

salesgeek
March 17, 2009
9:01 pm

I use Evernote Premium on a Mac, and two PCs. Thank you for the v3.1 improvements to the Windows client. As a regular “switcher” who uses both platforms I have two requests that I haven’t seen on this thread. These improvements are about consistency between Mac & PC.

1) Where is the side-by-side view in Windows? I hate the top and bottom view. This is a MUST HAVE.

2) Put the tags below the title in the Windows version like the Mac version. I know it’s only one tag but annoying as heck when using Windows and Mac on a daily basis.

The Mac client is far superior. Hopefully from the blog entries this signifies the Windows client isn’t going to be a low priority in the future.

Thanks for the great product. I know some users are hating loosing local image search but for me that’s not a biggie as I sync my notebooks to my iPhone. If I didn’t, I could see how I would have more local notebooks.

Great work on the fantastic iPhone client (and previous update with local notes).

Regards,
Salesgeek

Vitali
March 18, 2009
3:23 am

Bad place for adv, especially for widescreen netbooks. It would be much better to use status bar (bottom line) for some text promotions.
And if you want some money, make additional plans (e.g I don’t need extra 500mb, but file synchronization can be useful, if it will cost half of current price)

Anyway, thanks for good app

garmone
March 18, 2009
5:33 am

I’m also of the mind that the addition of ads to the desktop client is a big step backwards making this a much less appealing service. Granted, I’m speaking only from the standpoint of a user and I recognize that there has to be a way to make money if the service is to continue.

I am a convert from google notebook and will now have to seek out an alternative… too bad.

Matsya
March 18, 2009
8:57 am

I’m very surprised of the aggressiveness of some people here. If I won’t pay nothing, I could understand that someone tell me to move along, but, it is really not the case. I repeat: I want to pay for a premium account, but I can’t with those ways.

Please, be cool. Everybody here want the succeed of Evernote and be happy to use it in general.

Thanks.

Local Indexing Imperative
March 18, 2009
10:38 am

ok, I can live with the ads. I love Evernote, the ad is small, and I’d upgrade if I was still employed.

But no local indexing? What in the world are you thinking?

I certainly won’t put my medical information, business receipts, income tax scans or other similarly sensitive images in the cloud.

Looks like I’m back to MS Onenote 2007.

Was thrilled to switch to Evernote so I could lessen the grip of Microsoft’s tentacles, but waddaya know, Evernote’s even more insidious.

And to bill it as an upgrade worth paying for!

Get a set of brains to match, whydoncha?

Cyber
March 20, 2009
1:37 pm

Ok I’ve been an Evernote user for a long time. I don’t mind you including an ad to support your software but right on top of the tags area??

It’s poorly placed and w/o warning!

Also Evernote has been getting SLOWER AND SLOWER.

It’s becoming more like crippleware lately. Is premium service supposed to be faster?

Also why do you keep dropping features that were common to prior versions? I am still missing 2x features thinking they would come back. I had to carry a thumb drive around back then but at least my notes were MY notes!

Ugh, I’ve had enough, going to look for other note taking software.

Former Evernotes Lover

Arthur
March 20, 2009
2:40 pm

The fact that I’m a paying subscriber and I have to close the little ad window is awful. That was a really poor decision.

Matke
March 21, 2009
6:29 pm

Throughout the week I struggled with the new EN “features” I was lured into. And all the time I really wanted to leave a post how annoyed I am. Only now, after I had read the comments on this blog entry, I realized how many people complain.

As to ads, your yearly fee for a premium account does not work for me either. Since I am mostly using EN for personal textual notes, I do not need any of the premium features. I am seriously considering going back to One Note. Please come up with a more diversified fee structure.

But the thing that upset me most was the updated merge command that now adds these gray boxes and other stuff. I typically clip paragraphs from the same webpage and merge them together. I cannot believe that you left out the option that controls note merging.

Disappointing.

Gio
March 25, 2009
12:50 am

Like many others have said: removing the local ocr is a big step backwards. I use Evernote only with local notebooks, and I don’t want to send around scans of my bills, receipts, invoices and letters. If you’ll do that I’ll stick with 3.1 and look for alternatives.

gbroiles
March 25, 2009
1:38 pm

Dropping local image processing makes me think Evernote isn’t going to work out for me after all.

I have been meaning to upgrade to Premium because I realize you guys need cash to stay alive – and I don’t mind paying for software.

However, I’m an attorney, and the documents I want to index contain other people’s information, and there’s no way in **** that I’m going to send that to your servers. I’m sure you’re nice people and everything, but there are too many ways something can go wrong.

I am disappointed. I may (or may not, depending on the alternatives I find) use Evernote for personal projects, but for work it just became useless.

It may be that I’m trying to use Evernote in a way that it wasn’t intended to be used – but I don’t see how it’s practical to have people uploading tens or hundreds of megabytes of images to your servers to be indexed. Computing power is cheap enough (and processing can be batched) so I see how that’s plausible, but given your current storage/transfer limits I think image processing locally is the only option for me, privacy/confidentiality issues aside.

Srikanth
March 25, 2009
2:38 pm

I don’t mind the ads. But please retain the off-line image recognition option.

Srikanth
March 25, 2009
2:43 pm

Now this is crazy!
You have comment moderation and yet didn’t moderate Mr. Frederic Ducros jibe at free users in his second comment – “What bunch of cheap b.st.rds”!

What’s the point in moderation then?!

BAM
March 26, 2009
9:40 pm

I used the offline image recognition regularly for receipts, which I keep as a local only notebook and don’t want making their way online.

Not so keen on the ad box either, but I guess everyones gotta make a buck.

I’ve gone back to 3.1.1034 for now, if I’m forced to upgrade and there is no local image recognition, I guess that will be it for me and evernote.

LeMel
March 29, 2009
12:24 am

Hi,

Love this product. But I have to tell you – I DEPEND on local recognition for several uses of Evernote – please bring that back in some form – even limited. I’d planned to add other family members and upgrade to premium, but without local recognition, I have no reason to now. My family project requires it.

Regards,

Amaron
April 5, 2009
3:58 pm

Evernote has turned into FeedDemon.

I don’t like ads in sidebar.

Arthur
April 10, 2009
11:25 am

Regarding the ads …

It seemed like the first version with ads made you close it every time you opened the application, which would have been annoying. Checking it out now, it looks like you only have to close it once. As far as I’m concerned, that’s as good as there being no ads. So now I turn them back on once in a while to make sure I’m not missing something.

Fenders
April 30, 2009
6:50 am

As a new user, I’m really bummed about two things. First, in the Windows version, there’s no thumbnail option!!! This makes it completely bulky/unwieldy. Please fix. That should be easy!!

Second – in the iphone app, there’s no way to clip from websites. Please add a browser/search inside the evernote app to resolve this problem.

Garry
May 24, 2009
8:41 am

* Merged notes will now maintain any associated attributes
* Better indexing of tags and PDFs
* Improved handing of Outlook file attachments

I think this is great…

But I hate ads, they are really annoying..I will use for work definetely!

Thanks

Tracy
May 27, 2009
3:59 pm

I just discovered Evernote and was excited to download and install it on my Windows box. I was slightly bummed by the ad box, but not a complete deal killer.

No local image processing, however, is a deal killer. I just can’t see uploading receipts and other potentially private data up to the cloud for processing.

Sadly uninstalling.

Sam
September 3, 2009
9:13 pm

HERE is what you should do:

Two version. Let us buy one version (one time payment) that will be OFFLINE ONLY -with- local recognition.

Other version can be an ONLINE/OFFLINE -without- local recognition, and MONTHLY subscription.

Otherwise Evernote is doomed. Trust me.

Gene
September 21, 2009
8:13 pm

I was going to try evernote out even though I was alittle dubious of the online nature of it.. I want a good desktop app for taking notes locally…

I read about the ads in the desktop version though and I’m completely turned off.. Sorry but i don’t want to look at ads all day.

Neil
November 16, 2009
11:02 am

I’ve used evernote for a couple of days now and I like it. However, If I was going to use it for personal/private stuff or at work, where I deal with other peoples information, It would have to be an offline only application (with offline image processing).

Thats something I would happily pay for.

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Get the latest noteworthy news.

Evernote for Windows Update

March 12th, 2009

Server-side recognition

Improvements all around

Promo Display

74 Comments

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