Evernote = Ubiquitous Personal Memory
Evernote, which was once a Windows-only, highly-complex clippings database, has re-invented itself with a new 3.0 beta release that combines a feature-smart client for OS X (& Windows) with creative and handy web & mobile functionality to ensure you never forget anything. I managed to wait in the beta line long enough to get an invite and wanted to share the first impressions of the program.
The developers of Evernote seemed to have a single principle in mind when developing their new software/service: make it as easy and painless as possible to capture any bit of visual or textual information anywhere you happen to be at any time. From screen captures, to to-do lists, to quick notes via text or e-mail to impromptu captures from your cell phone camera, Evernote removes all barriers to memory.
At its core, Evernote is just a simple, tagged database of images or text/HTML presented via the web and web service (unpublished and used only by Evernote). While you can perform many tasks in-browser, lets focus on some of the more interesting features of the Mac client.
The Evernote Application
As you can see from the screen capture, the Evernote main window provides a Mail-like interface to stored notes with collections (you store notes in “notebooks”) and smart-tags on the left (with an activity window in lieu of a status bar), note list on the top left with a “reading pane” on the bottom left. Single-clicking a note (or clicking on “New Note”) lets you edit or create a new note in the reading pane while a double-click opens a note in a new window. The editor is sparse, but provides enough functionality to enter basic information with minimal formatting.
The entry above was generated by the Evernote bookmarklet which I placed in the bookmarks bar in Safari. After navigating to a web site, just click on the bookmark to have Evernote store a full HTML copy of that page. You can add tags to notes for searching or sorting and Evernote will generate metadata for your entries and will even attempt to OCR text it finds in pictures.
Upon installation, you can customize three shortcut key-sequences that will then be available anywhere you happen to be in OS X. With them, you can take a partial or full screen capture and send it straight to the Evernote application, quick-paste any copied image or text right into Evernote or execute a search over your notes databases.
The thumbnail view of the app would be much cooler if there were a “quick look”-type of feature, but the sorting options give it the “event”-like feel from iPhoto.
Evernote will sync your local notebooks on startup and can be configured to sync every 5, 15, 30 & 60 minutes thereafter. Plus, there is the option to only enable manual synchronization, which is especially handy when you are in an area with limited Internet access/availability.
Evernote Everywhere
For Evernote to be successful, it must work well from any mobile platform. The Safari bookmarklet, Safari browser itself and Mobile Safari interfaces all put note taking & viewing right at your fingertips.
Their e-mail feature works just like sending photos to Flickr or .Mac, and Evernote gives you the ability to generate a new “TO:” address with little effort (one button) in the event you accidentally disclosed it or the evil spammers finally iterate to it.
Evernote Impressions
The developers at Evernote did a great job making the application feel extremely Mac-like. The interface is well-designed, application preferences make sense and the integration with the system is narrowed to a small, targeted subset of specific and useful actions.
I mailed a copy of a photo I took of a good bottle of wine my wife and I tried at Pair – a tasty (but $) local Seattle restaurant – in order to remember to try to find that particular vintage sometime in the future. I could have performed a similar task by syncing to iPhoto or e-mailing to Flickr or publishing to a .Mac gallery, but Evernote will allow me to easily store the information I find out about the winery, locations, price, etc right with the picture and will allow me to retrieve it anytime, anywhere or include it in search results when digging for wine options in the future.
The bookmarklet is handy and is more of an augmentation to a service like Del.icio.us, but I made great use of it to note some collectables I wish to pre-order and can see many opportunities to use it to capture articles and information from interesting sites. Google Notebook provides some similar functionality, but lacks the feature-rich local client/sync (give them time, though, especially with Google Gears constantly adding functionality).
It would be great if Evernote as a service published an API so you could do what you wanted (programmatically) with your data. They could also use a bit of social networking features and provide the ability to share notes with other Evernote users, allow for group notes collections/notebooks, send notes via Twitter or IM/SMS or provide RSS feeds of your stored information. While it doesn’t pander to such mashupable “must have’s”, there is no indication they are not planning support for such items in the future, and other sites seem to have some inside scoop that support for these enhancements are right around the corner.
Giveaway Time!
To share the joy of my newfound ubiquitous memory, I’m giving away 10 Evernote invitations to TAB readers. Just submit a comment before 2359 PST Saturday (April 5, 2008) and include your name/valid e-mail or @Twitter handle, if you have one (I’ll DM you for a contact e-mail if you win). Winners will be chosen at random from valid entries and notified on Sunday (April 6, 2008).
If you’re also an Evernote beta user, don’t let the entry-deluge sway you from tossing your opine in the comments. Your views and usage advice will be reaching more folks than ever!
Kha on April 4th, 2008 at 12:18 am
Nice review. Would love to get my hands on a beta version too :)
Daniel on April 4th, 2008 at 12:30 am
I’ve been using the beta for a couple of weeks, and I can’t believe you didn’t mention the coolest feature… the ability to search text in photos and screen captures.
If you were to search for “Fall,” the photo of the “Fall Line” wine bottle will probably show up in your search results. With a good photo, it works surprisingly well.
Ron on April 4th, 2008 at 12:45 am
I’m interested. Leo just talked about this on Macbreak Weekly and recommended it.
Tomislav on April 4th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Great review. I would like an invite please.
Aadom on April 4th, 2008 at 12:57 am
Hey Man,
Good Article. Still look forward to meeting up with you one of these days.
@aadom
Francois on April 4th, 2008 at 1:05 am
Hi, great review, I’d love to see more of it!
I hope to be one of the invite winners…
Cheers
Jonas on April 4th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Great find!
Can I have one, please? :)
Robert McGovern on April 4th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Well, always intrigued to try this sort of thing. Used to use Google Notebooks but when I swapped to Mac gave up because it doesn’t support Safari.
Twitter ID: tarasis
maco on April 4th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Great software, i am looking for!!
Include me, please…..
Simone D. on April 4th, 2008 at 1:29 am
Sounds interesting! Can i have one? :)
magyar on April 4th, 2008 at 1:37 am
I’d like to try it out. It seems to go beyond other apps that I have been using for these purposes.
Jo on April 4th, 2008 at 1:44 am
Hi,
nice review. I’m just looking for programs to “extend my brain” through my computer (I think I paid enough money for it to let it help me remember things ^^), so I looked at Evernote, too. I found some other programs, so I thought I wouldn’t really need Evernote anymore, but now I realize that it can do some things that others can’t do, so I want to try it again. So I’d like to have an invitation. ;)
Elizabeth on April 4th, 2008 at 2:00 am
I’d like to try Evernote. I’ve yet to commit to an application, so I’m curious to see how it compares to Yojimbo, Soho Notes, and Mori.
@Daniel: That feature sounds great! I’m not great about tagging everything, so I’d probably only remember the name of the wine, for example.
Joe Chiarelli on April 4th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Oh, can i get an invite to the beta?
bruce on April 4th, 2008 at 2:44 am
oh well, guess I’m too late for the invite, but the ap sounds sweet, can’t wait to check it out at a later date.
thanks,
bl
Achim on April 4th, 2008 at 2:52 am
This looks highly interesting to me. I looked at Yojimbo, but never really got a feel for it but I’m desperate for something with a concept like this. Please include me in the list of people who like an invite. :-)
Michael Brien Lane on April 4th, 2008 at 2:54 am
This is the kind of thing that makes computers genuinely useful tools in life.
I’d like to be included in the invite drawing.
@Bruce – I’m reading that the entry for the drawing ends on Saturday 4/5, so it’s not too late.
Steve on April 4th, 2008 at 3:36 am
I, too, would like to see how Evernote compares to other apps in this space, e.g., Journler.
Michael Hyatt on April 4th, 2008 at 3:41 am
I’d like to get a beta invite. I used the program on Windows and loved it. I switched to a Mac a few years ago and haven’t looked back. But this would be a nice addition.
John on April 4th, 2008 at 3:58 am
I heard about Evernote on Twit. Signed up at the web site a few days back. I’d love to try the mac client. @nasaman007
Alex on April 4th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Invite would be kickass. :]
Alan B. on April 4th, 2008 at 4:20 am
Sounds like something I really need. I’d like to give the beta a try.
Juho on April 4th, 2008 at 4:25 am
I could use an invite.
flysi on April 4th, 2008 at 5:13 am
Sounds like an intriguing piece of software – kind of like Backpack, but on steroids.
@flysi
Randy on April 4th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Looks very cool. I’ve been looking for something like this (Yojimbo, SohoNotes). All have some limitations.
I think it being able to index text words in pictures…
ajeh on April 4th, 2008 at 5:23 am
I would love to try out Evernote. It’s too bad that I need an invite. Do you know where I can get one? :)
Andy on April 4th, 2008 at 5:37 am
Thanks for your write up. The analogy to Mail is good – I wonder how much more useful this is than the Notes function of the Mail app.
I use a MacBook Pro, synced to My wife’s MacBook and our Kids iMac. So the utility of Evernote might make it more analogous to iTunes.
What I mean is, iTunes allows me to sort, search and collect song, vids and the like. Plus there’s the publishing part of it (better access?)
I’d love to try Evernote, to see if it could do for my random thoughts and ideas and media collection that I already do with music & movies!
Here’s hoping for an invite! Thanks!
Will on April 4th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Sounds like a great app. I would love to try it out.
jay on April 4th, 2008 at 6:24 am
At first Evernote looked like a dream come true, but then i noticed a deal-breaker flaw for me…
The OCR (Optical Character Recognition – extract text from photos) is not performed locally but on the Evernote server. I do not feel comfortable in sending and storing very personal or sensitive documents on the net. It would be great if i could tag files as sensitive and these would be OCR’d locally and not synced.
I also noticed that there is currently no support for PDFs.
Paul T. on April 4th, 2008 at 6:27 am
Please add me to the list!
Micah Redding on April 4th, 2008 at 6:44 am
I used to use Evernote as a Windows application, and looking at the screenshots, I feel maybe they’ve lost something. Nevertheless, it was very essential to me at one time, and I’d like to try the new beta.
Andres on April 4th, 2008 at 6:44 am
Sounds pretty interesting, I´ve been using Yojimbo or DevonThink for archiving but I´ve allways missed to possibility to archive stuff everywhere. Looks promising. Can I have a beta invitation? Thank you!
Ian on April 4th, 2008 at 6:46 am
I used to use evernote on windows, but switched to the mac. Love to see evernote on the mac!
Fernando Jacome on April 4th, 2008 at 6:47 am
Sounds like a greate app, hope i con try it out, and it sounds that an iGTD plug-in will be perfect!
Joe Pimentel on April 4th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Evernote sounds exactly what I’ve been needing\looking for. I often take pictures on my phone for remind myself of something but the process isn’t integrated with anything so I sometimes forget to even look at my phone photos. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on Evernote so I can hopefully streamline my “camera phone\note taking” process. @JoePimentel
Jose Rivera on April 4th, 2008 at 7:02 am
I heard Leo Laporte’s review of the application and it seems to be an interesting application.
Ocean K. on April 4th, 2008 at 7:03 am
After reading your review I cannot wait to try out Evernote, it is such a great app!
john b on April 4th, 2008 at 7:07 am
looks interesting, especially the iphone integration, would like to kick the tires and take it for a spin
Kevin on April 4th, 2008 at 7:14 am
Very cool – I’d love to try this out!
Sebastian on April 4th, 2008 at 7:26 am
Cool; can I have an invite? Cross platform is good, too; I’ve got a Mac and PC!
Andrew Creek on April 4th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Yeah I would really like to give this a try.
achilles on April 4th, 2008 at 7:34 am
great!
Please count me in for the try out.
thanks
DJfelix on April 4th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I’ve never heard of Evernote before. Excellent review. I would actually like to give it a try myself. Thanks for introducing us to it.
Rick Montanez on April 4th, 2008 at 8:08 am
This looks like an ideal product for research. Thanks for the opportunity.
Mike on April 4th, 2008 at 8:15 am
I’d love one.
pkh on April 4th, 2008 at 8:17 am
I’d like a shot at one of the invites, please. Thank you.
Michael on April 4th, 2008 at 8:19 am
sweet. i forget stuff all the time.
MIKEINAZ on April 4th, 2008 at 8:52 am
Please send me an invite too.
Thanks!
Colin on April 4th, 2008 at 8:56 am
I would love this
Michael on April 4th, 2008 at 9:18 am
This sounds great! And Windows/Mobile/Mac functionality I <3.
Leo on April 4th, 2008 at 9:39 am
#51 deserves an invite? plz? @leoport
Dan on April 4th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Thanks for the review. I stumbled across evernote the other day.
Would love to try out the beta.
bt on April 4th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Yeah – first heard about Evernote on the March 15 podcast at surfbits.com where the CEO Phil Libin was interviewed, and so nice to see it mentioned here and the buzz continuing. So sure, please drop my name into your draw.
…bt
sixinone on April 4th, 2008 at 10:48 am
aw hell yea i’m terrible at remembering stuff!
Chris on April 4th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Pick me! Pick me!
Beejamin on April 4th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Great review! I have been sitting in the invitation line for a week now! Put me in the drawing:
@beejamin
Thanks!
Tay on April 4th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I’ve been trying the beta on a Mac and like it a lot – except for the ‘deal killer’ of not handling PDFs.
Any way to get that feature into Evernote?
Cristiano on April 4th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Sounds really interesting. Hope I get to try this
Chris A. on April 4th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
This sounds extremely interesting. I would love a beta invite please!
barry mcwilliams on April 4th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Thanks for the write-up. I have a love-hate relationship with these sorts of application and I’m really excited to find one that might really work for me.
Here’s hoping I’m a winna!
Cheers.
Toby on April 4th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Sounds like a nifty program!
Adam Endicott on April 4th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Wow, this looks awesome. I’d love an invite. @adamend
Eugene on April 4th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I’ve been using the beta for the last several weeks. It’s a great program; the only big hole in its features is lack of PDF support.
Dennis on April 4th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
As a German & French teacher who uses both OS X and Windows at school, I could really use a license. This looks fantastic!
wlai on April 4th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Love to have an invite for this. Mac at home and Windows at work, so this would be a great match.
Jedillwag on April 4th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I always forget my NAME. Please put me in the drawing.
Dustin on April 4th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
I use to-do lists for everything (I even have a gmail account set up for my todo’s that I mail to myself within my iPhone), so I’d love to give this a try. This sounds great!
Indraneel on April 4th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I’d love a license!
DLB on April 4th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Count me in among those who’d love to have an invite….thanks!
Luke on April 4th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
This looks exactly like what I’ve been chasing for some time. Something that not only looks pretty but is function and doesn’t just tie you to your Mac. I have a BlackBerry too so it’d be cool if I could get to it via that too!
Rob Lewis on April 4th, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Nice to see that EverNote has made it to the Mac. I’ve had it on my little-used Windoze laptop for some time, but never really gotten into it.
Enter me in the giveaway, pleez.
raymon on April 4th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
i think i need it … entered … @if
Madconsumer on April 4th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
This a very cool app/service. The app is a free download but really isn’t that valuable without the web service. The text recognition in my three day test has been good. I’ve been trying to figure out a simple way to digitize selected magazine articles and being able to search them. I’m going to test it by scanning the articles as jpegs. This should be much easier than trying to go through OCR to pdf but we’ll see. It’ll be a long sought solution it is works.
BTW pdfs are on the road map. Besides getting a mention on MBW, Tim Verpoorten had a nice interview with the CEO Phil Libin who’s a recent switcher on MacReviewCast. Here’s the link to the podcast They have a clear vision and interesting plans. Apparently the free invites there are used up. I put out a tweet and got several including one directly from Evernote who are now following me.
Cheers… John
Randy Gresham on April 4th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Love the integration.
Please enter me into your drawing.
Thanks
aron leifer on April 5th, 2008 at 1:24 am
may i have an invite? how do i add voice notes?
Veronica on April 5th, 2008 at 2:11 am
This sounds very interesting. I would love to be invited please!
thanks very much!!
Matthieu M on April 5th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Your mailing list has been a very useful reading for mac enthousiasts !
Please include me in your contest !
Best wishes
Matthieu
Steve on April 5th, 2008 at 6:32 am
Count me in for the drawing! Sounds great! BTW, who pays for the server side storage? How does that business plan work?
Tim S on April 5th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Thoughtful review… My ever-increasing need to manage the myriad information that comes across my computer screen seems to require a variety of personal information managers from Devonthink to Papers, Evernote seems to offer a unique feature set that appears nearly invaluable…
I would like to be entered in the drawing as well…
DM on April 5th, 2008 at 8:20 am
Sounds pretty interesting but has anyone compared it to devonthink?
Shamus on April 5th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Looks interesting, would love a try
@ShamusCromarty
Ingo on April 5th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I wanted a PalmOS client and conduit, but this might just do most of what I need!
Mike Paris on April 5th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I’ve been looking for a neat little application like this for awhile. I read so many RSS feeds a day and I’m always trying to reference the neat things I come across in conversation. The problem is, most of the info I read online is so ephemeral and voluminous that my brain can’t handle the sorting tasks!
Sounds like a neat little program. That I possibly use it with my iPod touch is really attractive.
It might also work well for someone doing legal research and trying to keep track of odd bits of text for a legal brief. I tried to use VoodooPad for this but it never caught on with me.
kristarella on April 5th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Appealing write up – I wonder if I can just get under the wire for the draw?
Anywho, I’ve been using iGTD to try to remember things that I want to do or see etc… I don’t use it heavily though and definitely not to its full potential. This program seems a bit nicer (iGTD is fairly nice except for the loud icons) and might work for my purposes.
Pete on April 5th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Sounds great – would really like to test this out.
weisen on April 5th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Sure, e-mail directly works great.
John on April 5th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I have been looking for this sort of app.
Thanks for the chance.
Bennie on April 5th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Would love to give it a try! Was just getting ready to see if I could find something like this for organizing my out of control “stuff”.
Hagan on April 9th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
I tried this out but then got worried when I realised that a lot of my personal information was going onto a server from where it could be accessed. Am I missing something?
Angela on April 12th, 2008 at 12:08 am
Great review – I tried EverNote on my PC years ago, but since I’m now a Mac user, I’d love an invite if I’m not too late… it looks a must-have app like Skitch, and I can’t wait to try it.
Many thanks.
Matt on April 17th, 2008 at 1:19 am
It certainly looks like evernote has changed quite a lot since I last saw it — I’m looking forward to giving it a bit of my terrible handwriting to chomp on!
Farfield on April 26th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I gave Evernote a try, and in the screencast on their website it really looks great, but I had the (wrong) impression that it would be a nice competitor for DEVONthink, but it’s not. I can’t import all my things like I can with DEVONthink, so I didn’t really start using Evernote frequently.
And I agree with a lot of other commenters: The lack of PDF support really is a “deal killer”!
Marc on April 29th, 2008 at 9:45 am
For all you gtd-ers who like some lo-fi brain activity, Evernote also recognises handwritten text pretty well. I am a manic whiteboard scribbler and the program does a fair job in text searching my whiteboard photo’s. Great for sifting through all my notes. It means a basic whiteboard becomes a real interactive tool. Brilliant.
ks on April 30th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I still miss the “tape view” that the windows version has. Hoping it will be in the final.