The last time I tried Evernote it already had way too many features. It always felt like they were trying to way too many things at once, to the detriment of all of them. Apparently this feature is the "most requested feature of all time", but I'd guess that half of the other ones aren't.
For example, my impression was that Evernote was about being able to store all of your memories, files, photos, etc. for future reference. But then the biggest use case highlighted by this video is for teams working on task lists together... Seem like very different use cases. I can't be simple to design for that unfocused of a goal, and it shows.
Evernote is just a word processor front-end to cloud storage. The use cases are pretty limitless. I'm not really sure what you mean by "too many features". I use Evernote to store text, code, and figures related my scientific research and there isn't a feature I don't use. On the other hand, I'm a little skeptical that Reminders will be an improvement over my current Calendar/TODO set-up.
I strongly disagree that Evernote has too many features, but I think the main disconnect is I don't consider a feature synonymous with a use case. Sure there are a million use cases some of them better than others, but that is because they give you near total freedom to use Evernote and structure things however you want. Underneath it all the only real features are notebooks, notes, tags, and a powerful index. Admittedly this ability to do anything is kind of hard to market, because you have to be somewhat of a power user to structure things efficiently. If they built an app that was singularly amazing at storing files and photos for reference I think that would somewhat go against their ethos, and if you chose to use different specialized apps for all the use cases, it would naturally come at the expense of fragmentation.
For your purposes, something like Notational Velocity or nvAlt on a Mac, Resoph Notes on Windows, or PlainText on iOS might be much better products. They use SimpleNote or Dropbox for cloud storage and synching across devices.
I've used those, and they fail for my use cases because you can't put all kinds of stuff in them. Most of my notes and code are textual, but sometimes I have to use rich text and colors and embedded pictures. Sometimes I need to store audio or embed arbitrary attachments in my notes.
Things like Notational Velocity can be simpler because what they do is simpler.
In all seriousness, this was a feature that I've been waiting on for a while--without reminders, I've had to go back-and-forth between the native OS X Reminders app and Evernote. In a way, this has sculpted my relationships with the two apps: I use Reminders for anything short-term (even things that might be considered 'Notes') and Evernote for anything long-term. Maybe that will change.
I love Evernote and think it's a great service, but there should be a simpler way to get most of the same functionality. MultiMarkdown files let you do this while still being able to use vim, grep, etc.
Criticism would be very welcome. So far this has just been a fun practice project, but would anyone find it useful if it was more developed?
I definitely would. I've been searching for a way to write plaintext notes and have them available "in the cloud", or at least through a web interface.
Evernote's appeal is how easy it is to manage multimedia content in notes. I haven't come across an elegant solution to that in plain-text.
The closest I've come is using Markdown in VimWiki, and then exporting my notes as HTML.
>> "I love Evernote and think it's a great service, but there should be a simpler way to get most of the same functionality. MultiMarkdown files let you do this while still being able to use vim, grep, etc."
What you're building is cool but markdown, vim and grep aren't simple. Evernote is.
Gah. I'm starting to have trouble thinking about things from a non-technical perspective. I like icebraining's distinction and will try to make that clear in future descriptions.
Can I set reminders for all the checkboxes that I'm creating inside each note? I would much rather prefer that. Having a new note for each todo seems like overkill.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 42.1 ms ] threadFor example, my impression was that Evernote was about being able to store all of your memories, files, photos, etc. for future reference. But then the biggest use case highlighted by this video is for teams working on task lists together... Seem like very different use cases. I can't be simple to design for that unfocused of a goal, and it shows.
Things like Notational Velocity can be simpler because what they do is simpler.
In all seriousness, this was a feature that I've been waiting on for a while--without reminders, I've had to go back-and-forth between the native OS X Reminders app and Evernote. In a way, this has sculpted my relationships with the two apps: I use Reminders for anything short-term (even things that might be considered 'Notes') and Evernote for anything long-term. Maybe that will change.
Here's the first thing built off of it (it lets you make a notebook public): http://pensieve.housejeffries.com/
I love Evernote and think it's a great service, but there should be a simpler way to get most of the same functionality. MultiMarkdown files let you do this while still being able to use vim, grep, etc.
Criticism would be very welcome. So far this has just been a fun practice project, but would anyone find it useful if it was more developed?
Evernote's appeal is how easy it is to manage multimedia content in notes. I haven't come across an elegant solution to that in plain-text.
The closest I've come is using Markdown in VimWiki, and then exporting my notes as HTML.
What you're building is cool but markdown, vim and grep aren't simple. Evernote is.