back to article Evernote riles freetards with two-device limit

Evernote has unveiled the switch that followed the bait, in the form of a new pricing structure that stops users of its free note-making application from synching more than two devices. Its "Remember Everything" pitch now comes with a restriction that's as popular as a UKIP T-Shirt in Brussels, and users aren't happy. Adding …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    From the title, I would have sworn that this was going to be an Orlowski piece.

    Can't really moan too much about Evernote, as the free bit is bait to get you paying - first hit is free and all that.

    If it's something you rely on, make sure that you control it if possible. Simple really, and there are many ways of taking and sharing notes.

    1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

      I checked before clicking

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/Author/2479

  2. inmypjs Silver badge

    Evernote...

    "that keeps your projects, ideas, and inspiration handy across all your digital devices"

    Sounds like the kind of things I would like to keep private so I wouldn't even consider storing them unencrypted on someone else's cloud.

    The only thing Evenote has done for me is annoy me as pre-installed bloatware on a couple of android devices.

    1. Runilwzlb

      Re: Evernote... Read their 'privacy' notice!

      Ditto. After reading their terms, which basically says:"All your stuff are belong to us (and to use, analyze, probe, profile, and resell any way we can think up now or in the future)"; I choose to not to participate. Put your life here? I think not! Had they instead said: You are not the product. We won't use your data, and we won't peek at your stuff unless required by law; I would have given them a go.

  3. shade82000

    I only started using the free package two months ago and once I learned to work through the general 'bloaty' interface it actually proved to be very useful. Oh yeah and the annoying little reminders - Hey have you tried this feature? Click here to see how, click click, oh no you need to be premium for that click here to upgrade.

    The main features I like are the rich content notes and seamless background sync across 5 devices. The worst part I found is that trying to share notes made me want to throw my computer out the window - unless I was doing it wrong sharing a simple shopping list with my other half involved sending an email with a link and then she had to update it and email a link to the updated note back to me. Nothing like Google Docs real-time collaboration.

    I'd been using Google Docs and a small utility called Notesync for years which uses plain text notes and only manual syncs to GDrive, but it's a bit dated now and I want something more advanced. Google Keep isn't quite up to the job yet unfortunately.

    Some part of me knows there is a simple alternative and I was sitting here at 4 in the morning thinking what other options there might be, then I read about this new device limit. My mind has been made up for me now - I don't mind paying for a service if I like it and want to continue using it, but when it's 'free' and I start building part of my life around it, then they change the goalposts, I tend to back away completely and go elsewhere.

    Any suggestions for a replacement would be much appreciated - I'm not bothered if it's subscription or free, but would really like automatic syncing, ability to easily share / collaborate & have local apps available for Android, Linux & Win 10 (not browser based though).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      There's NoteCasePro:

      http://notecasepro.com/features.php

      ...comes with a local synch server. If you want synch it's 27 euros for one version, 67 for lifetime upgrades. Seems to cover your wishlist.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        "lifetime upgrades"

        Whose lifetime?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          The programmer, I would guess. He still sounds keen, so I'm working on the theory that he's younger than me.

    2. frank ly

      @shade82000

      You could set up a simple FTP server at home and have FTP clients on all your devices. I did that with an old NSLU2 device (small, solid state, no moving parts) a few years ago and have the clients on my Android phone and my home computer. It works. What it doesn't do is give notification that there has been a new 'document' uploaded but you could sent a text message if it's important.

  4. Phil Kingston

    Ain't nuttin for free.

    But I think they've pitched too high with the prices. Comparing to Office 365 (with OneNote (and handily MS recently-released Evernote to OneNote importer)) I'd be signing up to Office 365 if I wasn't already.

    Edit: Just realised you don't need Office to (currently) have OneNote for free.

  5. Tony Paulazzo

    MS Onenote

    I'd happily pay a (fair) one time price but I'm not renting a note taking utility. Would use Googles keep but it's a little schizo on its syncing ability. I use Onenote for more long term noting stuff, so I guess it'll become my default note taking prog - I like that you can backup to where you want, it's fast across all OS's (ipad, android phone, Win10, browser based Ubuntu) ,and, so far, has never mis-synced for me.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  6. 4ensic

    Half the truth

    Their paying customers are getting a 30% increase in cost with no improvement in service. Why not insult them as paytards?

  7. petefoth

    Time for Turtl

    I think I will be migrating all my notes from Evernote to Turtl (turtl.it)

  8. Terry 6 Silver badge

    value for money

    That's the thing about all these cost-per-year items, especially the ones with a restricted free option.

    Is the free version useful to me as a non-corporate individual user? -Yes.

    Would I pay a few quid to extend it's basic usability to, in this case, a few more devices? Yes.

    Is it worth tens of quid per year to me, every year, with or without extra unneeded functions? No absolutely not .

    The amount isn't too onerous, in absolute terms, any given year. But hard to justify paying for what it would give me ( bit of convenience) or what it actually provides ( a tiny bit of online storage and some simple software) and over the years I'd be using it I definitely could never justify those hundreds of quid it'd add up to.

    It's not the only service or product that uses these sorts of model.

    My car satnav (Pioneer damn them to Hell) wants more to update the maps than it'd cost to buy a whole new device. Something the Honda garage omitted to tell me when they fitted it.

    And my TomTom device will only update the one extra service I want updated ( traffic reports) if I buy into an expensive annual package of services and updates I have no use for.

    1. Robert E A Harvey

      Re: value for money

      I had long correspondence with the bloke at CloudMagic Email, which I use on my Android phone and IOS tablet because it shares the accounts setup. The free version is still free, but they are selling a clever little add-on that flags incoming emails with stuff from the sender, like thier facebook or linkdin profiles.

      The asking price for this little gadget is something ike 50 times as much as I value it at, so of course I have not bought it. The developer chap was quite open about needing the money to keep things working, and I pointed out that his little toy was going to cost me more than I pay mail.com for the underlying service.

  9. Robert E A Harvey

    Bye bye

    I just removed evernote from my devices.

    Only shame is that the Ubuntu "note" application on the M10 tablet did a good job of using Evernote for distributed notes. I guess they will now have to find something else.

    I have Onenote on my Office365 account, so I don't need Evernote as well. I /might/ have paid for it, if the price was sensible, but they wanted more per month than it was worth to me per year.

  10. steamnut

    Why are we surprised?

    This was going to happen sooner or later and I'm surprised is has taken so long. I wonder if Microsoft will do something similar with the "free" Windows 10.

    1. davidp231
      FAIL

      Re: Why are we surprised?

      You mean their *time limited* free upgrade offer, which expires on the 29th of this month? It was always stated that users of certain 7 and 8.1 SKUs would be able to upgrade for free for 12 months from the original release date, and anyone wanting to upgrade after the exipiry date would have to pony up the going currency in their area?

      If you want a non-upgrade edition you still have to pony up said currency to purchase the install media and/or license key to download the iso from the store. That's never changed.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I stopped relying on these sort of apps when Catch Notes folded. I never did like Evernote, its main competitor; something about their product felt too pushy and bloated.

    What would be handy is a small cheap client based around Dropbox to serve as an images and text scrapbook.

  12. Terry 6 Silver badge

    Follow up

    Since I posted below I've switched to OneNote on the four devices I use regularly.

    It's not brilliant. Some versions of it, particularly the WIn10 "app" are really grim ( no surprise there). The Office 2010 version is actually pretty good. Luckily you can use Ccleaner to remove Win10 app and download the Office version if you have that option.

    And it's not costing a shed load of cash to do a very basic job - like Evernote want to.

  13. SimonWWW

    OneNote

    Moved to OneNote as I have Office 365 already. The Importer made a pigs ear of it though as I used tags not folders and decided to name each page with the first tag in the list. No worries though, they're just notes and it's all searchable.

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