PigPog

I have something of a love/hate relationship with Evernote. I love what it can do. I love that it can handle so many formats of data, at least when just pasted into a note. I love that there are real native clients on every platform, rather than relying on web-based ‘apps’. I love its ability to read text in pictures. I love the way it makes the 40Mb of monthly data transfer you get for free go such a long way – I haven’t needed to upgrade to the paid service yet, even though I use it quite a bit. I love the fact that there’s even a neat syncing client for my iPod.

I hate the Windows client, though, which feels so clunky compared to the Mac client. I hate the way the iPod (iPhone) client just closes itself regularly when you’re using it. I hate the way it can’t access anything offline unless you’ve manually marked it as a favourite on the iPod.

I stuck with it, though, because it was the only thing that did what it did.

Then, a few days ago, things got worse. The iPod client just stopped syncing, claiming it had an error connecting to Evernote’s servers. The sync managed a few stages, so it obviously could connect to them. I tried logging it out and back in, and still had the same problem.

I decided it had to go.

I worked out what I really needed from a note-keeping app, and went on the hunt.

It turns out that Evernote is still the only thing that does what it does.

I plugged the iPod in, unticked Evernote, and synced. I ticked it again, and synced. I then ran Evernote, and it worked fine. Rather annoyingly, I’ve lost all of my favourites – they seem to be a local setting on the iPod. Still, I have my notes back, and I guess I’ll just have to live with the stability issues.

I do get the impression that Evernote (the company) keep working hard to improve the apps, so I’m hopeful that the Windows version will start to catch up to the excellent Mac version, and the iPod/iPhone version will get more stable with updates and server changes.

I finally came close to my free account limit last month, so I’ll probably be upgrading to a paid account soon.