Why I ditched Evernote for Google Drive
After being a premium Evernote user for few years I’ve switched, here’s why
Evernote is a great product, for few years I have been a premium user and loved it.
At some point in 2012 I’ve completely switched from microsoft office to Google Drive, at that point I found myself abandoning Evernote as Google Drive (Not Drive Keep) felt like a superior alternative.
Collaboration
I love to share my work and receive feedback. Evernote design as a private repository without the ability to share & comment made me frequently copy-pasting to a Google Document and share it there.
This led to an unclear flow where I often times needed to think where is the latest revision of a note before I search for it.
“Syncing, Please wait…”
In the era of multiple devices Evernote design to periodically sync local changes often times failed. I am repeated closing and opening my laptop throughout the day and failed several attempts to continue editing from other devices as the latest revision did not complete syncing.
Rich Edit
When I originally discovered Evernote I loved having the power of rich text editor within something that feels almost as a plain-text note.
As time passed Google’s user-experience proved to be much efficient:
A. At the time of writing I can quickly pick style out of a predefined list
B. Styles can be customized — most likely I will do it once
Medium and Quip are few of the products that demonstrate that predefined Styles are the way to go.
Content Structure
When writing a new note picking the right tool is important. Having the flexibility to decide to create a note in the form of spreadsheet, presentation or a drawing is extremely valuable.
Search
Searching two repositories (Evernote & Drive) is far less intuitive than searching a single one. Taking it a step forward, my google experiment enables searching gmail and drive together which makes it a winner in my opinion.
Evernote Strength — Web Clipping
Evernote web clipping is one of Evernote strengths. The ability to research the web and gather pieces of data which can later be easily searched is a huge plus. Drive has its alternative but it is not as powerful.
The Future
While Evernote is the dominant player in the space the future looks interesting. On the one hand, Catch, an Evernote competitor, recently shut-down. On the other hand, new players like Quip might redesign the approach to the same need without having to worry from an existing user-base.
Phil Libin (Evernote Founder/CEO) recent interview was very inspiring. Phil suggested several ideas that are a huge leap forward. It would be very interesting to see how it plays out.
