The great Evernote reboot | The Vergecast

Peak Evernote was roughly a decade ago. Since then, the product has often felt stagnant (or worse), the company churned through executives and business plans, and it seemed like Evernote was slowly turning into a zombie app. Not gone, not even forgotten, just sort of... there. For the third and final installment in our series about productivity and digital life, we sit down with Federico Simionato, the Evernote product lead at Bending Spoons. We talk about the acquisition process, how he perceives Evernote in today’s landscape, what it took to start shipping new stuff again, why Bending Spoons changed the subscription price, and much more.

[jimmyx]

I used Evernote for years, but at some point, they decided to charge us more and on a monthly basis! So, I switched to Apple Notes without any regret!

[MattDe]

Evernote last year made it impossible to export all your notes and then dramatically raised their rates. Effectively holding your notes hostage. This is very anti-user. No guarantee they won't continue to raise their prices. Don't trust your notes with this service.

[annesmith]

Damn you, I had reduced all my use of Evernote down to web-clipper. I switched to Apple Notes. Which is...fine. Just okay. This VC episode made me take a peek back at EN which turned into a 2 hour rabbit-hole. Damn you, damn you damn you...

[kirkdouglassd]

I held out as long as I could and used Evernote thru 2022. After becoming incredibly bloated and overpriced, I switched to upnote in 2023 and never looked back. The final straw was the absurdity of the pricing. I can’t see myself going back unless it’s affordable and has a stable future.

[jfitzpatrick]

Make another, useful, video in 2 years if Bending Spoons ever does manage to salvage Evernote.
Right now it is stagnant, if not petrified.
It may never actually be recovered & modernized.

[PokhrajRoy.]

Evernote has always been the OG for me. It was my Notes App.

[Saf-pbcm]

Wonder which app had the greater fall-off, Evernote or Dropbox

[ObsidianUrsine]

Last I checked Evernote has too much debt to NOT try and save the company with a billion haphazard and half baked gimmicks.

[Physbook]

any comment mention about notion?

its a pkm level talk at least

[JoeBrazier]

Evernote was life. Then, suddenly, I hated it. Good to know it's getting a new life.

[meskin]

I’m fine using Apple Notes, Calendar, and Reminders as my productivity tools

[ianfong]

I've been a paid user for over a decade, and I went through the painful transition stage when they first took over and it was almost unusable. I was going to quit, but they made improvements and now I'm quite happy with it. It's still pretty slow on my pixel 8 and PC, but listening here I'm pleasantly optimistic about their intentions. At least this guy seems genuinely passionate any the product.

[mileswurster]

The core functionality of Evernote has changed. Instead of being the absolute best pure note taking app it’s trying to be a Notion knockoff—but worse. The way it handles text is terrible. The visual design is a giant step backwards with regard to basic layout. Bullet points don’t scale with text size! The one thing it does better than its competitors is tables. If you really want to make Evernote better, allow users to turn off some of the help “features.”

[WallemBrothers]

I’ve got some old notes in Evernote and they use some of the most annoying deceptive UX to try and get me to pay whenever I log in. Definitely not using them going forward.

[TheLondonguy]

Evernote has always been dropping off, and doing what they want. It’s literally missing what it’s customers want and need, sadly it’s the same like The Verge. Do a video on Evernote alternatives, top Ten note storage apps, maybe go back to be the old verge or upload a podcast that wasn’t helpful.

[aishx]

7:30 if after Two-decades you are still asking about what EN is for? Then the plot is already lost.

[aishx]

9:06 all you've done is piss existing customers and try to squeeze them.

[premprakash]

2 device to 1 device in free plan of evernote. Great decision

[helloseto]

I used Evernote since 2012 and it was the best and my only note taking app. Fast forward to yesterday was the day I had to part ways with Evernote. It has become a slow, too pricey, and limiting the synced devices. Thank God exporting notes and importing to other app was a breeze. Bye Evernote

[BlairSlavin]

Being that’s Bending Spoons an AI company I’ve come to realize Federico is not a real person but an AI as is 90% of the staff. Federico’s graphics are incredible on his “Where We Are at Evernote” YouTube videos.