Jan 03 2011

Evernote – Cross-Platform Notes in the Cloud

Some people, such as myself, are not entirely and completed wedded to a single content and device ecosystem in that I have the Samsung Galaxy S as my mobile phone (an Android device for those unfamiliar with it), a Windows 7 custom built desktop  at home, a Windows 7 MSI Wind netbook and an Apple iPad as my intermediate device.

Putting aside the larger conundrum of automatic content synchronisation (i.e. music, video, podcasts, etc) something as simple as notes has been a bit of a challenge. I would have notes on my iPad that would only show up on my computer when I synced via iTunes (and vice-versa) and notes on my Android phone were stranded. I wasn’t keen on installing yet another piece of software on my computer to sync content so I went about looking for a cloud-based solution.

Luckily, I came across Evernote.

Evernote is a cross-platform solution that allows you to keep notes and notebooks up in the cloud which means that you can do away with cables and syncing software. Client software is available for a stack of devices, including:

  • Android devices,
  • Apple iPad / iPhone / iPod Touch,
  • BlackBerry,
  • Palm WebOS devices,
  • Windows Mobile devices (but not Windows Phone 7).

Software is also available for Windows (XP and later) and MacOS X (10.5.8 and later) computers or you can use it from within a web browser. There is also a Firefox extension to capture those interesting things you come across on the web and, in a similar fashion, if your mobile device has a camera in it you can also capture photos directly into Evernote.

One concern that people may have is that using a cloud-based solution may be affected when no connection to the Internet is available. The great thing about Evernote is that you can also use your notes offline on your devices from the point it was last synced (apart from the web browser instance which does not cache notes).

If you’re interested in giving it a try you can do so for free which will give you give you the ability to create unlimited notes but with a restriction of 60MB of uploads per month, read only sharing and a limit on the what files can be synced whilst the premium version for US$5 a month (or $45 a year) either removes the restrictions or ups the limit. You can check out the plan comparison here. All plans include SSL encryption so that your notes are kept secure.

(Note: Evernote is in the midst of implementing full SSL security for free users in their latest client software over the last couple of months whilst usage of Evernote in your web browser will be protected by SSL).

As always, I recommend that you try before you buy where possible and, for the free plan, the price is right to give it a right go without risk.

Boydo

My name is Boyd and I’m a Service Management Specialist with a knack for operational data gathering, transformation, analysis and reporting.

In 2012, I obtained my Masters of Science in Information Technology through the University of New South Wales @ The Australia Defence Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA).

I was also part of an online community known as the Panasonic Insider Crew in the capacity of “Insider Guru” for Panasonic Australia where I interacted with other tech enthusiasts and find out more about Panasonic's latest gadgets.

I love technology, gadgets, and the Internet and maintain a keen interest in these areas locally, nationally, and globally. I hope by sharing my views on these topics that people will receive an honest point of view from someone with a genuine interest in these topics.

I have also written and edited articles for Neowin - you can check out my articles over @ https://www.neowin.net/news/poster/boyd_chan

I hope you enjoy reading my blog!

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  1. A bit of a clarification… currently all premium plans (i.e. not the free option) include SSL.

    1. Hi Sylumer,

      Thanks for that. It seems like Evernote have left an ambiguous reference to SSL on their plan comparison table. I will fix up the article first thing in the morning.

      To be honest though, I am disappointed that Evernote is not offering SSL to free users. Initial key pair generation is still computationally expensive but usage of the keys after that point is fairly inexpensive on modern hardware.

      Boydo

    2. Just a follow up. It looks like Evernote are either in the midst of implementing SSL for free users in the latest client software or have already done so (as per this thread in the Evernote user forum). The last update provided in this thread was November, 2010.

      It’s worth noting that use of Evernote through a web browser is already secured with SSL for free users.

    • Doug Lerner on June 19, 2011 at 20:19
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    It actually isn’t true that you can add unlimited notes. Even though Evernote says so at https://www.evernote.com/about/premium/, Evernote support tells me that is a “typo”.

    All accounts are restricted to an absolute maximum of 100,000 notes. Still a lot. But not by any means “unlimited.”

    I requested they correct it, because it’s false advertising, but they still haven’t taken any action on it.

    The app itself is also wrong, because it tells you approximately how many text notes are remaining this month, and for me it lists like 470,000. But with the absolute cap of 100,000 that’s just plain wrong.

    doug

    1. Hi Doug,

      Thanks for the update – I have noted your post @ http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=26768 regarding this issue. One bugbear that we have with advertising in Australia is that companies attempt to label services as unlimited when they actually do have a limit. Good to see that you are keeping them on their toes (and disappointing that they have been slow to correct the advertising issue).

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