Evernote

I have used Evernote before, but I have never blogged about it.  Mostly because I have not found a use for it in my day to day life.  It is still an awesome app though and worth mentioning.  So let’s talk a little more about Evernote.

Evernote is a cloud based note taking app with the ability to share notes with other users.  This means you can create and take text notes and sync them to the cloud.  Evernote has clients for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Droid, giving you the ability to access your notes from almost anywhere.  Evernote also has a nice tagging feature, so that you can tag your notes into different categories.  You can even upload pictures and PDFs as well.

As I mentioned earlier, Evernote also has several clients you can install on your different systems.  What is nice about these versus other cloud services, such as Google Docs, is that the clients have the ability to do notes while being offline.  I use Google Docs a lot, but one of the biggest problems is if I am offline, I do not have access to any of my documents.  Evernote has a win in this category as their clients sync notes when they get online.  That way you can create or edit your notes offline, then sync them when you get the chance to get online.  Also as an iPad user I have to say that Evernote is one of the easier cloud based apps for editing notes and text on the iPad for easy access on another system later.  I am a heavy user of Dropbox, and while Dropbox does a good job of allowing you to view your data on the iPad, it does not have great apps for editing your data.  I have tried a few and they are a lot more problematic than Evernote.

Let’s talk about an example of where Evernote was a clear winner, and why this product has made a bit of a come back on my radar.  As I said, I have used it before, but never really gotten into the habit of using it.  Mostly because I use other products such as Google Docs, Dropbox, and Wunderlist for a lot of my cloud accessible data.  Recently my Mom got an iPad in addition to her laptop.  While talking to her she mentioned the blood sugar forms, which are simple tables, that she has to keep track of for her diabetes.  So far she has been carrying around a big green folder with forms and forms of simple tables in it to write this stuff down.  So I immediately went looking for an app, the first method I found was to use TouchDocs to make it easy for her to access her Google Docs to update this information.  The problem with this was when she visits my grandfather she is offline and won’t have the ability to update them online.  It finally occurred to me to look into Evernote, as I already knew it was one of the easiest text editing / syncing apps out there, but alas the app did not allow you to create tables.  However, the Windows client of Evernote does.  After installing the Windows client on her laptop, I was able to create several table logs for her to update, which she can edit the tables from the iPad, just not create them.  Plus with Evernote’s sync feature, she will be able to update her blood sugar logs offline, then sync / upload them when she gets back into wireless.  And because Evernote is a nice cloud based program, she can update her blood sugar logs from either the iPad or laptop, and even email them to her doctor by just pressing a few buttons from either the iPad or laptop.  So for this situation, Evernote was the clear winner compared to a lot of other apps, mostly for its ability to work with mobile devices.

However for me, someone who is more of a power user, I feel Evernote does fall a little short when compared to applications such as Google Docs.  It is a simple note program, and cannot do a lot of spreadsheet type applications.  Which is where most of my data is stored.  So for most of my data Evernote isn’t that great, but because they did such a good job with notes and the ability to use and edit your data on a mobile device, such as an iPhone or iPad, I am going to definitely be making more of an effort to use Evernote.  At least until Google Docs or Dropbox learn from their fine example and follow suit.

In short, if you are looking for a good text editing program to sync between your computer and mobile device, look no further, Evernote is for you.  Just realize it is not an office suit, it is just for text, pics, and PDFs.  Yet it is still one of the best editing / syncing apps for mobile devices, especially for free!