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Opinion

Peter Moon

As Evernote slowly kills its free service, Apple Notes and others plug the gap

Peter MoonColumnist

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Ever think you're too clever for your own good? The backers of popular note keeping application Evernote know the feeling.

The free lightweight version of its app was intended to drive sales of the fully featured paid edition, but it turns out that many of us were perfectly satisfied by the lite product. So many, in fact, that free Evernote is about to be hobbled even further.

We've already jumped ship to Apple's Notes app, and we're guessing plenty of others are considering their options as well.

Taking notes ... and remembering them is easier with a range of apps these days. iStock

In 2016, any digital notebook has to synchronise between your office and home desktops, laptop, tablet and smartphone. Free Evernote ticks that box, happily running for us on all of them. But within a week, a new limit of two devices on one free account takes effect.

We have to choose three devices to take out of the information loop, or upgrade to the paid product and keep synching with all five. Here's the problem: the pro version simply isn't worth it for us, and we can do everything we want using other tools we already own.

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Clever service

There's no denying Evernote's paid service is clever. Beyond keeping and searching text notes, it can clip web pages and images, search text inside graphics, search PDF and Office files, receive content by email and more.

But we just want a jotting pad, somewhere to keep text notes instead of the back of an envelope. Paying $US50 ($65) a year for Evernote Plus or $US90 per annum for the Premium version makes no sense.

We know we're not alone. In 20 years of writing this column, the most feedback we've received followed a review of Microsoft's all-singing, all-dancing information store OneNote.

We found it overkill, and finished with the throwaway remark that we'd be sticking with the basic Notepad app that was packaged with Windows, which we'd linked to one of the keyboard's function buttons so we could pop up a new blank note at any time with one finger.

We've jumped ship to Apple's Notes app and imagine many others are considering their options as well. 

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There were so many requests for instructions on setting up that button, it was the only time we've had to set up an email autoresponder to cope with the traffic.

If you're using Evernote and don't need its heavyweight features, there are options. For Apple users, it couldn't be easier. Every version of its operating systems for computers, tablets and smartphones includes the Notes app, which can synchronise across all those devices using iCloud. And it's simple to migrate your Evernote notes into Apple Notes.

Migrating material

First, you use Evernote itself to export all data to a back up file. That will be identified by a filename extension of ".enex".

If you want to import the data into Notes using a Mac computer, make sure your OS X operating system is updated to version 10.11.4 or later.

Then open Notes, find Import under the File menu, and point it at the Evernote back up file.

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There will be a warning that your notes may appear differently, but have no fear. For the kind of text notes we're concerned with, we've had no issues on importing. And besides, all your stuff is still stored safely in Evernote. You're only working on a back up file.

On an iPad or iPhone, you need to check that your iOS operating system version is 9.3 or later. You can get the Evernote back up on board by emailing it to yourself from a Mac or PC as an attachment.

Then a long press on the file will offer the option of importing to Notes.

Not to be outdone, last March Microsoft released an Evernote Import tool for Windows 7 and later. A version of the tool for Macs is reportedly in the pipeline. In four nearly automatic steps, it vacuums up Evernote content and makes it accessible through OneNote on Windows, Apple and Android devices.

You need an Office 365 subscription but as Microsoft gleefully points out, users can get that for only US$20 a year more than the cost of Evernote Plus, and get access to the latest versions of all Microsoft's Office applications and a terabyte of cloud storage.

After enjoying Evernote's free hospitality for seven years, it may seem churlish to thank it by walking away. But keeping simple, text-based notes is a nearly universal requirement and, for our money, it shouldn't need a separate subscription service.

Peter Moon is a technology lawyer with Cooper Mills. peter.moon@coopermills.com.au

Peter Moon writes on Technology specialising in Enterprise IT, Gadgets, Mobile & Tablets. Based in Melbourne, Peter writes a weekly technology column.

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