Evernote & Simplenote

How these powerful note apps work together for me.


The native iPhone Notes app is OK, just OK, and syncing remained a mysterious ritual. Some things sync via email in real time, some only when I tether, some dupplicate over and over, some won't allow themselves to be deleted.


I started with Evernote and used the heck out of it. Photos of books, websites, reservation screens, recipes, anything that I wanted to keep and that wasn't a to-do. Not a zillion things, but the "more important" ones. It soon grew to almost a hundred items. I would go on sprees: snap a photo, write a caption, save it. A great way to build gift lists!

The large collection of notes I was accumulating included some recipes that deserved preservation, as well as copious "on the go" jottings that I always thought I would deal with later. Things that really never should have been preserved, but ended up in my Evernote cloud server. I cleaned it out regularly and dealt with these then, but this was not the right place for a "to-do", in my view.

So I took the recommendation of Patrick Rhone at Minimal Mac to try Simplenote.
It is a very very basic note taking and managing app. One purpose, efficient transcription of ideas via a keyboard. Simplenote reminds me of a program I loaded on my old Campaq 486 portable. Basically that was a fully searchable flat database skinned to look like a deck of 3x5 notecards.

I thought I had figured out how Evernote and SimpleNote worked, and how to use them together. Then, while working at 40,000 feet, I opened Evernote and learned the obvious. Without web access there are no notes unless you saved them to the iPhone! Duh. But now I wonder about the file size of all those notes, the ones I feel like I have to have access to, in case the need ever comes up. Are they filling my iPhone's scant 16GB of memory on the off chance I want to read them later? It seems the Simplenote approach to notes as text files makes more sense.

Syncing on both apps is automatic. But I characterize Simplenote as syncing onto devices, not my MBP and a cloud server. This means I get a copy of the latest version of a note on my iOS device, synced when there is Internet access, and available for use when there is not, like when in airplane mode. With Evernote you get access to notes on the cloud.  If you are in the clouds, unless you anticipated what notes you wanted to use and saved them to the iOS device, you are out of luck.

Search is an essential function that both apps do well. It's fun to enter a search term and watch the related notes list shrink as you type. On Simplenote saving is unnecessary. It's always saved.

The interface on Evernote is iPhone elegant, even more so with the latest update. Photos and clips of notes are shown in the window, making access almost tactile, like Pulse news reader. That is welcome, especially for web pages I save, and the Safari extension makes it a one click deal to do so on my MBP. I do this with things like motel reservation and cancelations, travel sites and directions that I used to print and tote in a folder. But if I don't remember to star them and save them as favorites they aren't available on my iPhone without internet access. Evernote also let's you organize notes into folders and tag them. But these folders reside only within the app.

I like to use Evernote because it is sexy, and now I think of it as a place to store webpages and photos related to a long term project or trip, not working documents. I also am more cognizant of starring items I may want when away from AT&T's semi ubiquitous signal.




Simplenote is much more plain and pedestrian. Notes are just black and white lists, with the first couple of lines showing. All business.


Simplenote is designed to save notes. If you type it you can save it, period. Certainly the ability to do so via a camera or a click is outside the brief of Simplenote. Just typed text, thank you very much. For those other things one saves, maybe Instapaper? Maybe PDF files on Dropbox? The ability to keep images of webpages relating to business travel has to be my most essential Evernote function. This has saved me significant money in disputed cancellation fees alone.

Managing Simplenotes includes a cloud aspect, and cross-app file access. This is a strong benefit. I don't want to have to again move hundreds of notes into the next note system as I have had to do with Palm, Windows Mobile, Cronos SOHO notes, Stickies, Smart Stickies, Evernote, etc. The idea of a basic text editor system in which I manage file folders and can add keywords has great appeal to me. I can write on my MBP in TextEdit, and when I import those documents to Simplenote they stay linked, and there they are on my iOS device, not only in a cloud based server. If I want a copy on a cloud server I can send the same file to Dropbox. And text edit files can be opened in a number of apps and platforms.

So the bottom line is that both are strong programs, and I think each has a reason to be on my iPhone. Writing this post helps me explain why to myself.