Evernote Launches Open Beta

For the past month I’ve been privately testing Evernote, a feature rich note-taking application. I don’t normally glean much enjoyment from closed betas, as the apps often have too many bugs to be practical. I find myself least trusting of notes apps because it’s never wise to devote my most important information to untested software that’s liable to implode at any time, taking all of my data with it.

Evernote is different. By the end of Evernote’s closed beta, which amassed 110,000 users over four months, it was more polished than most version 2.0 software releases. Previously invite-only, today Evernote has opened its doors to everyone, and believe me, when you start using it, you won’t want to live without it. It’s that good. A full review is forthcoming, but I got a chance to talk with Evernote CEO Phil Libin about launching the application he calls “your external brain.”

“Just one brain isn’t enough anymore,” Libin says. “We never want you to think about: where is that information? What computer was I using when I took it?” Evernote’s accessibility is perhaps its most attractive feature. Evernote automatically syncs all your notes to your server account. Because it’s cross platform, I can clip items and add notes from my Mac at home, and still have access to everything from work with the Windows application. There’s even a fully featured web-based version of Evernote and a slick iPhone web app. And “as soon as the [iPhone] App Store launches, we intend to be there,” Libin says.

Evernote iPhone App
The app is still being tested, but it’s got a wealth of features already. It allows you to snap photos from the phone’s camera and record voice memos. Everything is synced to the server (when WiFi or 3G/Edge service is available), giving you access to your content from any web-enabled device. Cooler still, you have the option to tag every note with searchable GPS coordinates. “So let’s say I remember I was in a restaurant in Paris,” Libin says. “It was about three years ago. I had a napkin with a phone number. I wanted to find that napkin.” Simply search the date and location, and Evernote digs it up.

Having a catalog of notes at your disposal at all times can help you out of a lot of jams. Libin is especially excited about the picture-taking feature: “I do a lot of traveling, always leaving my car in an airport garage. I will always snap a picture of a sign near my car in the garage [so I can find it again later]. I kind of do that almost automatically. I know that I’ll be able to get that information from anywhere.” An upcoming feature, which may only be available to premium users, will take advantage of the geotag info to propagate a Google map, with pins showing the locations where your notes were taken. Evernote may also add the ability to map addresses written within notes, Libin says.

Advanced Technology
What makes Evernote so useful is all its practical technology. Snap a photo, sync with the server and then any text in the image is indexed and can be searched. This worked surprisingly well in my testing. Any printed text is almost guaranteed to be indexed, though handwriting can be a bit iffy. But because the technology is processed server-side, it can be easily tweaked over time. “We’re constantly improving archiving and the search algorithm,” Libin says.

You can also add voice notes, a feature that will soon be available in the web interface. The Mac application doesn’t yet support it, but right now you can drag in audio files (and PDFs for that matter). Soon Evernote will transcribe the spoken word files, and let you search the contents of your memos, Libin says.

Evernote supports in-line to-do entries (similar to Mail), though it’s not integrated with the system-wide iCal to-do framework. Evernote will soon roll out an external API, allowing developers to write applications that tie in with the application, Libin says. He expects a third-party developer will add Leopard to-do compatibility and other features like Google Calendar support before his team gets to it.

Sharing is Caring
Once the open beta is running smoothly, the development team’s next goal is fleshing out the note sharing options. Right now you can publish notebooks for the public, and you will eventually be able to share them with select users. And in a few months Evernote will tie in with major blogging platforms for note publishing. Libin acknowledges that Evernote, which currently only supports audio and PDF files, could become a mainstream file sharing application. “We thought about that a lot, and we’re still kind of debating that internally” Libin says. “If you can drag a PDF file in there, why can’t you drag a Word file in there? On the other hand, it kind of goes against the whole Evernote philosophy. We don’t want you to think about files. We only want to store things that we can index and process.”

Evernote will no doubt enjoy a lot of media attention over the next few weeks, so it will be interesting to see how it scales to the traffic. “We made a pretty big investment in data servers,” Libin says. “We think we’re pretty prepared. We spent a good nine months thinking about how we’re going to handle that stuff.” We’ll see about that!

Users can sign up for a free Evernote account that allows you to add up to 40 MB of data per month, and thankfully they aren’t going the Flickr route. “There’s no restrictions on totals,” Libin says. “You’ll never lose access to your old memories.” The premium version of Evernote costs $5 per month (or $45 per year) and allows 500 MB of new notes per month, including support for SSL security, priority access to server syncing, technical support and exclusive features.

The Mac application is a little behind the others, lacking voice memo recording, a Mac-compatible Firefox extension, a Service menu entry, Mail compatibility and a few other features, but these should be added soon. Evernote is one of the most exciting new app releases, so give it a try, and look out for a full review soon.

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