Take notes from Mac, Win, Web, and iPhone, three content types: text, picture, and audio recording. Peak feature: hand writing recognition in photos.
I scribbled some visual ideas (graphs) on a piece of paper, snapped it with my iPhone, uploaded it, and could search within the text I had scribbled right away. To get the same results without Evernote I would have had to go home, remembered how my Windows-only scanner works, scanned my document, and run it through some OCR software that I don’t have.
The iPhone app also has a nice touch: uploads are queued instead of transferred directly, so you can continue using the app while your new note saves to their servers.
Wishlist: note caching on iPhone. I would gladly hand Evernote a major chunk of my NVRAM in exchange for being able to get at my notes anytime. As Jon Crosby said (via Cameron.io)
a todo list that isn’t available anytime, anywhere, online or offline, is a step backward from a folded sheet of paper in your pocket.
I would extend that to many other kinds of lists.
(Perhaps because the data is so simple, basic note taking is usually left out of most operating systems and mobile devices. My RAZR had no simple note taking app. Basic notes are some of the most important info I have - tasks, shopping, packing lists, etc. It’s not just me, either: Merlin Mann from 43Folders looked into it and it turns out everyone uses plain text files to keep themselves organized. I actually bought a program a couple years ago just to manage my lists, though Evernote may obviate the need for that now.)
