I just love…
Software.
I was recommended Evernote yesterday, after a quick and simple install to the desktop and iPhone/iPad the app was ready and syncing immediately.
For ages I’ve used an App called Yojimbo, this is for general note taking, gathering thoughts, passwords and clippings from the web etc. I got quite excited when they bought a version for the iPad out, but alas no version for iPhone and also the iPad version is just a passive client so no ability to add content.
In fairness I emailed Bare Bones yesterday to simply ask if they were planning to launch an iPhone version that could add content and sync. They answered and said “sorry not yet”.
I then thought long and hard about switching simply because I’d be transferring 4 years of content from one system to another, fortunately both applications support automator tasks in AppleScript so I should be able to write a script for this task.
So what made me switch apps, functionality wise they both do pretty much the same thing. OK, the syncing thing is mildly important now but my main reason for actually switching is the look, feel and experience of using the new software. It’s not better, it just feels better.
I sat in a meeting today and the subject of user experience came up. Personally for me this is a huge deal, software companies should always be pushing the envelope on the design of their UI. Yes functionality is important but it doesn’t necessarily sell software, the user experience does.
Remember Netscape Navigator? Well it was killed off on the mac when Microsoft had the ingenious idea of getting a good design agency to design the UI for Explorer. Explorer for the mac was terrible, it had it’s own special way of rendering HTML that meant we would almost double the front end development time just getting it to work on a mac properly. Thankfully Apple launched Safari which in turn saw the death of Explorer for the mac. My point I guess is that each of these seemingly similar bits of software became successful purely because of their design.
It’s superficial I know, but it just makes me feel better.
