Have you used OneNote between OS X and iOS? Has it been reliable?

[Traverse]

Now that I'm back on OS X Yosemite I was considering re-downloading OneNote and using it across iOS and OS X. Has anyone been using this app combination extensively? Have you had any problems, data loss, or syncing issues?


Also, how do you do backups of OneNote notebooks? The export as PDF function didn't work properly if you had material outside of "normal" paper areas a few months ago so I was downing the Windows-only formats from OneDrive.com and saving them in a backup folder. Thanks.

 

[zOne31]

I just switched from Evernote to OneNote this past week. I don't really take that many notes but I really dig OneNote compared to Evernote. So far, syncing has been great. Sometimes it takes a while (up to 10-15 seconds) for the desktop version to update after making edits on mobile and vice versa. Can't comment on backups as I have no experience with that so far. Overall though, it has been a good experience.

 

[simonsi]

Yes and Yes. I think it has closed/crashed once but no loss of material. Notes on the other hand has started to crash about 2-3 times a month...

 

[Traverse]

Yes and Yes. I think it has closed/crashed once but no loss of material. Notes on the other hand has started to crash about 2-3 times a month...

I've never had Notes crash and I still plan to use it as my quick digital scrap paper since it's so fast to load, but it's really too basic (especially on iOS).

 

[simonsi]

I've never had Notes crash and I still plan to use it as my quick digital scrap paper since it's so fast to load, but it's really too basic (especially on iOS).

Yes it was 100% stable for me up to 10.10.3 so I expect it will resolve itself. I leave it running so perhaps am more exposed to it eventually crashing
Mostly I use it to create stuff on the Mac that I just may want to refer to on the phone/ipad later...

 

[sracer]

I recently went back to using OneNote for "rich" content notes. I regularly use Windows, OSX, iOS, and Android devices daily and so having that kind of cross-platform support is very handy.

Within the first week of returning to OneNote, I remembered why I stopped using it. Syncing takes a long time.

At a critical time, I needed to access my OneNote data from another system, I received the dreaded "we are unable to connect right now" message. I ended up having to copy-n-paste the notes that I needed into a Word doc, place the file in DropBox, and access it from there on the other system.

The OSX version of OneNote has trouble picking up new notebooks that were created with the OSX version on another system. (A OneNote notebook created on my MBA is not "seen" by OneNote on my iMac... needs some manual intervention. But ultimately gets access)

I'm still using it, hoping that I can work out and around these issues, but it isn't looking good.

OneNote is probably fine for simple use cases, but so far the same old issues remain... and a few new ones introduced by MS' attempt at improving cross-platform support.

 

[Traverse]

I'm curious (now 7 months later) what responses are? Has anyone had any data loss or sync issues with OneNote?

 

[Easttime]

I'm curious (now 7 months later) what responses are? Has anyone had any data loss or sync issues with OneNote?

Not me. Love this app and its synchrony between iOS and OS X.

 

[thewitt]

Works very well

 

[cerberusss]

If you strictly need to send textual notes across platforms, have a look at SimpleNote. It's part of the WordPress company now, and has been running for many years now. What I like, is how it hasn't changed. They keep fixing little bugs here and there, but have resisted adding new functionality.

Syncing seems hard enough, I can do without crazy functions. I rather prefer it to be robust and fast.