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Microsoft Releases OneNote as a Free Mac App Store Download
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Earth to Microsoft, most people who "work" for a living with Microsoft products hate the Ribbon interface and the "light" UI design. Most of them are too busy working to be able to take the time to complain or are simply resigned of the fact that Microsoft never listens to end users in business. It lacks depth and contrast.
A couple of years ago, I had an email conversation with the head of the UI design for Office and Visual Studio. They just don't get it at all. I took the time to have a conversation with him to represent some of the complaints my colleagues have about their UI direction and it fell on deaf ears. We spend a lot of money on Microsoft products and yet they would choose to listen to fanboys and hipster bloggers instead.
Earth to Microsoft, Neowin and similar fan sites are not a good gauge of how your customers feel. The majority of them do not have a day job which involves extensive use of Microsoft technology and are mainly nerds with jobs in retail who spend most of their time either playing video games or modding their hardware.
@nagromme: The ribbon may do the job but it does it poorly. The ribbon results in a lot of wasted time because commands are often not logically grouped like they were in the menu. The menu was more efficient and it made it much easier to memorize keyboard shortcuts.
I have just about given up on Microsoft ever listening to actual users of their products. I spend the majority of my waking life at work using the windows platform and writing software for windows servers.
A couple of years ago, I had an email conversation with the head of the UI design for Office and Visual Studio. They just don't get it at all. I took the time to have a conversation with him to represent some of the complaints my colleagues have about their UI direction and it fell on deaf ears. We spend a lot of money on Microsoft products and yet they would choose to listen to fanboys and hipster bloggers instead.
Earth to Microsoft, Neowin and similar fan sites are not a good gauge of how your customers feel. The majority of them do not have a day job which involves extensive use of Microsoft technology and are mainly nerds with jobs in retail who spend most of their time either playing video games or modding their hardware.
@nagromme: The ribbon may do the job but it does it poorly. The ribbon results in a lot of wasted time because commands are often not logically grouped like they were in the menu. The menu was more efficient and it made it much easier to memorize keyboard shortcuts.
I have just about given up on Microsoft ever listening to actual users of their products. I spend the majority of my waking life at work using the windows platform and writing software for windows servers.
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Gonna download it since it's "Free" but gonna keep using Evernote. It's tried and true.
Eh, OneNote is the actual tried and true app here, it's been around for twice as long.
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Yeah, so the ribbon design changed drastically in 2013 - you may want to look a bit closer.
Formatting is the biggest issue with Evernote for me.
The convulted UI is the 2nd.
The upside is that it is a very attractive application and if this is a teaser of what is to come with Office 2014 then I'm looking forward to its final release. Given the very brief usage of it I'm going out on a limb and assuming that this is a lot more Cocoa centric along the lines of Outlook 2011 which means it'll automatically inherit the language settings of your operating system (thank god for that, I have it set on UK English but I have an Aussie keyboard but Office 2011 insists on using either the Australian or US dictionary with all its horrible spelling issues).
The downside is that it'll require you to have a Microsoft account - but I'm sure most people have one either for email, Skype or some other service.
The downside is that it'll require you to have a Microsoft account - but I'm sure most people have one either for email, Skype or some other service.
Eh, I was referring to Mac software being tried and true. One Note is tried and true on Windows. This article isn't about Windows software now is it?
At first I was really excited to hear this, however I then tried opening some of my Physics and Math related notebooks to find the words "[equation]" strewn across every page. It would appear that this version of OneNote is missing a key feature for me at least, no equation/math input.
Looks like I will have to stick with Parallels + Win8 + Office 2013 for now.
Looks like I will have to stick with Parallels + Win8 + Office 2013 for now.
Been using the web app for OneNote on my Mac for quite some time now. Really happy that they have released a standalone app for this.
I used Evernote for some time, and I see the appeal to some people but ultimately I think OneNote has the strongest feature set of the two. Evernote feels more like an email client to me for some reason.
To each their own.
I used Evernote for some time, and I see the appeal to some people but ultimately I think OneNote has the strongest feature set of the two. Evernote feels more like an email client to me for some reason.
To each their own.
Nobody wants these applications on a Mac. We already have this functionality for free from Apple with the Notes application that syncs seamlessly across all our computers and devices. "Free for a limited time" ha, good luck if you plan on trying to charge for this at a later date.
Not really. Still takes up way too much vertical space. I like to see as much of my document as possible, which is why I like Pages '09's compact formatting bar the best. Why they got rid of it in the new version for what is essentially a ribbon on the side, I'll never understand. So much wasted space (but at least it's not vertical.)
I've used both products heavily for a number of years so I have some opinions on this. I generally prefer OneNote but have been an Evernote Premium subscriber for years due to the lack of a Mac app and limited mobile support, so I'm their target here.
OneNote wins in my opinion in UI - Evernote has a very traditional flat notepage interface where organizing things in anything other than a fixed linear format is difficult. OneNote treats each page as an endless canvas where you can paste almost any content in any location with no traditional formatting limits - ie. you can insert a photo, type some text around it, add some drawings, and each element remains separate and able to be moved to any location on the page even overlaying other elements. This, and the fact that it overall looks and feels like other Office apps means there is little learning curve.
OneNote also does a better job at replicating a traditional tabbed notebook structure that 'feels' a lot more natural than Evernote which wants you to rely on tags for organization. I hate tags and think they are a complete kludge to a poor UI.
Evernote also has a size limit to an individual notebook that I don't have too much trouble running into when I start adding a lot of pictures. I haven't run into that issue with Onenote.
That said, Evernote does do a reliably good job at updating their apps on all platforms, so I will likely stick with it until OneNote proves the same to me. I'll probably move some notebooks back to OneNote to test and see how it goes.
I'd really like to be able to test drive it without having to dip a toe into the Microsoft ecosystem.
Evernote's interface is tragic, its functionality temperamental, and its OCR and multi-language support is laughable... but it's the devil I know.
Evernote's interface is tragic, its functionality temperamental, and its OCR and multi-language support is laughable... but it's the devil I know.
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This actually looks pretty cool. I've stuck with the old fashioned legal pad and pen forever. I might finally do digital notes with this app.
I'm happy!
I can now create my daughters weekly OneNote books on my computer, and hopefully insert her papers... but if I have to switch to her tablet for that, then so be it. Still means I use my Mac for the heavy work.
I would have settled on Growly Notes for us - but it was cheaper to buy her a Dell Venue 8 Pro with Office than find a MacBook for $200.
As for Evernote, tried it, even the paid version... just wasn't cutting it for me. I need the notebook type of organizing, with pages and sections.
I can now create my daughters weekly OneNote books on my computer, and hopefully insert her papers... but if I have to switch to her tablet for that, then so be it. Still means I use my Mac for the heavy work.
I would have settled on Growly Notes for us - but it was cheaper to buy her a Dell Venue 8 Pro with Office than find a MacBook for $200.
As for Evernote, tried it, even the paid version... just wasn't cutting it for me. I need the notebook type of organizing, with pages and sections.
Do you happen to have Office 2011 for Mac installed? If not, it may have the required component to display equations. Hopefully this issue is considered to be a bug by MS.
No thanks. I'll stick with Evernote.
MS, you are super late to many things. I'll let other people be the lab rats with your products for a loooong time before I even bother investing my time into them. You should of taken your billions and innovated earlier instead of vacationing on the success of the 90's for a decade or more.
MS, you are super late to many things. I'll let other people be the lab rats with your products for a loooong time before I even bother investing my time into them. You should of taken your billions and innovated earlier instead of vacationing on the success of the 90's for a decade or more.
Nobody wants these applications on a Mac. We already have this functionality for free from Apple with the Notes application that syncs seamlessly across all our computers and devices. "Free for a limited time" ha, good luck if you plan on trying to charge for this at a later date.
The Notes app doesn't have a sliver of the same functionality as OneNote or Evernote.
Do you have a reading comprehension problem? The ribbon interface was introduced back in 2007. The ribbon interface, in all of its forms, is an example of bad UI design. It took a dramatic turn for the worse in Office 2013 because the lack of depth and contrast because much worse in that iteration
What is your point of posting here other that blindly defending Microsoft and their poor UI decisions? I have to work with their stuff every day. Do you have a job in a microsoft "shop"? If not, then your opinion is irrelevant.
If you had read more closely, you would have noticed that my main complain of the Ribbon concept is how Microsoft has arbitrarily grouped unrelated functions under the same tab because of space constraints. That was not a problem with the menu. The menu was hierarchical which meant that functions were grouped by groups and sub groups while everything is flattened into a tab now and it can take more time to find what you are looking for.
Microsoft should offer the user the option to use either a ribbon OR the menu and toolbars. They instead decided for the user which is arrogant.
Yeah, no. The ribbon easily collapses to take the same space as the traditional menu interface when not in use, yet makes the vast majority of tools a 1-2 click affair as opposed to digging through nested menus. It's the best thing they've done to Office in years.
Everybody claims to like toolbars or tool palates, the Ribbon is just a collection of them.
How would they sync your notes without an account?
I don't need the notes to sync to test drive the interface.