Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by n1 on Wednesday October 07 2015, @06:50PM   Printer-friendly
from the a-billion-dollars-to-whoever-reinvents-the-wheel dept.

Evernote, makers of the note-taking web app of the same name, is going through a rough patch. As the company's pre-IPO valuation hit $1 billion in 2012, Phil Libin, its CEO, became accustomed to giving interviews dispensing advice on how to create a cool company with a freemium business model and a great corporate culture.

Then came some serious problems, as recounted in a story in BusinessInsider. Recent releases of Evernote's flagship product have been buggy, with new features that were apparently shipped before they were ready. "Complementary" products and services acquired by the company haven't panned out, and critics have suggested that management took its eye off the core business. Meanwhile, revenue from the company's freemium business model hasn't been keeping pace with its growing costs; although some 150 million people use Evernote today, product revenues (as of last year) were estimated by TechCrunch to be just $36 million. This year has brought layoffs, office closings, elimination of some audacious employee perks, and cancellation of the company's developer confererence. Libin resigned as CEO in July, replaced by ex-Googler Chris O'Neill.

So is freemium still a viable business model for a Silicon Valley "unicorn" ($1 billion-plus valuation) pushing a SaaS (as opposed to, let's say, a relational database, or programming language compiler plus IDE)? Or are too many of its target users just too cheap to make it viable?


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday October 07 2015, @06:59PM

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @06:59PM (#246551) Journal

    And $1 billion was way too large a valuation for a useful product with a decent business model and growth rate.

    And there was no way they could ever live up to the expectations that created.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:07PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:07PM (#246554)

      Exactly. How could a note taking app be worth $1 billion?

      • (Score: 1, Redundant) by bob_super on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:27PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:27PM (#246560)
        • (Score: 0, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:46PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:46PM (#246568)

          That business is not based on an app. It's based on selling actual products for money. Hence why they would deserve a billion dollar valuation.

          • (Score: 1, Redundant) by bob_super on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:49PM

            by bob_super (1357) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:49PM (#246596)

            No? Really? Thanks for the clarification!

            • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:25PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:25PM (#246611)

              Then congrats on your useless post. *thumbs up*

    • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:52PM

      by Hyperturtle (2824) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:52PM (#246598)

      I've found that in a bubble, everything is acceptable as long as house prices don't crash.

      Then no one can take out (or hope to pay back) those home equity loans that fueled a lot of this crazy behavior... knowing people might have money to waste is motivation for some to invest in products like this.

      In any event, I liked the idea of Evernote when it was new. I never actually have used it, though.

      I have found that I am better off keeping a pencil or a gel pen, and a pad of paper in a durable folio. Best of all, if I drop it, it still works.

      Yes I have computery things obviously, but most of what I write down on paper is just to make sure I remember it later, not because I intend to actually read it later. Any drawing I do I likely end up redoing entirely in visio or whatever, as having the ability to make rough pencil sketches... with a pencil no less... is also quite valuable, and often can be done on whatever broken pencil and printer paper is available.

      Even if I was given Evernote for free because of a freemium model or something, no sheet of paper has required a log in prior to my saving data on it.

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:09PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:09PM (#246604)

        Its all about the PDF files. My career and hobby interests span enough time that I used to feel guilty-ish about processor reference manuals the size of phone books (now they'd be the size of encyclopedia series if they were printed out) and endless electronic component datasheets and shuffling all that junk around in binders and folders and old fashioned briefcases.

        Now I just drop PDFs on any of the bazillion competitors to evernote (they all work about equally well) and I can read anything anywhere without the paper shuffling in an organized fashion.

        Here, have a free ver 1.1.0 data sheet for a Fairchild 2N3904 a classic general purpose NPN transistor. Radio Shack used to sell them. Well, radio shack sold the floor sweepings that narrowly failed Q+A, or so all the rumors go, but I digress.

        https://www.fairchildsemi.com/datasheets/2N/2N3904.pdf [fairchildsemi.com]

        Now the advantage of using the PDF over the URL and reading online, is I'll have access to revision 1.1.0 of that data sheet for all eternity and I can keep it in a directory with a zillion other closely related docs... If fairchild gets out of the semi business and memoryholes their online presence, I don't care. If they change their name and URL to goatse I also don't care I have my own copy. If they redesign their website and URL scheme I don't care I have a local copy.

        Now anywhere on the planet regardless of connectivity or BS data plan charges I can whip out the tablet and permanently end debates like "can a '3904 switch telco power level 48 volt loads?" and VLM says "F no, right here the data sheet says V(CEO) is only 40V absolute max"

        Incidentally and completely off topic I once killed a '3904 in an automotive application... sure they call it 12 volt power and they call that a 40 volt transistor, but nobody talks about 80 volt alternator dumps and electrical surges from the starter motor and stuff like that.

        • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday October 08 2015, @04:21AM

          by captain normal (2205) on Thursday October 08 2015, @04:21AM (#246727)

          Why not save a page as an HTML file, or if the crap stuff is not important, as a rich text file. Just right click and save.

          --
          When life isn't going right, go left.
        • (Score: 2, Informative) by terryk30 on Friday October 09 2015, @01:13PM

          by terryk30 (1753) on Friday October 09 2015, @01:13PM (#247380)

          nobody talks about 80 volt alternator dumps and electrical surges from the starter motor and stuff like that.

          (probably posting too late, aside from the notification you'll get, VLM)

          Ah, the "power supply from hell". Not sure when you were dealing w. that or how far you got, but FYI: Surge Stopper [linear.com]

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dyingtolive on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:34AM

        by dyingtolive (952) on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:34AM (#246673)

        I keep my D&D/Ravenloft notes in Evernote. It's useful for when some new horror comes to mind while at work and I want to get it down to mull over later.

        Beyond that? Pen and notebook, always. Anything I put in it leaves the company when I do, requires physical access to intercept messages, and I can destroy pages if and when the need be and know they're actually gone.

        --
        Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
        • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday October 08 2015, @04:29AM

          by captain normal (2205) on Thursday October 08 2015, @04:29AM (#246729)

          That's what thumb drives are for. Why make everything more complicated?

          --
          When life isn't going right, go left.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:26AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:26AM (#246799)

        and a pad of paper in a durable folio. Best of all, if I drop it, it still works.

        I contrast, if you use... say... an iPad the wipe your butt, it still works (the device, not the butt)

  • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:04PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:04PM (#246552)

    90% of what evernote does could be handled by a distributed system. The goal is to share notes among your devices. So design a system where each device automatically syncs with all of your other devices whenever they are simultaneously online. The number of times you are on you PC but your phone is turned off is basically zero. Evernote could continue to sell their premium service with 100% uptime, full backups, extra storage, etc. But the freemium part would cost them barely anything - at most it becomes a "check-in" service so devices can find each other even if behind a one-way NAT firewall -- but once 'found' all the data transfers would be device-to-device. The bandwidth requirements for the check-in server would be in the noise.

    • (Score: 1, Redundant) by VLM on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:42PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:42PM (#246566)

      So google drive and star the files you want offline access to, basically? Dropbox can do the same thing. Don't even need anything new.

      My first experience with the system we describe was eighteen years ago as a late adopter to the palm pilot ecosystem in '97. I got a black and white III. Good machine, ran forever on two AAA batteries. Sync, at least for me, always worked. It was alright, maybe not perfect. The higher res screen on my phone is nicer, although my phone being bigger and bulkier than the III and the battery only lasting a tiny fraction of the III's life does suck.

      • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:51PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:51PM (#246597)

        Those Palms were great. I think I had the IV, which was excellent once I got the code to sync with linux. I can't remember what that software was, but it worked really nice. Started with an "E" maybe? Anyway, it was just perfect for my needs (then and now), and MUCH easier to use than my current phone.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:36PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:36PM (#246639)

      Then how would they mine your data?

      Evernote's cloud is not for your benefit, but for theirs.

    • (Score: 2) by moondoctor on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:31PM

      by moondoctor (2963) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:31PM (#246658)

      The technicals are easy. It's the usability/UI that is key. Evernote was as good as anything else out there, if they got their product truly dialled in they really would have been worth a shitload of money. That said, a billion seems like way too much.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:07PM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:07PM (#246555) Journal

    After trying the free version for a year or so, I became a paying customer, and generally like what I see.

    There are times, though, that I felt the company had started to lose its way, adding features of questionable value while key functionality was still missing in the core product.
    1) Getting things INTO Evernote is easy, getting them out, to print, or to input to another document, is not so easy.
    2) They have a handwriting mode, but compared to Microsoft's OneNote's stylus input, the Evernote version pretty much sucks, even on the same device.

    On the other hand the plugins for browsers to save web articles is pretty nice.

    The camera-phone image input built into Evernote is horrible for documents, whereas CamScanner Android app is almost flawless.

    Still its cross platform, and works everywhere, so I'm sticking with it.
    Freemium definitely worked this time to lure me into being a paying customer.
     

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:21PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:21PM (#246558)

    The summary is inside focused; a lot of the commentary I've seen elsewhere is outside focused.

    Their competitors all have online notepad or whatever and online drives but they ALSO product tie right up against the FTC limits of product tying. So one of their competitors has a world wide search engine and a mobile operating system. Or their other competitor owns the corporate desktop and corporate office applications. Or their competitor which owns the college and artsy and black turtleneck and conspicuous consumption market segment.

    And Evernote brings nothing else to the table, no reason for any of those competitors to buy evernote. Honestly, who would buy evernote?

    I've used evernote and google drive; why would I send money to evernote? Why would google buy evernote when the market is saturated and I'm already a customer (of both) and it doesn't bring anything to them?

    Meanwhile not being bought isn't the end of the world. They're generating $36M in a delicate market where that could "poof" away in mere months if they mis-step, so they don't get oil well style valuations. Lets say $100M upfront, thats a three year multiple of revenue. Generous, frankly. Now the "REAL" problem is the investors who have been privately funding them have been taking percentages in exchange for cash as if the whole pie were worth $1B. They're not going to like a 90% haircut and almost out of spite I could see them pushing for liquidation or a fire sale (sure GOOG won't pay $2B or $1B... but $100.001M ... well that's a better deal... comes with 400 employees (doing WTF I donno) and some revenue... I could see that)

    And now on a slightly different tangent:

    The one thing I hate the most about evernote is the UI changes about as fast as I get used to it, and it changes on their schedule at their convenience. SAAS sucks. I'm sort of gravitating back toward emacs org mode and my wife has already moved back to google drive. Meanwhile experience proves its too much of a PITA to actually use notes remotely and what few I use work fine out of drive, so I do not fear moving back to emacs org mode.

    • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:37PM

      by maxwell demon (1608) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:37PM (#246588) Journal

      And Evernote brings nothing else to the table, no reason for any of those competitors to buy evernote. Honestly, who would buy evernote?

      If I had a use for the functionality Evernote provides, for me that very fact would be a good reason to choose Evernote over a competitor.

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:54PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:54PM (#246599)

        Well, OK if it was a going concern I'd even agree with you. The problem is its a bubble company and has bubble financing so it was supposed to be sold for $1B to apple already, or sold to someone. Not trying to bootstrap off revenue. But the bubble is popping so nobody has bought them out yet, so we'll wait and watch. If they can transition to self financed or self funded they might survive, but if they can't then you need a plan to migrate your stuff out when they close. All the other companies are deeply diversified and have ad networks or video game consoles or a book retailing empire or something as a backup, evernote's got nothin.

        To some extent dropbox has a similar problem.

        Build to be bought, then nobody buys... Much like a house, you can build to live in, or build to sell. Those are startups built to sell, not real businesses.

        I though Amazon would be a casualty of the first bubble, and here they are today. Of course, a huge number of bubble 1.0 companies are not here, so one exception is not that good of news after all.

        I've been thinking about it since my first post and Evernote would work pretty well with amazon. Link the fire tablet, the dead fire phone, and the weird echo thingy to it by default. Amazon already has a drive so they don't need dropbox.

        Is there any big company that needs a drive or online storage that doesn't already have one? Sad for dropbox.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @07:48PM (#246570)

    The layoffs were the first signs, but cost-saving is showing up in perks too.

    Evernote used to provide house-cleaning services every two weeks to all employees, but that’s gone now. Most people could easily request to work in overseas offices for three weeks, fully covered by the company, but that’s more tightly controlled, a former employee said. Any new requests for the monthly electric-car-charging stipend have been suspended too. Some offices say their food has been downgraded from specialized delivery service to a mix of vendors catering food.

    Let me call the waaaaaahmbulance!

  • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:10PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @08:10PM (#246576)

    I have decided that investors are just too stupid and greedy to be trusted with money. They all think that every schmuck with an internet business that has no revenue is going to be the next Google.

    It's easy to throw money around when it isn't yours, though. Why does it seem that people that throw money in these sinking ships are not held accountable?

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 2) by jimshatt on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:25PM

      by jimshatt (978) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:25PM (#246612) Journal
      The problems with investors is that they expect growth without even looking at the product. They think "hey this company is growing, so if I pump in some money it'll grow and a bigger slice of pie will be mine". The product the company produces doesn't even enter their minds. Simpleton one-trick ponies that they are.

      Anyway, if they had looked at the product, they would have discovered that the product was pretty much done when the first version came out. Sure, there was room for improvement and some extra features but not much. Reaching new audiences is very hard, so growth was pretty much impossible.
      Of course, it's also the company's own fault for accepting investments when they can't do anything useful with it (other than enrich themselves). But once there are dollars involved, rational thought goes out the window.
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @04:23AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @04:23AM (#246728)
      Actual quote from Paul Graham of Y Combinator to the New York Times, in this article (which may have a paywall; get your anti-Javascript defenses ready: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/magazine/y-combinator-silicon-valleys-start-up-machine.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1 [nytimes.com] )

      Like any savvy marketing executive, he wanted to isolate patterns that portended ill, which he called “negative predictors.” He was already aware of a few — investors tended to be biased against older founders, for instance. “The cutoff in investors’ heads is 32,” Graham says. “After 32, they start to be a little skeptical.” And Graham knew that he had his own biases. “I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark Zuckerberg. There was a guy once who we funded who was terrible. I said: ‘How could he be bad? He looks like Zuckerberg!’ ”

  • (Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:14PM

    by tftp (806) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @09:14PM (#246606) Homepage

    I have never seen EverNote, though I saw it mentioned a few times here and there. All my notes go into my lab notebook, in ink. Other notes go into files that I immediately store on my servers. I see no use case where I'd want to post my notes on the Web. Perhaps there are people who are too Web-centric and are willing to pay money for the service, but I don't know anyone who'd be like that. Such a person must be totally unaware of existence of competing free products and value their personal instant convenience more than the money.

    And... note taking in general is a very well understood process. You can buy a notebook, keep it in the car, or in the pocket, and use it for shopping lists or whatever you need. If you have a phone, you can do it there. How many people must have their notes automatically shared between different devices? The percentage of serious note-takers is already small; among those the percentage of people who demand sharing is smaller still.

    • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:15PM

      by Snotnose (1623) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:15PM (#246632)

      I got it to use as a shopping list. Enter my ingredients on the PC, then take my phone to the store. Ingredients are stored by recipe. My wishlist?

      1) I shop at 2 different stores (99 cent and Vons). Be nice if I could sort my list based on which store I expect to get each item for.
      2) Be nice if I could sort my list by various categories, like produce, meat, frozen, etc.
      3) Let me check off items as I put them into my cart.
      4) Of course, I'll want to unsort my list back to my by-recipe order

      All of these have been requested on the forums but nothing has happened.

      I've also recently started using it to keep track of books I want to read, and games I've got/sold. The latter was getting to be a problem, I'd buy a game from Craigslist, get it home, and damn if I didn't already it.

      --
      Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by tftp on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:23PM

        by tftp (806) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:23PM (#246636) Homepage

        My wishlist?

        This looks like a great little Android activity that you can put together in a weekend. No cloud needed, and no EverNote fees. If you are not an expert with Android Studio, it's a very good "Hello, World!" project to get started. If you are an expert already, this won't take much of your time.

        • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:33AM

          by Snotnose (1623) on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:33AM (#246672)

          I could code all of it except for the 'sync the pc and droid' part, I wouldn't even know where to start on that and don't have the time/inclination to do so.

          --
          Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
          • (Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:47AM

            by tftp (806) on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:47AM (#246677) Homepage

            Just in case you change your mind, Google does have a few links [blogspot.com] about that art. Here is the essence [google.com] of it:

            Bundle data = new Bundle();
            data.putString("my_message", "Hello World");
            data.putString("my_action","SAY_HELLO");
            String id = Integer.toString(msgId.incrementAndGet());
            gcm.send(SENDER_ID + "@gcm.googleapis.com", id, data);

            But an even easier method is to save your notes into a Dropbox or Google Drive or OneDrive folder - which then will be automatically, bidirectionally synced for you by their software. You only need to be careful and not overwrite a newer file with your older copy in RAM. Perhaps that's a bad way to do it if you handle 1,000 transactions per second (you'd want a database then) - but perfectly fine if it services only your family's devices.

            • (Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday October 08 2015, @03:06AM

              by Snotnose (1623) on Thursday October 08 2015, @03:06AM (#246715)

              Bookmarked, thanks. That said, I'm guessing 2-3 weeks to reproduce 150% of the functionality of something I have now that takes no effort on my part.

              But I've had other ideas for using clouds, those links are gonna me sucking my attention for a few days now.

              --
              Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:44PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2015, @10:44PM (#246642)

      "All my notes go into my lab notebook, in ink."

      This sounds a lot like, "I don't have a television," or, "I refuse to give my data to Facebook." If you don't use it, the rest of us don't want to hear your comments on it.

      Some people take extensive notes, tag them, and let Evernote organize them. It's pretty nifty for writing research papers that are larger than your ability to remember where you read what: it's like the old index card system.

      Evernote isn't necessarily about sharing, but for many people syncing devices is important. You aren't one of them, and that's okay for you. Don't assume that other people want to conform to your habits.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:16AM

      by frojack (1554) on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:16AM (#246668) Journal

      I see no use case where I'd want to post my notes on the Web
      You can buy a notebook, keep it in the car, or in the pocket, and use it for shopping lists or whatever you need.

      You aren't posting it on the web, you are storing in private cloud space.

      In the modern eroa we all migrated away from your notebooks stored in the car, except when you forget them at home, or in the library, or spill your coffee over them, for find them just too damn troublesome to deal with. Lets see, which notebook did I write that in? Hold on, while I do a key word search. Oh, wait.....

      Its in the cloud. Evernote had a cloud before Google ever thought of Google Drive.

      Write it in from your computer or your cell phone, talk it in while riding the bus, photograph it and store it right from a page in a book, or save entire web page into it.

      Forget your smartphone at home? No problem, its on your tablet, or your office computer, or the computer in the library.

      But the, if you're still using notebooks, you probably don't have a smartphone, or a tablet, so it probably doesn't appeal to you.

      While you were asleep mister Rip Van Winkle, the world moved on.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:24AM

        by tftp (806) on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:24AM (#246670) Homepage

        While you were asleep mister Rip Van Winkle, the world moved on.

        Perhaps. But then it's funny how the same world complains that they don't own anything anymore, even their own thoughts :-)

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Bodger on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:48PM

    by Bodger (5390) on Wednesday October 07 2015, @11:48PM (#246662)

    Recently my startup needed a way to organize and keep company documents and allow remote access because we are all in different cities.

    The brochure said we could do that. I spent weeks trying to figure out how to do it. I am a programmer and I followed what various online sources said to do and it did not do it or allow for it. I should have been able to figure it out, but could not.

    In the meantime one of us created a shared folder in Google Drive and we were able to do it in minutes and have been using since.

    Evernote failed.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:31AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2015, @12:31AM (#246671)

    Technologically speakiing, 3M's post-it is superior, cheaper, way more general purpose technology. Think about that.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday October 08 2015, @01:08PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 08 2015, @01:08PM (#246842) Journal
      Agreed. I mean... look... have you ever tried to stick your tablet on your monitor's rim?
      I tell ye, tablets are useless.
      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by halcyon1234 on Thursday October 08 2015, @01:04AM

    by halcyon1234 (1082) on Thursday October 08 2015, @01:04AM (#246687)
    In the year I've been using it, they've shuffled the UI about three times. Moving buttons. Making shit round and flat. Adding clutter. Taking up half the home screen with "DID YOU KNOW ThIS WHIZBANG FEATURE EXISTS" banners. When there's that much work put into adding rounded corners to destroy muscle memory, it's a sign.
    --
    Original Submission [thedailywtf.com]
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:18AM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday October 08 2015, @10:18AM (#246795) Journal

      There ought to be a word for that disease designers have to forever mess with UIs that aren't broken to make it fresher and hipper. My frustration with that phenomenon peaked when the Android Lollipop designers broke the functionality because they wanted screen actions to be animated, and also because they thought that of course every Android Lollipop user would prefer a navigation metaphor that resembled the Playstation instead of every other Android device they owned, because it's so much younger, fresher, and hipper!

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 1) by termigator on Thursday October 08 2015, @05:21PM

        by termigator (4271) on Thursday October 08 2015, @05:21PM (#246960)

        Maybe the same folks that are behind the constant rearranging of products at the supermarket are the same folks behind all the web design crap.

        • (Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 08 2015, @05:41PM

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Thursday October 08 2015, @05:41PM (#246968) Journal

          Certainly, but what to call it? Optimizitis? Infinite Design Recursion? OCDesign? It's a real thing, and it deserves a name. If it does in fact not have one, why not coin one? We could call it "Termigator's Law," whereby:

          "A user's irritation grows exponentially as a designer's work with a design approaches his satisfaction,"

          or

          "Usability for a normal person is inversely proportional to a designer's satisfaction."

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.