The Evernote elephant was a truly iconic logo for many years. Evernote was one of the first productivity apps to embrace smartphones, enable cross-platform sync, and make it easy to store and create almost anything, making it hugely popular.
However, in the past decade, Evernote has often felt stagnant or worse, with the company experiencing executive and business plan changes, leading it to become a "zombie app" - still present but not thriving.
In 2022, when Bending Spoons acquired Evernote and laid off nearly all of its staff, many users were confused about the app's future. After months of silence, Evernote has in 2024 shipped a range of new features, redesigned its interface, and added core new functionality, making the app feel modern again. This change has also come with a shift in pricing, which not all users are happy about.
In this episode of The Vergecast, the product lead at Bending Spoons, Federico Simionato, discusses the acquisition process, how Evernote is perceived today, the effort required to ship new features, and the reasons behind the subscription price change. He also talks about the future of Evernote, including how the team is working to integrate AI and other tools, while appealing to both existing and new users.