Philip Weber

EverBook: Evernote Device Concept

Evernote is an incredibly useful tool, but I constantly find myself distracted by the overly complex UI for the desktop app. I found myself wishing that I could have a stand alone device that is focused on providing a streamlined Evernote experience. I had to mock up a design for the device to get it out of my head. It is far from a practical product idea, I would love to have one.

The basic idea for the EverBook is a small notebook, sized somewhere between a netbook and a smaller laptop, that has a full keyboard, wifi/3g card, microphone and camera (on the back of the screen. The writing experience on the device would offer a minimalist alternative to a Markdown editor. You would have all the wonerfull syncing features that come with Evernote, and you could use richer formatting than is available in Markdown without cluttering the screen with UI.

Below you can see a more clear view on the keyboard for the device. The row of keys along the top would be used for formatting. The keys next to the spacebar that would typically be used for control, alt, etc. would be used for Evernote system functions.

A Preview-less Markdown Editor

I love me some markdown. John Gruber‘s creation of the concept is the one reason I am able to tollerate the Apple darling’s writing. I use Markdown every day to focus in on writing tasks, but I’ve always been frustrated with the state of the editor experience. Byword and iA Writer both get a lot of things right, but, for me, the display I see while writing is too disconnected from the output I am trying to create. I’m forced to use an app like Marked or the preview mode in Byword to see what my document should really look like.

There are a few ideas that I haven’t seen in any editors yet that I need for an ultimate editor experience:

1. Headlines that resize

2. Lines that become solid when your cursor is gone

Using these two new features along with the best features from existing editors, a really solid editing experience could be created that would remove the need for a preview mode or an additional app.

This is what my ultimate editor would look like:

View Full Size