In the latest salvo of the battle of the note-taking apps, Google and Evernote announced this week that Google Drive content will now be available in Evernote. In the world of mobile note-taking apps, Evernote is the primary competitor of Microsoft’s OneNote.
Evernote had also been competing with Google’s own note-taking app, Google Keep, but Evernote said that integrating with Google Drive content is a natural next step for the company.
“We want anyone using Drive to have access to their content whenever and wherever they’re trying to get stuff done. That’s the cloud at its best,” wrote Alex Vogenthaler, product manager for Google Drive, on the company’s blog.
Collaboration Features
The new integration partnership also offers some new collaboration features, the companies said. Evernote users can now add any file from Google Drive into notes to create rich content.
Google Drive search is also integrated directly within Evernote’s applications, meaning that any changes made to embedded files are synchronized automatically to notes. This capability lets Evernote users create modular notes and content that remain up to date through multiple versions.
It also means multiple users can work on different documents embedded in the same master Evernote file at the same time. This feature updates the content as each of the components is saved, and it works across multiple file types such as pictures, documents, sounds and videos. The new integration will also show previews of the linked content, which Evernote said will create a richer viewing experience.
The partnership could provide Evernote with some much-needed stability. The company has endured operating cutbacks and a change in leadership during the past year.
The announcement of the integration comes less than a month after Google announced updates to Google Keep. Google is also in the process of trying to integrate Google Drive into such third-party applications as Yahoo Mail and WhatsApp.
More Storage
According to Evernote, its users create millions of notes daily that contain links pasted from Google Drive. The company said that more than half of all Evernote users also have Google accounts. In addition to the collaboration features provided by the integration, users will also have access to a lot more storage space.
Evernote gives each user 60 MB of free cloud storage, and Google offers access to 15 GB of free storage, with an option to upgrade to up to 1 TB for less than $ 10 per month. The offer of free storage means the integration might serve as a threat not only to Microsoft and OneNote, but to storage providers such as Dropbox and OneDrive that do not offer Evernote integration.
Evernote said that the new integration is just the first of many partnerships between itself and Google. The new integration beta is now available for Google Chrome and Android on the Google Play store.
Image Credits: Screenshots via Evernote Blog/Google Drive blog.
