DEVONthink To Go 4

Full of bugs, constantly hanging, shortcuts broken. This version is not ready for release. Stick to v. 3 for now. Update: Ver. 4.2 is slightly better than previous iterations, but the app still lags and spins wheels upon the slightest change. Sometimes views come up blank. The Activity indicator seems to have some animation, but it does not seem to reliably indicate the presence or nature of activity. Sidebar folder counts are slow to update, and the sidebar includes two items of limited value that cannot be removed. Settings and Activity buttons are hidden in a sidebar menu where v. 3 had them conveniently in a toolbar; in other views, they can be added, but the mechanism for doing so in Settings is opaque. Deleting the app does not necessarily delete its data, despite what they say; I had such a mess from my previously deleted v. 4 installation that I had to restore a backup on Mac and start over. Setting up sync from scratch was no picnic, either. This version, while usable, is a disappointment; I thought they would be further along by now—but the emphasis seems to be on adding features rather than improving performance. Anyone sitting on the fence may want to wait for 4.3, or longer. Update: I’m lowering the star rating after a week or so of using 4.2, which is incredibly *slow*, even on an iPad Pro M4. Lots of spinning wheels, no quick checks of anything, frequent capture fails from extension. Wish I had not “upgraded.”

I used v3 many times a day and was excited for this upgrade, but I have to warn people away from this version. It is not ready for public use. It hangs and then crashes every few pages when reading PDFs (many different files). Downloading files from a sync share takes multiple retries, and even when successful takes far longer than the same file on v3. Search rankings seem broken--keywords in document titles ranked dozens of rows less "relevant" than single references within content, if I could find them at all. This version seems like it was rushed out prematurely and is a big step backwards in the stability of core functionality. I'm going to revert to v3 (which I unwisely deleted) for now and cross my fingers that future updates make this version usable for me. Two stars because it sort of works in a pinch but is very frustrating for more than brief usage.

I use this app alongside the Mac OS version, so I can’t comment on how this functions on its own, but in tandem with Devonthink, it is a fantastic combination. It holds everything that I'd like it to hold. It's super easy to get to the things I want. It suggests the things that make sense to what I'm trying to do. But it does take practice. I think too often people are looking to an app to do everything for them, suggest everything for them, make it simply work without thought. You do have to think, but in so doing, I find myself well rewarded by this wonderful piece of software. Further, anytime I've had troubles, I've been able to reach out to the company, and they've been super responsive.