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Microsoft 365 Blog
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The best version of OneNote on Windows

William Devereux's avatar
William Devereux
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Apr 18, 2018
The below article is out of date as of Nov 4 th 2019. Please check out this article for the latest OneNote announcement.   We’re incredibly lucky to have millions of passionate OneNote users aro...
Updated Feb 10, 2023
Version 6.0
microsoft 365 apps
office 365
Neil Goldstein's avatar
Neil Goldstein
Iron Contributor
May 04, 2018

William Devereux,

 

You say "We took that feedback to heart, and over the last few years we’ve been focused on making OneNote for Windows 10 the best version of OneNote on Windows."

 

But then you proceed to try to deal with all of the comments and scenarios where the UWP app doesn't work well. However is the reverse true? ---

 

Are there any compelling features in OneNote UWP that aren't in the desktop App? (Oh features are coming.. I mean right now)

  • Can it handle more open notebooks
  • Does it search faster
  • Does it OCR faster
  • Can it handle larger notebooks with more graphical content
  • Does it support App Protection policies like the android/iOS OneNoteMobile does (i.e. WITHOUT Windows WIP)
  • Does it translate user handwriting better than the desktop?
  • Does it have a better 3rd party add-in/extension ecosystem?

 

Right now you are forcing what we (myself included) perceive as a weaker product down our throats because .... "we asked for this" and "we will get most of the desktop features into it sometime soon"

 

You are getting hammered in the press and the blogs and here because there has been no compelling reason given for why you would start with UWP app version instead of the more functional desktop version.

 

Please show us the Venn diagram or something that shows how the desktop app was the weaker product. 

 

You should also add some ability through logging or Windows Analytics or Delve to track and show me reports that can convince my users/customers that everything they are doing now OneNote 2016 can be done just as well in OneNote UWP.

 

You do know that most non-technical users call the built in Onenote "Onenote lite" or "OneNote Free"?  Until we start thinking that the desktop version is the "lite" version you are going to have a problem. 

 

I need the to know how/why the UWP app is a functional and big step-up, because there is going to be a lot of retraining - if nothing else all the users who have been taught to NOT click on "OneNote" .. only click on "OneNote 2016". So please let us know why focus your efforts to improve the UWP instead of the desktop version. I get why just one version .. but why are we now paying for the free one?

 

I look forward to a nice blog post addressing this "why we went with the UWP app instead of desktop" soon.