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Now Catch is discontinued
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 3, 2013 at 12:32 PM
Here’s yet another reminder of how you can’t rely upon an single software app to store your information forever. Catch, which was sort of an Evernote wannabe, has announced it is discontinuing service. I tried Catch several months ago, like it, but not enough to switch to it. Got this e-mail from them this morning (funny it came in on a Saturday):
Dear Catch user,
Catch has made the difficult decision to take the company in a different direction. As such, we will be terminating service next month. We value our users and have greatly enjoyed providing Catch to you and millions of others over the last several years.
Catch will no longer be available after August 30, 2013. We apologize for the disruption this may cause to you. We’ve created an export tool to help you keep your notes and transition to another service. Please follow these directions to download your data before that date. Afterwards, you will no longer be able to access your notes on the web and our mobile apps, Catch Notes and AK Notepad, will no longer sync content across devices or allow collaboration. Click here for help and information about other note taking apps.
If you have any questions or concerns, please email us at support@catch.com. We apologize if we are not able to respond to all emails.
Thank you again for your support,
The Catch Team
Posted by Cassius
Aug 3, 2013 at 01:17 PM
At least these developers are ethical. Many programs are moribund but the developer continues to sell them to the unsuspecting. Example: Jot+.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Aug 5, 2013 at 09:36 PM
The popular task manager Astrid is also being discontinued after having recently been purchased by Yahoo: http://blog.astrid.com/topics/news/
Unlike Catch and many others before it, Astrid provides some kind of transition route for its users, leading to Wrike, Wunderlist, Sandglaz, TickTick, 24me and Any.do which can import its data.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Aug 9, 2013 at 09:42 AM
Not entirely fair to Catch! They do offer various ways of exporting all your notes, and I’ve successfully done so to e.g. Evernote. I’ve re-exported them to the iOS ‘As Noted’ app, too, which happily imports .enex files.
The opening-up of the Evernote API to other developers is a very interesting move. An increasing number of apps now support Evernote (such as iOS’s ‘Awesome Note’, also available on Android, if you have one of the latest Samsung devices). This means you’re no longer constrained by Evernote’s free account limitations - you can download and synchronise your Evernote content to a variety of different clients, all of which will happily preserve your notes offline.
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Aug 9, 2013 at 11:32 AM
MadaboutDana wrote:
>Not entirely fair to Catch! They do offer various ways of exporting all
>your notes, and I’ve successfully done so to e.g. Evernote.
I’d say that there are three levels of support provided by vendors of web services who go out of business or change direction, to their users:
1. Do nothing, i.e. one day users enter the website to find an “end of service” announcement and have no access to their data anymore. Examples: Peerpong, Twine.
2. Provide a way to download one’s data, but with no direct route for re-using it. Examples: Catch.com, Google Notebook.
3. Provide a simple route to migrate to another service. Examples: Astrid, Amplify.
Then there are third parties who might step in to help the disillusioned userbase. Example: Evernote providing a migration utility for Google Notebook users.
I hope this is more fair :-)