evernote-clearlyEvernote has announced it is ending support for three of its apps: the Skitch drawing app for Windows, Windows Touch, iOS, and Android (which it will continue to support for OS X), Evernote for Pebble, and the Evernote Clearly readability-reformatting extension that it launched in 2011. It is not turning the apps “off,” but will no longer be updating them or offering them for download as of January 22, and they may break due to future changes to operating system or web browser.

Though I never used it, I understand Skitch had quite a following, and a number of users will be disappointed. Where I’m disappointed is seeing Clearly go, as I use it every day to simplify articles for easier reading. Evernote explains that it incorporated Skitch’s core functionality into its Evernote app, a third-party Pebble app called Powernoter effectively does replaces Evernote for Pebble, and Clearly’s functionality into its Web Clipper.

After a little fiddling with the Web Clipper, I can see that is true—for the most part, at least. Web Clipper doesn’t let me adjust the font size the way Clearly does, and my eyes are getting to the point where bigger fonts are definitely better. In fact, that was the main thing I used Clearly for. I can of course zoom the pages with Ctrl-+ or Ctrl-scrollwheel, but that isn’t always satisfactory. And increasing the font size in my browser’s settings only works for some pages; others, such as Ars Technica, seem to hard-code their font sizes into their CSS.

It’s always disappointing when a tool you use regularly is discontinued, but I expect that I’ll be able to adapt and get by. And I should be able to keep using Clearly, at least until the next time something goes wrong with Windows 10 and I have to reinstall everything.

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