As of today I no longer need to have Lotus Notes installed on my Macbook Pro! Woo hoo!
I was very excited at the prospect of uninstalling it (yes, uninstalling bad software is all it takes to get me excited). Lotus Notes is far and away the largest installation on my laptop. It weighs in at an incredible 792 MB! The next largest application I have installed is iPhoto at 430 MB and then follows Gimp at 263 MB. There would be very few people that would argue that Lotus Notes provides more functionality per megabyte than Gimp does. In my experience IBM is especially good at producing bloatware, but even this is beyond any rational (pun intended) explanation.
What makes it worse is that Lotus Notes is a just plain awful tool to use. So its a one-two punch, first it takes up ridiculously unjustified amounts of disk space, then it rubs salt in that wound by just being horrible to use. Nothing has ever made me long for Microsoft Outlook like Lotus Notes does, and that is saying something since I am a self-confessed Apple fan-boy.
I am pretty sure my laptop sighed in relief when I deleted Lotus Notes, like a giant burden had been lifted from its shoulders.
The only upside to Lotus Notes, is that it does have an Apple version at all, although this is more due to the fact that the recent versions are based on Eclipse (ie. Java), not so much that IBM really loves Apple users in any way.
Farewell Lotus Notes, it was depressing and frustrating to know you, and I hope we never cross paths again.
Sorry you didn’t like Notes. I use it every day and couldn’t live without. It’s a key piece to my company and I use it at home with the family as well.
I run it on Windows for the developer client and also use it on my Macs at home. I would agree that it takes up a LOT of disk space. But I would be one of those people that would argue that while there is some bloat, it provides more functionality then iPhoto or Gimp depending on what functionality you need.
I use iPhoto myself and it does a great job of managing my pictures. Gimp I don’t use as much because I struggle with the interface (a common Notes complaint) but it is of course an amazing program.
Those two programs perform specific tasks. Notes, when used correctly is flexible and can do many different tasks. First it has email. Arguably the email works best with the Domino server, but IMAP is still an option. But lets say that you don’t like the email app. You can change any part if it. All the code is open and any Notes Developer can rework it. This is been done famously by a company that made a GTD email version for Notes that David Allen the create of that discipline uses himself. Can’t do that with Outlook or Apple Mail.
With Notes I can have my blog with me at all times. It replicates so if the “cloud” is down you can still work. I can have any of dozens of company or personal applications with me. And it’s will securely safe guard and replicate the data. With
Another key aspect of Notes which is it’s strength and weakness at the same time is Backward compatibility. Notes is 20 years old. And you know what? Applications written in version 1.0 will STILL work in version 8.5.1. How’s that for a safe investment in a platform? Didn’t Microsoft ditch VB6 for .NET? and Apple Carbon for Cocoa? There is no rip and replace in the Notes world. And that’s hurt them as much as it helps them. But I’ll tell you, some of the programs that I wrote in 1994 when I was just learning the ropes are still in use today. Are the ugly? Sure. But they work. And I could make them pretty if needed today if I weren’t too busy enhancing more important apps that run the business.
Some of the Bloat of Notes’s huge size is Eclipse, but Eclipse allows it to not just run on the Mac, but finally gives Notes Advanced features like built in Java Server Faces called XPages. Oh yeah, and that will run in the client even if you have no connection to a network. How many web apps can you actually take with you in a disconnect state, have all the data and still use them?
Is Notes perfect? Absolutely not. It needs a lot of help in some areas. Clearly you had a bad experience, and I’m truly sorry for that. We have a difference of opinion and that’s healthy. But I would suggest that it’s not true to say that IBM does not love “Apple”, or thinks of Apple as an after thought. IBM came out with iPhone support for the iNotes client very early on. They then added local app iphone support for push mail, contacts and calendar in Lotus Traveler. That’s free by the way. They created an app on the app store to allow encrypted mail on the iphone. They committed to building iphone support for other products. Notes runs on the Mac (and linux) as a first class citizen. The 8.5.1 client is large but runs very well. So with all respect, I’d suggest that IBM is doing as much as they can to harmonize with the Apple world.
If you ever do come back to Notes, drop me a line, I’d be happy to try and assist you if you have any issues.
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