How about that for a mouthful? I have actually used all three. I use Dropbox the least amount of time however most admin. & teachers in my district use Dropbox more regularly than I do. All are accessible on the iPhone.
Evernote: My scanner is set up to scan all paper to Evernote automatically. Any time I get handouts, meeting agendas, teacher notes, etc. these are scanned into Evernote. My scanner is the small scanner and I will probably invest in the larger one in the fall. The hardest part is remembering to go back into the “note” and give it a title and tags so I can find it later. The search feature of Evernote is amazing so if I forget to title or tag I can search for any word in the document and eventually find it. (Tune in for more posts this week regarding Evernote. There are so many uses!)
Google Apps/Regular Google: This is where I live. Now that we can upload ANY file to Google apps/documents this makes Dropbox irrelevant to me. I can upload my files and keep the original formatting I just have to remember that if I downloaded I have to re-uploaded it as the new file. Have not had to do that yet. Now that Google docs has been upgraded and they added Google Drawings I can do just about anything I need right in Google.
Dropbox: When Dropbox first came out I used it for a couple of documents to work on at home. I think my entire “My Documents” folder is sync’d to Dropbox but I have not used any of my documents in there. Some other principals have share some Dropbox folders with me but that is the extent of my use.
This is a very brief comparison but I have to get home because my sitter leaves in an hour:):):) Still trying to post in June though!
Dropbox is cool because when you save a file that's it… it auto syncs… for Google Docs.. you have to manually upload files… the chaotic reality is that this doesn't get done
I use Google Cloud with Google Docs, which let you choose whether a document is synced automatically or manually. I have excel files that sync auto when I save them. Very handy.
I am trying to figure out why I need Evernote now when Google Docs does the same for me as far as sync and mobility go.
The main reason I use Evernote is because of the ability to scan all the "paper" I get that's important. Other than that I usually use google.
I like that Evernote lets me clip web articles and keep photos from my smartphone in one place. I do a lot of research and get a lot of spur of the moment ideas from things I see, so those two options are important. I use Google Docs to keep "written" (those things I personally typed) docs I may need access to elsewhere. I don't know that Dropbox is something I need to invest time/learning in, but if it's better at handling doc changes, including formatting for Word docs, then I want to know.
Virginia, you're right: Evernote does online clipping, whereas Google Drive does not. As a teacher, however, I haven't found a really good reason to introduce Evernote to my students. Sure, it handles more types of files a little better than Google Drive, but overall, I think I prefer having students work with Google.