iA Writer

Name: iA Writer
Rating: 4.51072 (1073 reviews)

Productivity

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iA Writer

Productivity

4.5

1.1K ratings

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Seller

Information Architects AG

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User Reviews for iA Writer

Almost Perfect for Dungeon Masters

Most of the writing I do is for large D&D campaigns that I work on where there are a lot of small markdown files organized into thematic folders, which this app is perfect for. The writing surface is clean, the lines of text are spaced perfectly and the default duospace font is relaxing to view in both day and night modes, particularly on a large iPad.I also particularly like how the markdown formatting symbols hang outside of the left margin of the text, which makes parsing documents with a lot of formatting much easier. The placement of formatting symbols is not perfectly right aligned outside of the margin, but that is a minor quibble with syntax that is designed to flow inline in a plain text file.Feature Request: The ability to add folders from other applications would make this app absolutely perfect. I use the Working Copy app to push all of my documents to Github and for version control. If iA Writer could add my Working Copy folders to the library, the writing experience and repository workflow would be sublime.

C.Michael.Cooper, Mar 20, 2018

Great but needs collaborative elements

This is a great app. The way i use it is to formulate templates, Balance elements in each paragraph, and then i used grammerly For spell check. The only complaint i have is The lack of integration in other apps. I mostly use notion these days but some times i still want to proof read in AI and with grammerly but, i dont want to switch from app to app, nor use side card. It would be better if the two businesses collaborated and created extensions from each app with key features. For example, i dont need all three app to be up at the same time. It would be nice to see what nouns, and verbs are present with out leaving notion. It would also be more cohesive if they had the same keyboard extensions, and grammerly wasn’t docked on the on-screen keyboard especially when using a Bluetooth keyboard. I think its possible for all three companies to collaborate in the same way other businesses have been able to with Fleep and slack. Other than that, no complaints

Cane700, Nov 11, 2019

Almost perfect!

This application coupled with an iPad Pro and a magic keyboard have, quite frankly, made my on-the-go writing experience... magical! I’m not a professional by any means, however, as a college student I have had almost nothing to complain about when using this application. My only grievance, you guessed it, is more customization! This means more fonts, more color palettes, and more storage solutions like Google Drive. I totally understand that IA Writer’s aim is to be minimal and focus driven, but more “optional” customization features wouldn’t hurt anyone in my opinion. Overall, this is a wonderful application as is. My only suggestions would be to look into the “show stats” feature as I don’t like how it hangs over your text indefinitely... maybe move the word count to a corner where it doesn’t interfere with your text or perhaps set it to timeout after a few seconds. Also, there’s a wonderful feature labeled “syntax highlight” that I believe shouldn’t be buried within settings but would be of greater use somewhere next to the “aA” button. All the colors hurt my eyes so I never turn it on for long, however, occasionally using the feature helps me identify a myriad of adjectives and nouns to replace without having to read my entire essay again!

crestfallenDeus, Sep 13, 2019

Good, needs better cloud integration (onedrive,etc), tags support, and TOC sidebar

I tried pretty much all note taking and writing apps available, and I have finally decided to use IA writer. However, i am keeping my notes and writing system as platform agnostic as possible. So, at the moment, I am storing files in OneDrive. Going through the app to get to the location where my note files are stored is a major UI bottleneck. There should be a way to bookmark a location so I can easily add new files in the given location, and search all files and sub files.There are two other features that will make this the absolute best note taking and writing app: - tags. There should be an easy way to add tags and to search through the tags available in the documents in the chosen location.- Table of contents. I know that it’s possible to use {{TOC}} tag to display table of contents, but another app - MWeb goes a step further and shows the Table of contents in the sidebar. Having this feature in this app would further improve the workflow of writing beautifully and in a much more organized manner.

dimitarsp, Jun 17, 2018

Nice app for quick writing

I've tried several writing programs including Ulysses, ByWord, and Scrivener. I gave up on Ulysses after they went to subscription model. ByWord is very nice app, and I support it greatly, but I really want file management within an app, not outside of it. I also want a program that quickly starts and is ready to start writing. ByWord needs interaction (just a click) and Scrivener is a true word processor, so it seems I needed a program for some quick and random notes. Apple Notes is also nice, but I like the idea of being able to back up actually files, Apple Notes concerned me a bit about this. Apple Notes doesn’t feel like a writing program either, that’s just my opinion. So far, IA Writer has been solid. It types quickly and it helps me maintain my writing flow. I do wish we could rearrange files manually in any order we wanted to. I also miss a feature that Scrivener and Ulysses both have which is the ability to select multiple files and see/edit them as one long file.

FredsterHere, Dec 03, 2017

Lovely but flawed (if you use Dropbox)

I was delighted by this app right up until I lost data, which happened almost immediately. I was editing a file stored in my Dropbox, switched to another app, and when I came back the last few changes I'd made were gone. This has happened to me several times in just a few hours of using the app. Whatever the underlying issue is, it also seems to cause crashes, and sometimes the app is unable to start up again.I've seen a couple of replies from the developers in here in which they claim that cloud sync issues are essentially out of their hands. Yet, other apps don't seem to have the same issues. For instance, I've been using Scrivener on iOS for a year or two, storing files in Dropbox, and I've never, ever lost data.I'm sure it's a pain to get this right for all the different cloud services, and I have no idea what constraints the developers are working under. But Dropbox integration is critical to me, and I verified that the app supported Dropbox before I bought it. Now that I'm trying to use it, though, it seems very broken, to the point that I can't trust it with my data.I really wish I could use this app, but I don't think I can until the Dropbox support improves. This three-star rating is just because it doesn't do what it says on the tin; if it ever does get functional Dropbox support, I will be happy to come back and use it, and I think it will be worthy of five stars.

Hfismfnfjxm, Jul 04, 2021

Been using this app for years

Fast, simple, reliable. My go-to app for drafting stories on my ipad. Its frequent syncing means I've never lost a word I've typed. I've tried writing apps with more features, but the simplicity and speed of this one has always won out.It is close to being a 5-star app, but I gave it 4 stars because it used to be better. I understand the need for some of the unwanted updates over the years due to iOS changes (like removing dropbox integration -- which has since been re-added, just with a bit more complicated workflow).But there was a toolbar customization which was removed a few years ago for no apparent reason. You could add buttons above the keyboard to navigate and select by word (and, IIRC, paragraph). It was amazing! Selecting and moving text with touch is clumsy and this made writing so much faster.I'm still frustrated and puzzled by the removal of this great feature. However, the reliability of this app means I haven't switched to an app that can do this. And they did leave the ability to go back and forth by a single letter. But I would be thrilled if they considered adding it back in.I do want to report a recent bug: after having the app open for a while, the paste function stops working. I can undo the recent "cut" and don't lose the text. It will work again if I force close and restart the app.

jen1731, Feb 12, 2021

The Best Keeps Getting Better

This the one to buy (and not need to rent). It is the best writing app / text editor on the App Store right now. And it maybe the best productivity app. Full stop. Version 6 is a huge leap forward in productivity with lots of small touches and big new features like wikilinks. Every rev, this app just gets better and more elegant.IA Writer continues to combine: a unique and growing set of powerful features that are only there if you need them; a simple, elegant interface; and a Files app system that makes the whole thing portable and private and allows for features like managing file revisions. Plus there’s no subscription! It’s an essential tool that’s in my dock on all devices and I use it for more than just writing. Sync works perfectly, as well.What’s missing? Very little: native shortcut support that go beyond Apple’s built-in document actions and backlinks, which are coming they say. But that is it. Worth every penny.

Steve R42, Jun 15, 2022

Do NOT trust this app with your writing!

Whatever iA Writer does to sync your text files with iCloud, it does a lousy job of it. It loses text at a frankly unforgivable rate. I've seen it delete chunks of my writing multiple times within the same MINUTE—I write, it deletes, I rewrite, and it deletes again. If you look at the developers' responses to other users who've complained about this on the App Store, it seems they're willing to blame iCloud Sync for this, as if the problem is endemic to Apple's implementation of file synchronization. But other developers have seemingly worked out a solution for this: Bear doesn't lose my files like iA Writer does, and neither did Editorial (RIP). This arrogance on the part of the developers suggests they turn a blind eye to their own failures. At what point does intentional ignorance become functionally equivalent to incompetence? I'm not sure. Perhaps the developers of iA Writer should be asking themselves this question.Fundamental inability to store data aside, iA Writer is a lovely app. File management could be a bit more graceful, but admittedly it's a trickier problem to solve on iOS devices—and the developers seemingly have bigger file-related issues to tackle first. I'd have rated this app four or five stars, but a synchronization issue seems to have wiped a few of them out of existence.

Tom Hanks Is Bela Lugosi, Sep 27, 2020

Text selection, iPad keyboard buggy

Since this is a writing app, it’s important to be able to select sections of text for editing. Unfortunately, text selection seems to not be well implemented on iPhone or iPad. Unlike the text field in other apps like Notes, where you can drag the grab handles to select words or lines of text very precisely, in iA Writer, there’s no precision to the selection. For example, when I drag the grab handle down *slightly* to select the next line of text, the whole view starts scrolling very quickly until the entire document is selected. The same issue happens when using the iOS keyboard-turned-trackpad mechanism. On iPad, things are even worse: in addition to the issues above, whenever I hide the iPad keyboard, the text view jumps to different parts of the document, forcing me to scroll back to where I left off each time. It’s difficult to understand how these kinds of issues were not found/fixed before this app was released.

virtualshock, Feb 23, 2019

Description

“Leaving life’s mess for an ideal realm of words.” —The New Yorker “My favorite iOS app for writing in Markdown, without question, is iA Writer. iA Writer is just beautiful. To me, it’s the gold standard for Markdown syntax styling...

an elegant champagne flute. That’s iA Writer for me.” —John Gruber “iA Writer creates a clean, simple and distraction-free writing environment for when you really need to focus on your words.” —The New York Times “iA Writer is an example of how powerful simplicity and accessibility can be.” —The Guardian “iA Writer is all about textual production—writing this phrase, this sentence, this word at this moment.” —WIRED 4 x Best of App Store Winner # The Simple Writing App iA Writer removes distractions. Giving you a calm, focused, writing space, so you can express yourself clearly. # Focus Focus Mode dims everything but the current sentence or paragraph, helping you stay in the flow. # Start Don’t worry about the format. First, write in plain text. Then preview in HTML. # Organize Search, sort, and quickly swap between documents from different clouds. # Customize When you tap and hold a key in the command keyboard, you’re given the chance to choose your own layout. Rearrange your keys, or pick new ones from the extensive list. # Search You can open documents and launch frequent actions in no time with the new Quick Search. It lives in the keyboard so it’s always close at hand. # Work iA Writer includes an inverted light-on-dark-mode, perfect for working day and night. # Clean Spot superfluous adjectives, weak verbs, repetitive nouns, false conjunctions and clean your text of the usual rumble. # Shape Customize your templates and export to WordPress or Medium, HTML, Microsoft Word (.docx), or PDF. # 100% Text Embed links, pictures, tables and text files in plain text and see them in preview. # Get in Touch - Visit ia.net/writer for more information - Visit ia.net/writer/support for support and feedback - Let us know what you think on Twitter @iAWriter