iA Writer

When I first downloaded iA writer for iOS, I was underwhelmed and quickly requested a refund. After I was unable to find a suitable replacement, I decided to give it another shot, but on my Mac. I quickly realized how many features were available that I wasn’t utilizing. I downloaded the iOS version again and found that it has the same capabilities. Afterwards, I decided to purchase and keep it. iA writer is an a beautiful writing experience. Quattro is one of the best fonts I have used, and the variable replace feature is brilliant. I got into a bad habit of using AI tools like ChatGPT to write for me and I would always get distracted by other apps such as Microsoft Word. iA writer has gotten me back to my roots and has made me a much better and authentic writer. This is one of the most valuable tools I have now, and I own it on iOS, Mac, and Windows. The iA team is committed to what they do, and they do an incredible job. I recommend following their blog! Thank you iA for this wonderful tool. I plan on remaining a customer for life!

Update: developers respond. My complaints, below, turn out to be due to a difference in philosophy with the devs. My four stars remain because I overall find this app less accessible than other similar ios markdown writers. But, I daily drive the app because it’s by far the best one I’ve found for my needs. Your mileage may vary, etc. — I chose this app because it can create and edit my files that are saved in icloud or google docs - just using Files integration. Perfect. Almost works like a “computer.” ;) The big weakness for me is the lack of a true WYSIWYG markdown experience, which my usual markdown app of choice, Obsidian, has. Other apps would let you type “- [ ] content” and then it would transform into just the checkbox when your cursor is somewhere else. Same with asterisks for bold, etc. My preference is to only see the formatting characters when my cursor is on the word. I’ve also noticed a bug where, for some reason, when I type the sentence “hand wash only and…” the word “only” renders as strikethrough in editor mode. It goes away when i switch to read-only, but again I’m used to other apps that negate the need to switch views all the time. I definitely recommend the app overall if anyone, like me, needs a solid markdown app that’s file-system agnostic.

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!