iA Writer Classic

Nice and elegant. Sometimes I just don't need all these features in Microsoft Word or Pages.

Thanks for the Retina support! But still, the devs should take a look at Byword. It has much better work flow for writting.

I love this app...there is no bell and whistle..just straight forward simple text editing with full screen...oh i love the focus mode.....Seriously for those who complain about the feature...go somewhere else like Page or Microsoft Word.

Its make a great job of getting off noise from me. "No settings" feature (concept, failure, you named it). But at the end of the day it's not matter how much "distraction free" sauce do you have. If you can write - you will write. If you can't write - even "focus mode" can't help you. Five stars for concept realization, two starts for concept effectiveness.

so app store apps can't copy apple apps but can copy one another? http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/42904/h|w-writer (it's waiting for patent on focus mode? didn't ia writer got there first?) http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40912/clean-writer-pro devs are going crazy with the apple store, not to mention a lot of bad looking game clones.

Concept is nice but there are problems. Tried with somewhat weirad test and this is what happend. See the pic. http://oi43.tinypic.com/2pzfpd2.jpg

This is a great tool for writers. The design is quite simple without any distractions. I really like the typography, lack of preferences, and simple functionality that this applications takes. When paired together with the iPad app and the new iCloud support, it works seamlessly. It's not good for all, but it's good enough for me.

While an excellent software on the iPad, the mac version is quite useless and a big ripoff. Lack of features does not constitute a feature in itself, except in Kafka's literary works. The interface is smooth and pleasurable to handle, which is why I've not given it a half star rating, but that's it. I regularly have to write papers in French and was furious that this app does not even support simple accented characters like é or à which happen to come in several. It is also a pity that considering the price, there is no support for asian languages or other scripts, but at least the app warned us of this beforehand, unlike with most of its faults.

This is just godawful. I agree with the negative commenters about iA Writer's shortcomings and how it resembles a high school project. I purchased this tool and immediately regretted it. It's not completed and too buggy. It is a disgrace that Apple doesn't allow comments why we asked for refunds or shows a running count of how many refunds were requested along with sales counts. I think it is a deceitful practice that Apple hides the stats of refunds. I don't like playing Russian Roulette on the App Store and being made to feel like every purchase I make is a gamble. Thank you for that great suggestion NeroTheZero. I checked into OmmWriter Dāna II and you are bang on that it is a unique writing tool. I used the $9.99 I was refunded from Apple to donate to OmmWriter Dāna II instead.

Where to even begin with this adventure into idiot-land. Purchasing this app was my first experience with app store or as others call it correctly the crap store. After what seemed like hours I finally got my app store account working correctly with my credit card and the validation email was finally sent to my email box. Without the validation email I wasn't allowed to login or make purchases yet. Any other email I recieve within seconds but this email from apple took over 30 minutes. On with the purchase. I purchased the app after giving up trying to navigate the app store manually and used the search box. Installed iA Writer. How did I like iA Writer? $9.99 for a minimalistic writing tool. I felt cheated after 5 minutes and demanded a refund from apple. My applications folder has installed stickies and textedit that offered more stabilty and real world features. iA Writer is as polished as a high school kid's weekend programming project. I wasn't impressed I was being used as a guinea pig for unfinished software that cost more money than it will ever be worth. Last year I donated to OmmWriter Dāna II and never felt cheated for the hard work and a truly unique minimalistic writing tool. iA Writer is junk. It is a first year high school project at best. For $9.99 it's a rip off when you can use free alternatives already installed or much better alternatives.

simple and great!

Say something nice you say. The font. The font is nice.

This app is certainly not worth $18 (check the price the developer intends to raise to). Firstly because the developer passes off "No Settings" as a feature. It's more than certainly a set-back. Settings make a user (writer in this case) feel more comfortable with their software. Secondly there is no demo. No demo should immediately turn EVERYONE off. But the iOS store has ruined this; numbed the average user to not even care. So now we're paying for it as the low-lifes that move from the iOS store realize they can make their worthless junk a desktop app. But mostly this app is worthless because it doesn't have the proper markdown formatting. Just check the screenshot. It's wrong.

A friend purchased this software and I cannot stop laughing at him. The poor sod could have written something for free with RealBasic and paid nothing for something with better control and features. This app isn't even worth 99 cents!

iA Writer seems cool, but some of the most important features that need to be clarified before I'll buy it is ... HOW DOES THIS PLAY WITH OTHER APPS? WHAT FORMAT DOES THIS SAVE IN? CAN I EXPORT IN HTML, RTF? I'm not willing to spend $18 to find out something that should be basic information on the app's page.

On the Mac, IA Writer is both elegant and buggy. It appears to be a work in progress with great potential. I really like its focus mode. I do think that it is very unfortunate that the app does not offer a trial version. I also purchased it and now regret spending $18 for an app with bugs (the close window failed to work). But my biggest disappointment was the formatting procedures IA Writer uses to identify headings, levels, and emphasis. I was presuming (I guess with some naivete), that these would port onto a more complete WP without the need to remove them from the text document. This proves to be a serious and very annoying problem and limitation, because I now need to remove each formatting symbol one keystroke at a time when I paste the document into any other WP medium. So one of its most compelling features, becomes its biggest weakness. Overal, an app with potential, but in its present state woefully inadequate.

I am a big supporter of iA Writer on the iPad, and bought the Mac product. That was a (big) mistake at the price. On the Mac, with it's very different form factor, iA Writer simply does not shine. The Mac form factor, especially with a large screen, requires more flexibility. For example, I would like to sometimes view the text in a larger size (my eyes are getting old). I can't. Further, with a large screen, I would like to adjust the margin sizes, top, bottom and sides. I can't. But, on a MacBook Air iA Writer will no doubt shine pretty well. The smaller the screen the better. But I use 24-27" monitors, quite different animals. Frankly, Pages in full screen mode is pretty terrific. It provides all the flexibility (simple or sophisticated) I need, albeit without one or two nice features found in iA Writer. But the flexibility afforded by Pages makes it the winner on the Mac, not iA Writer. iA Writer seems a big waste. I use Pages, TextWrangler, and (rarely these days) Mellel. Word I ditched a long time ago - though I still own the latest MS-Office (also prefer Numbers to Excel, and Keynote to PowerPoint). I will stick with iA Writer on the iPad, and right-off the Mac version purchase as a bum investment. Sorry guys.

This is a nice looking app but... $17.99 is a lot to pay for an app that gives no trial and very little information. For instance, what format does it save to? RTF? txt? Something else? Can it work with other apps that help a writer organise their text, like Scrivener, Storyist, Ulysses et al? There is no answer to these questions either here or on their website. I'd hate to drop $18 on an app that I can't fit into my workflow.