iA Writer: Focused Writing

iA Inc.

In-app purchases

About this app

“iA Writer creates a clean, simple and distraction-free writing environment for when you really need to focus.” ***** The New York Times

# The Original
Introduced in 2010, iA Writer is the common benchmark for Markdown writing apps.

# The Simple
No custom file format or database: Edit your plain text files in any app you like.

# The Flexible
Some of the great writing apps like Bear, Scrivener or Ulysses, do not support Android yet. iA Writer works on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

# The Open Minded
Buy or subscribe? You decide. Control your tool, control your work. A big upgrade with a paid plan where you can choose between subscription or owing the app is in the works!

# The Eye Friendly
iA Writer includes an inverted light-on-dark-mode, perfect for working day and night.

# The Focused
Focus Mode dims everything but the current sentence or paragraph, helping you stay in the flow.

“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

# The Team
- 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

Ratings and reviews

It's shockingly hard to find an app with fast and robust sync for notes/todos/etc. stored in Markdown files. iA's approach of downloading/uploading individual files to Dropbox as they are accessed seems pretty reliable to me. I'm also grateful that ticking Markdown checkboxes works well. One gripe is that it seems like sorting files by last modification time isn't present, I vaguely remember it being in an older release though.

As much as I love the simplicity of the app, I can't really recommend it because the cloud syncing issues are so bad. I just completely lost 2 hours worth of writing, because I was using the app without an internet connection. When I reconnected to the internet the cloud version overwrote my work. I can't find any sort of local backup or local trash where the newer version would be. It's clear another reviews they blame these things on the cloud services. Whatever the cause it's a real problem.

Has serious issues with Google sync. Had to recover changes from backups multiple times, lost data on one occasion. I learned a few tricks to help avoid it that weren't too bad when the app was free. But paying for it? Forget it. And a subscription no less? You've got to be kidding. Not worth it. Not even close. Add to this that it was miserable trying to move locally-saved files from one device to another.

What's new

- Added Backups—all documents in all locations are now backed up every few seconds
- Added font size settings to Editor tool bar
- Updated Google Billing Library to 6.0.1
- Fixed an issue where a null line height caused the app to become unresponsive
- Fixed an issue renaming folders in Google Drive
- Fixed an issue with Quick Search in Dropbox