iA Writer, until now only avaiable on iOS and Mac, today made a giant leap to debut on Android.
The company behind the app, Information Architects, made the announcement via their blog, and gave a little insight as to why it has taken them so long to make the jump. In their post, they explain that the team was concerned over Android’s “openness” and the potential for piracy but were pleasantly surprised that the much-maligned “Android fragmentation issue” didn’t rear its ugly head – well, not much anyway.
So far, the downsides of Android’s openness have been offset by the friendly, multifaceted culture around Android. Solid documentation from Google, the good people at Stack Overflow, our seven nation army of beta testers, the prospect of staged rollouts any time, a fully integrated testing process in the Play Store. Throughout our Android experience, we have seen a cheerful thankfulness towards developers long gone on the Apple ecosystem.
Further, the IA team embraced Android’s wild number of form factors:
By now, we wouldn’t be surprised if a user posted a screenshot from a pear-shaped iCarly tablet
The app is still the simple, clean and clutter-free writing experience it has always delivered, though the post on the blog hints that the Android app is just a start when comparing it to the more mature iOS counterpart. It features neat tricks like “Focus Mode”, that lets you concentrate on what you’re writing now and fades/blurs other text, it supports Markdown formatting and Dropbox sync.
The only thing that I would say is a bit of a sting is the price – at $6.67 for launch it’s a bit more expensive than I’d like, but it’s still only a couple of coffees.
If you’ve been looking for a simple, clean and and clutter-free writing app (or you’re a recent convert from iOS and have been looking for a similar app on Android), click on the link below to get iA Writer.
