Writing On The Go An iOS Adventure

I find myself doing a lot of my writing on-the-go these days. The fun part is finding the right app to suffice my needs. I have bought many paid apps, and download just as many — if not more — free apps. The problem I have ran into is: While at home I use Scrivener for Windows — which I must say is the best program on PC,and Mac for writers of all types — the Windows version does not support syncing with outside apps like the Apple version. Trying to find a good work-around for this has been a fun little adventure.

During my adventure I have come to like the way of Markdown writing, or should I say MultiMarkdown — footnotes are nice. At first I really liked iA Writer, that was until I found out Scrivener only reads/compiles MultiMarkdown (.MMD) files. iA only reads/rites .MD, and .TXT files, so I moved on to Byword. iA has been updated. Version 1.9 now supports most plain text files including .MMD.

Byword is a lot like iA, but reads the .MMD files allowing it to work better with Scrivener. Another plus is the extra row added to the keyboard allowing easier Markdown writing, and doesn’t take away fromthe simplicity of the app. I do most of my on-the-go writing with Byword — especially my blog post. With the current update on Byword you can publish directly to WordPress, Blogspot, and other sites. This is a big plus, and makes it my go to app for writing.

Nebulous Notes is another plain text app worthy of purchase. With the most recent update, Nebulous is becoming one of my favorite writing apps. Now don’t get me wrong, I liked it before the update, but it lacked proper Multimarkdown support – could not display footnotes –
with the new update that has been fixed. Two features I have always loved about Nebulous from the start is the customizable macros, and the scratch pad.

Another good one I came across is Daedalus Touch, I had really high hopes for this one. It has a interface much like Scrivener’s cork board. I do like this app it uses the plain text style writing, recognizes MultiMarkdown, and has the option to export as an ePub. The only thing that is turning me away from Daedalus Touch — for now — it is better to start your writing project in the app than it is to open an existing project. With the way it layers your documents it is a slight pain in the rear to get them organized if you didn’t start it in the app to begin with. If Scrivener for iOS is not out by the time I am ready to start a new project then I will definitely look at using Daedalus Touch. I do love the ePub export option.

I do have Pages, and Document To Go which are both very fine apps with plenty of bells and whistles. I do not use them for my writing because they do not support the plain text style of MultiMarkdown, which I use for easier transferring back-and-forth with Scrivener and iOS apps.

To sum it all up I do like a lot of the apps I have tried, but Byword is my choice for on-the-go writing. That is until Scrivener for iOS finally gets released.