Apple Vision Pro Version

Scrivener Wish List
1

I have dreamed of using AR to write in virtual environments, especially ones I might create (via generative AI or manually in game engines). Imagine writing inside the scene you are writing about.

With Apple Vision Pro coming, the ability to work in Scrivener in AR and virtual environments would be incredible.

Please make a version of Scrivener for Apple Vision Pro!

While Vision Pro will allow you to stream your nearby Mac’s screen into your view at 4K, enabling us to use Scrivener right away, a Scrivener app specifically made for Vision Pro would be a good idea since Vision Pro is not just a visor but a new form of self-contained computer. With obviously new UX/UI offerings.

Further, a Vision Pro Scrivener app that could provide new ‘Immersion Modes’ for writing via AR to load simple ‘zen’ environments and also our own custom environments. This would be absolutely incredible. For example, imagine the UI and the page itself vanishing and the text floats against an environment as your write… !

Skybox AI by Blockade is ready to go for this! Scrivener could make its Vision Pro Immersion Mode compatible with Skybox AI’s output and voilà! Also note how generative AI uses writing. I’m not suggesting Scrivener get into the gen AI game directly, but rather simply design for and enable output files from other sources to be loaded and used for this new view mode.

2

Hello. I don’t like to oppose anyone’s proposals, but I’ll be honest. This fashion for artificial intelligences and the metaverse seems to have shown that half the world lives in excessive hype.

These new technologies may be great for entertainment, but not for productivity. It does not matter if we see neon lights or hear sounds of the jungle, the human being needs to “play” the instrument to create. That is why it is easier to write than to dictate (when you don’t have a narrative or dialogue in mind) and why we do get lost if we do not have our road map ahead of us.

I don’t see how this new invention can improve productivity or how Scrivener can adapt without becoming a video game. I think there are a lot of idle people with money who see Apple products as manna from heaven. There would be nothing wrong with that if I didn’t believe that such proposals divert Scrivener’s point and waste developers’ time creating functionality that hardly anyone will use.

Regards.

3 Likes
4

It is easy to fall into a straw men. I am not against technological advances. I only analyze the current context with common sense instead of launching myself to “love” the latest news:

6

Pathologize? I have not said that anyone is sick or crazy. Do you have the need to insult or or misrepresent those who do not agree with your point of view? Maybe it’s not neophilia in your case, just immaturity. I don’t spend my time at parties. I dedicate myself to reading and writing.

8

I would like to add my support for a VisionPro version of Scrivener. I have two use cases that it must have in order to meet my vision, but that’s okay as implementing them will make you a fortune and failing to will mean you are inevitably overtaken by your competitors and your children forced to live off soup.

Mode A: Write Mode
In this mode, the wearer is put in a completely immersive writing environment. They can choose between two option: 1) Jane Austin mode, where all you can see is a desk, paper and a quill pen; and 2) PG Wodehouse mode, which replaces the paper and quill for an old typewriter.

In both modes, you write in a virtual reality, producing written pages, which Scriv then digitises and files using virtual paperclips, folders and filing cabinets. In Austin mode it will of course need handwriting scanning functionality.

As an optional extra, I’d like you to implement a “Deadline” mode, where once a day you get a virtual phone call from your editor asking where the book is, and every half an hour a virtual butler comes in a takes everything you’ve already written and files it so you can’t obsess over previously written pages.

Mode B: Edit Mode
This one reads your book back to you so you can immerse yourself in the words and use verbal commands and hand gestures to pause, rewind, and make changes to the text. The real game changer, though is that instead of just reading it back to you like an audiobook, Scrivener creates a full immersive reality of the world you’ve written, placing you in the scene with virtual actors playing out the parts. Most of these virtual actors should look like @AmberV in a series of different wigs and hats.

This should of course work in both normal and script modes.

As an aside, I’d also like a VisionPro version of Scapple where I just write on a virtual whiteboard and my aforementioned virtual butler comes in a takes a photo of it.

I know this all seems like a lot to implement before the Vision Pro is due out soon, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Just use AI.

4 Likes
9

It seems to me that creating an immersive environment – for writing or anything else – should be the job of the operating system. Whatever the merits of the concept in general, it certainly would be undesirable for switching between Scrivener and another application to involve bouncing back and forth between virtual environments.

2 Likes
10

I agree. I think developing ScrivOS should be a priority.

4 Likes
11

+1 And also a Scapple version

tumblr_o0qnla6tCp1r13x2bo1_500

4 Likes
12

I think the initial VP-Scrivener offering should be focused on developing the basic architecture of spatial writing. For example:

Writer’s Block — You have been just staring at your text for too long, so a literal block tumbles out of the screen and falls at your feet. You must now inscribe onto the writer’s block a certain number of sentences with a steel-tipped nib before you are released. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

And what about the VP equivalent of Composition Mode?

Composition Mode — Your projected screen is coming at you fast! You are launched into full screen mode! Whereupon you find yourself in an infinite white space with a jumble of letters. You must find the letters you need and use your hands to stack them up to make words. Do you like rock stacking? You’re going to love spatial writing!! (And, yes, there is a night mode option: total darkness with eerie dot-matrix letters faintly glowing green.)

When it comes to immersion, surely the first item on the agenda should be an augmented version of Writing Focus Mode:

Focus Mode — With the advent of eye-tracking, VP-Scrivener can detect when you are veering from the task at hand. Your intentions are presaged by your eye behavior. For example, glancing at the door of your room or looking again at your empty tea cup. Now, Scrivener can respond to these flight impulses immediately and nip them in the proverbial bud! Think you can grab the cup and execute a just-getting-a-refill dismount? Hey, wait, what?! Where did that cup go? Erased from your environment! Or repainted on the far side of the room! Another furtive glance at your escape door? Replaced by solid steel and closed! Clang!

4 Likes
13

Lol, can you imagine how long it would take L and L to produce that.

Sign me up for a wet blanket too.

14

I agree @kewms – best-case scenario might be visionOS allows you to set (and load custom) environments at the OS level regardless of whichever app you’re using. So all we’d need from a Scrivener Vision Pro app is the ability for the UI to become integral with that environment in a pleasing way, perhaps at varying levels of complexity.

For example-- the full UI, then a more transparent UI mode, then a more minimalist mode.

All the while whatever AR environment is already loaded in the background via visionOS is there.

The only catch is we don’t know if or how exactly Apple is going to open up our ability to load custom environments with the first offering of visionOS or what will be required to make them per Apple’s demands-- using an existing tool like Skybox AI that could get you a custom environment in seconds may be unavailable if Apple can’t accept their file format (which is likely) for loading environments at the OS level.

The mention of spatial writing as a focus actually has potential for great UX/UI-- such as organizing cards or even the way we browse the binder. Especially with eyes and hands being the primary input for spatial navigation / manipulation. Curious to see how the virtual keyboard feels (probably not great? but maybe they got it to work well somehow), so I definitely anticipate using a Bluetooth paired keyboard for the actual business of writing.

15

Correct. So don’t expect any form of Scrivener integration until we at least know what we’re integrating with.

16

I think too much is too much.

If this should happen, (And why?) then the focus should be on writing, just like meatspace. Can you type? Can you create documents? I’d say whatever the iOS version has would suffice.

However, I don’t think caring about “Are you the one who will do it, or will someone else do it instead?” is worth anything. Scrivener has been about getting the job done well, which it does.

I’m sure docs exportable by Scrivener will be read by the Vision Pro, which will do fine.

Everything isn’t everything, nor does everything need to be everything. Scrivener can be scrivener.

Now…about putting Scapple on Vision Pro :joy: :crazy_face:

17

Well yes and no.

Developers, especially those with popular apps, can get into visionOS development right now by reaching out to Apple. Then L&L will know what they’re dealing with while the public has to wait.

18

I have to say, for something fairly obvious (getting Scrivener on a new Apple platform and leverage all of its new potential), there’s been a lot of outright hostility here. Nevermind, then.

1 Like
19

You can reach people authorized to discuss business proposals on behalf of L&L via our support system, here:

Please refrain from insulting forum participants. You are welcome to share your vision for writing and/or Scrivener. Other forum participants are equally welcome to disagree.

2 Likes
20

This has been a pretty terrible experience. Thanks…

21

The OP asked to delete this thread, which is something we don’t really do unless the thread has violated forum rules. I will, however, be closing it to further responses.

3 Likes