For those in the habit of trying out a few writing applications, iA Writer might be one of those known names among many.
Version 7.0 was recently released for its annual update.
Among my impressions, a few things come to mind.
The feature allowing ownership of pasted text seems useful, especially for those who edit extensively and prioritize originality in their work. This is particularly useful when pasting from ChatGPT or similar sources, as it encourages us to re-elaborate what we have pasted. However, I have a little problem with that. Most people who are concerned about ownership can easily apply a formatting style to what they paste and keep track of their changes just as easily. It would be just 1 or 2 steps more.
For those who view AI-assisted writing as a collaborative process involving constant editing, this feature may seem trivial and superficial.
The other issue I have with this release is that it fails to address (for some features for years) previous inconsistencies among different versions and previously hinted refinements. In particular:
Lacking the ability to set goals on the iOS and MacOS versions despite being present on the Windows counterpart for years. The same for the options to navigate the text via headings and subheadings.
Not providing the long-announced custom editor for compiling the text for those who are not CSS experts and web editors.
Failing to allow retroactive modification of wiki link names without having its link break (which should have been introduced in an update for the previous version, in my opinion).
Overall, my impression is that very small features are introduced with a lack of direction and focus on unifying each version. This would allow for a strong identification of the app as both a brand and a writing tool.
I feel as though the developers have many ideas encouraged by the present times and trends but lack the energy to properly integrate them into the applicationâs ecosystem. They feel disjointed across different platforms and within the app itself.
I wonder if this feeling is mine alone (being affected by the disappointment of the lack of refinements I expected) or if it is a shared feeling.
Iâve just had a quick look, expecting there to be more to the update than the features dealing with AI, but there doesnât seem to be any. The entire âWhatâs newâ document is taken up with explaining this⊠what is it, really? A plagiarism detector?
I donât understand what the point of the new features is: even if I did want to copy stuff from ChatThingy, which I donât, then Iâd know Iâd done it, so whatâs the point in having that bit in a different font? What need is this actually fulfilling? Is this something that authors have been crying out for?
Iâm sorry if that sounds dismissive, but itâs not meant to be. Iâm genuinely not sure what the benefit of this is supposed to be for authors, rather than readers.
I donât own iA Writer. Iâve looked at it over the years and trialled it a couple of times but as a past user of Ulysses I had no real need for another markdown editor. But I did go on their website and I checked out their trilogy of posts about AI and I found their take on this new found fad technology heart warming.
I have absolutely no interest in using AI for my writing. I value my own imagination and my own artistic integrity too much to allow AI into my writing process. But I can see some logic to the point the devs made re using AI as a writing partner to debate your writing with. Although, Iâd still much prefer to talk to a human with real emotions and logic and humanity. A world where we talk to machines about art is horrifying to me.
And so I really appreciated the stance iAWriter is taking with AI. All of these apps which have hastily integrated ChatGPT into their systems stand to lose their significance and independence moving forward. They risk being nothing more than plugins for big tech companies like Microsoft and OpenAI. So the ânon-featureâ iAWriter has implemented with Authorship marking, is an understanding that some writers will want to use ChatGPT but not in iAWriter. At least, not directly. If you are such a writer, I think keeping track of which words were written by a machine and then how you changed said words, is a pretty cool idea.
As an aside, I was looking at Autocrit recently and they have gone all in with AI integration, allowing writers to generate ideas and have the app analyse text and critique it in terms of story development. All of which put me off buying into their vision of what writing is. I donât want my text being data scraped by ChatGPT every time I âanalyseâ my writing. And, in terms of content, if I as the writer of a work donât know what I intended to write and if I managed to achieve that intention, then I really shouldnât be writing. Nor do I want story ideas coming from an online pool of other writersâ work. Copyright issues, anyone?
I may be a dinosaur when it comes to AI but Iâm happy to remain so. And I am also happy when I see writing apps take a moral and practical stance to the current onslaught of AI.
"I am honestly puzzled by this feature " I was too and Iâve been thinking why youâd need to mark stuff as AI-generated - as if you canât remember. Then it struck me that perhaps itâs because of that very reason.
Say you come back to finish your novel, after a break, but you canât remember what AI generated for you, I guess this will help.
Digging into the features, I need to add that the best part of this feature is the ability to PASTE the AI-revised piece of your original work to compare its changes, much like a plagiarism tool would do (or close enough).
I have the IA Writer app, but have never used it seriously. For me, using it on a larger scale as an author stands or falls with the lack of an import function and the very limited export functions. Even the best app fails if you canât output the content properly for further processing or import existing content. Ulysses is more flexible in this respect and converts existing texts into markup texts via âcut & pasteâ, but this editor requires a subscription, which I generally reject, and offers nowhere near the flexibility that Scrivener does.
I often discover what my intention is by writing. Probably Iâm not alone. But having an algorithm come along and tell me how I can conform my intention to its model of âhow humans thinkâ entirely misses the point.
One word of warning. When using a VPN and syncing between phone and desktop on Mac the files wonât sync causing syncing issues until youâve disabled the VPN.
Did you check out the 'feature*? Itâs nothing more than different highlighting of different pasted text. (As if chosing âpaste as yellowâ, âpaste as redâ.) And itâs not intended for ânot usingâ ChatGPT, but for pasting text from it (or other LLMs) formatted differently than the other text.
And then, in the markdown when you export the file, they add a âAuthorshipâ meta info bit that again is nothing more than what you decided âpasting as redâ/âpasting as yellowâ would signify. This addition wonât show up in iA Writer, but is there when you export. Which becomes a big problem for all the people using iA Writer to blog/publish to online platforms like Medium etc. (Which is one of the nice things about iA Writer, you can publish directy from it.) But those platforms obviously donât know how to - or rather how not to - deal with a âAuthorship blockâ so it will just end up as text among the rest of your article, which breaks the article.
So it has nothing to do with wanting or not wanting to use ChatGPT; itâs about marking text pasted from ChatGPT (or somewhere else) differently than the rest, so youâll remember you pasted it.
The AI Writing Tools are still as accessible from the âEditâ menu as before.
Seriously underwhelmed by iAWriter 7. Still no document outline on Mac despite them saying 5 years ago itâs coming and no custom ordering of files. I find the AI writing option a gimmick.
Panda app (bear appâs alpha/beta app) is much nicer visually to work with.
I have zero interest in this; just find it amusing that the Mac version cost USD$20 more than the Windows version. AI web search answers are useless in telling me why.
The âAI Authorâ feature was definitely the wrong call. It probably set back the delivery of the built-in navigation (which has been in the Windows version for a while). And for what? It seemed pretty much pointless to me. To be fair, you can view the chapter structure to some extent, using separate, sequentially numbered files within a folder, and link them into one document with a master .txt file using âcontent blocksâ. A bit like having sub docs in a Word file. It is not that complicated in practice and it works well enough. That way you can have individual chapter word counts plus an overall word count in the master file for the whole novel. With the promised built-in nav you still donât get individual chapter word counts, which makes it kind of pointless for a fiction writer. I think the app appeals mostly to notetakers, short form writers and developers who like the âtext editorâ feel. I gave up on it as well, but I have used the app for years along with Ulysses and Scrivener. It took Ulysses many years before it offered an aways visible word count, which seemed bonkers to me. Maybe iAs customer feedback was asking for the AI feature?
Hot take: Yeah the AI features put this squarely on the âWill not touchâ list, and honestly, Iâm actively encouraging other authors to look elsewhere. The fact theyâve put all this effort into supporting ChatGPT/Ghost writing/Paste stuff is, frankly, awful. Anti-author IMO. Like, actively harmful. There are so many other spaces they couldâve looked to improve the author experience. This was not it.
Agreed. A âfeatureâ that no one asked for or wanted. Solving a problem that isnât a problem. Like keeping a tab on which words spellcheck has corrected. Enjoy the tea!
Still, they have time to send out pompous, self-congratulatory emails. Never mind theyâve not introduced equivalency in their software. For me, iAWriter turned out to be a âbad buyâ.
I find iA Writer to be such an odd app. The fonts it uses are lovely. And yet, the overall look of the app is now starting to look rather dated on the Mac. Those design plaudits make less and less sense as the years roll by.
I also wonder why theyâve wasted their time on a ridiculously expensive physical notebook. 60 quid on their website!!
It was a breath of fresh air when it came out. They promoted the appâs word and syntax highlighting feature quite heavily, which I think they considered patenting (many people found that highly contentious). I never really used that part of the app. The current version basically came out ten years ago. I do wonder about the business model of not releasing new versions more regularly⊠arenât they missing out on valuable upgrade money? Seems odd to me. If I did not already own it, I would probably not buy it now. It seems quite expensive for what it is. I do really like my Japanese notebooks - Yu-Sari, Midori MD Cotton paper, Tomoe River - so I get the fascination with expensive Japanese notebooks. (I believe that part of their business is based in Japan.) Their notebook seemed like a cool design concept, but it did not personally appeal to me. I wonder if iA is essentially a design company that does corporate work, and things like iA Writer and the notebook are basically âside projectsâ? I donât know. I could be totally wrong.
