I just read a Reddit post which mentioned that L&L was working on a new product.
Are there any posts here about this? I looked at the first five pages of the blog but couldn’t find anything.
Yes, there is – a new writing app for Mac, iOS and Windows, which reduces the complexity of Scrivener (without being simply a cut-down version of it).
It’s still in beta now, and beta testers have promised not to reveal any details, but you can find the basic announcement here: Something New - Literature & Latte.
HTH.
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Also, although our original plan was to release it this year, it has now been delayed until 2026. This is down to a combination of getting the Windows version completed and having to completely rewrite the UI of the Mac and iOS versions for Liquid Glass. The Mac version rewrite especially has been onerous owing to the custom UI it had been using. But look out for more news and details in the first quarter of next year (I hope!).
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I’ll be one of the first people to buy it when it’s released.
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From the screenshots it looks a lot like Ulysses. I’d like to try it.
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The new app does have some similarities with Ulysses – a reduced feature set working (almost entirely) the same way cross platform, though it’s not Markdown-based.
It still retains a lot of the Scrivener feel though… difficult to describe, but easy to recognise when you’ve used both. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to use it in a few months…
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I’m honestly really looking forward to this and wish there was a little bit more news and some possible screenshots of it. I’m writing a typical novel and I think this new app would do everything I need in terms of folder/document structure.
I only have chapters with chapter text documents for each scene, plus an extra folder or two for story notes and such. And I write almost exclusively on Scrivener for iPad which sadly has been mostly neglected even though it generally works fine. I only use the macOS version for compilation to PDF/eBook.
The most annoying thing is the continual reliance on Dropbox being the only platform for syncing. I’d much rather use iCloud (or Google Drive) which both don’t limit number of devices.
I always back my project up separately anyway to a ZIP file into multiple cloud storages.
Anyway, one potential buyer here!
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Any updates on this? Is it still in development?
Best to assume it’s still under development until someone from the company says otherwise. 
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I’m taking bets on 2028.
I wouldn’t dare assume anything at the moment.
The only thing we know for sure is that’ll be released when it’s ready. 
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I don’t think your linked blog-post talks about “RTF” / “Rich Text Format” when it discusses the idea of “rich text” (vs. “plain text”). Did I miss something?
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“Rich Text” is literally RTF.
Here’s a thought experiment. Navigate to your Scrivener folder, then do a recursive search for “RTF”. That’s Scrivener’s native language for better or worse. L&L didn’t invent a new word for a new technology. Rich Text is “rich text” is RTF.
“In computing, formatted text, styled text, or rich text, as opposed to plain text, is digital text which has styling information beyond the minimum of semantic elements: colours, styles (boldface, italic), sizes, and special features in HTML (such as hyperlinks).” Wikipedia
That said, I can see how “rich text” could easily be confused with RTF, especially since Scrivener is “RTF based”. But that’s not what the blog post tries to say.
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Sounds like copium to me.
This particular developer invested decades in figuring out how to parse rtf. Why give up all that knowledge investment for something as “new” as XML and SQL?
Sounds like NDA to me.
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Only if you’ve drunk a couple of bottles first.
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XML is too verbose, which is why the youngsters have moved to lighter markup languages such as JSON and YAML.
I imagine that RTF was used as the storage format for the new app because:
- It’s plain text.
- It’s standardised.
- It’s easy enough to extend it with your own semantic structures.
- Richer than Markdown.
- Lots of frameworks exist for working with it, especially for presentation.
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Am I missing something? The blog post talks about “rich text” only in the sense that it is painting a very general contrast between programs that shows you formatted text while you type with one that shows you unformatted text plus markup symbols. It then expressly says it’s going to try something else that isn’t either of those things.
I don’t think the blog post mentioned anywhere what the underlying formats and tech were, whether that was RTF, XML, or any other random collection of alphabetti spaghetti?
I for one kinda trust the decades of experience of the team that are responsible for what has been called “the leading and most famous dedicated app for long-form book and novel writing.”[1] when it comes to figuring out the best way to sort out all the unseen-under-the-hood stuff for their own program.
source: the internet ↩︎
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Ahem.
If you are not a participant in our beta program, please don’t make assumptions about how the new program works under the hood.
If you are a participant in the beta program, please don’t encourage others to speculate in any particular direction.
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