I just looked at the original blog post (October 2023!). 
We’ll be launching a new writing app on macOS, Windows and iOS before too long.
1 Like
I guess it can’t have been too long yet, then!
1 Like
It;s unwise to rush physicians, software developers, airline pilots and even lawyers..
4 Likes
I’ve been dabbling in some software development over the past few months (because I don’t have enough hobbies, apparently) and have learnt two things:
- the things that sound like they would be really quick and easy to implement from a user perspective take waaaaay longer than you think.
- the things that sound like they would be time consuming and complicated to implement also take waaaaay longer than you think.
(It’s turning out to be a lot more fun than sudoku, though, and now I have this thing I built that I can like use and stuff)
But anyway. Key takeaways: Not easy. Takes long. Much Respect.
4 Likes
There’s an adage in software development. The first 80% of the project takes 80% of the time. The last 20% takes the other 80% of the time.
Among other delays, Apple’s Tahoe shenanigans forced a significant revamp of the UI code, as well as redirecting a lot of developer time to Scrivener.
10 Likes
We’re just in no rush to release because it’s new software and our priority has to be existing customers. The software is feature complete and ready to go, but recently our time has been consumed by getting Scrivener ready for macOS and iOS 27 among other things. Next we have to think about getting a web page, marketing copy and imagery ready for the release, which takes time that we haven’t had.
Meanwhile, I’ve been using the new app for my own writing every day for the past three years. 
12 Likes
So what have you been writing?
Sci-fi? Human interest? Poetry?
Unpublishable nonsense, mostly, which is my speciality.
9 Likes
Hey! I thought that was my specialty! 
5 Likes
Likely BSG fanfic.
2 Likes
Well it is seventeen years later and I still haven’t got over the terrible ending, so…
4 Likes
Done is better than perfect.
Done is on the road to perfect. It’s not better.
2 Likes
Hey! Stop trying to squeeze into my niche!
You too!
5 Likes
Is it possible to participate in the beta programme? I’d love to try out the new app. It’s difficult whether it would replace Scrivener for me, but I’d like to try it out to see.
Thanks
Anthony
Few things are ever actually done and nothing is perfect. There is however something to be said for doing the best you can to get there. It’ll be ready when it’s ready. Just let them cook, as the kids say.
There is another category “good enough.”
This is an incredibly tempting thing in software development. As I mentioned above, I’ve been dabbling for fun in the dark arts and… it’s really flippin’ disturbing. You can be looking at your app and think “Hmm, maybe I’ll make that button a slightly lighter shade of orange” and then your tweak causes printing to PDF to stop working and autosave to switch from 2 seconds to FF seconds. Why does the autosave time share a variable with the Green channel of a button’s RGB value, you ask? WHO KNOWS?! 
Anyone like the crew of the good ship LL who are prepared to say “the hell with it; I WANT THE ORANGE THAT I WANT FOR THAT BUTTON” are certifiably certifiable and I for one will champion their cause to the bitter end.
2 Likes
Programmers privilege and all, and I can easily see with finding something that derails writing time to chase down something else that just broke…. But it’s starting to sound like you and a handful of beta testers are all who will ever see it… I’m only half serious here, I know things take the time they take.
As a point of curiosity, how long did V1 and V2 languish in beta purgatory?
I must have commented on the wrong topic, I thought it was about writing. But when it comes to software development or anything else, there comes a time of diminishing returns and the Pareto principle (80/20) comes in to play. But I would never advocate for publishing software that wasn’t thoroughly debugged but with the expectation that there will still be some bugs that will be discovered after release.