With iOS 13 coming out, there is a push to make iOS and Mac apps the same. Would really like Mac and iOS versions to be identical so all the features that we get on the Mac version would show up in iOS. Is L&L working on that?
Some discussion here: https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/when-will-scrivener-support-icloud-or-the-way-around/45768/1
The short answer is that iOS is still lacking significant capabilities that would be needed by Mac OS Scrivener.
Katherine
No, there is a push to make it possible to run iOS apps on a Mac, not the other way around.
Among the great innovations added to “iPadOS” is the ability to open two emails at once.
It has a very long way to go. :mrgreen:
Hi, Ioa.
Apple says that bringing an iOS app to the Mac will be as simple as ticking a box:
Putting aside different OS abilities entirely, if L&L have an iPad app, is there any chance of that box being ticked and compiling Scrivener for iPad so that it is available to Mac users who want to run the iPad version of Scrivener on their Macs?
And if more people want to use iPad Scrivener on their Macs than use S3, what then: still two versions of the app or a focus on one universal app?
iPad Scrivener on a Mac might not have the power of S3, but it might well suit a significant number of users, especially those who just want one interface to learn and use on multiple devices.
Slà inte mhòr.
Hopefully keep Scrivener 3 for the Mac and leave the cut down version for the cut down OS.
R
You can imagine what kind of chaos this would create with two Mac versions and people asking why something they’ve seen in a video can’t be done on their version and then getting angry for having bought the Mac Scrivener Light version instead of the full version.
Why would L&L want to port their iOS version to Mac OS when there is already a full fledged Mac version?
I highly doubt it would be as simple as a checkbox. There are a lot of things that would have to be changed for that to make any sense. Apple’s little demo was a pretty simplistic utility. But even if it were easy, I don’t know how it benefits anyone to have three different versions of Scrivener to develop, test and support.
As to the rest, thankfully there are no indications of Apple encouraging what you’re describing. Instead they pumped an awful lot of resources into making sure the Mac stays top of the class in terms of workstation level power. To my mind that’s a strong signal to developers of powerful software to keep doing what they are doing, and then some—not strip everything to the bone and make everything all the same, regardless of the context.
I read requests like the OP made to bring Mac features to iOS, like nested bullets for example, not to remove nested bullets from the Mac! 
Thanks to all for replying.
To Ioa:
But if it was that simple…
iOS does nested lists. At least Notes does.
I agree that Apple is signalling its support for workstation apps: perfect for developers, photographers, film-makers, etc. I, personally, think that most writers don’t need workstation-level tools.
And, of course, I think the end logic is that there wouldn’t be three different versions of Scrivener to support.
To lunk:
Porting to Mac if the iPad version is more popular with users and to give the developer less work to do. In time, iPad Scrivener could replace Mac Scrivener, so the issue with Mac Scrivener Light wouldn’t arise. In fact, you would be making things easier for the developer, users, and the support channels. To me, all this seems obvious, but I completely accept that other people see things differently. It’s just a conversation.
Personally, I like iPad Scrivener (it is a beautiful work of sleek and unobtrusive design) but dislike the ergonomics of using a touchscreen device. I like Scrivener 3, but I’d be more than happy to have iPad Scrivener on a Mac. I think a lot of other users would also feel the same, especially as iPad OS promises to deliver a better app experience than the current version of iOS.
Obviously, L&L knows how its sales fall and how many people use each version of Scrivener and how many of the features they use, In my experience, most people use a small portion of Scrivener’s features and would probably be happy with what iPad Scrivener offers (without having to use or have an iPad). We know people write with Word, Pages, Bear, Ulysses, iA Writer, etc. They don’t need to use workstation-level tools. So if Scrivener can deliver a “light” product that suits more people than its “heavy” product, why miss out on all those possible sales when, if what Apple says is correct, all Keith would need to do would be to select a checkbox and then watch the sales mount up?
We have seen Apple gut and then rebuild Photos, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. We’ve seen them bring Stocks and Voice Memos to the Mac. We know it can be done. For me, it seems like a big opportunity for L&L, but I am totally happy for Keith to keep things as they are. Just talking and thinking.
Slà inte mhòr.
I think you are missing a crucial factor – perhaps the most important one: Keith’s vision of Scrivener. I don’t think it’s ever been too much about sales. Not to the exclusion of the vision, anyway. And long may it continue that way. Chasing sales is a fast way to produce a dog’s breakfast, in my view.
As I believe I mentioned once already, the overwhelming majority of cross-platform requests involve people wishing that the iOS version had more features, not that the Mac version had fewer. Your hypothetical user who would be happy with Scrivener Light on the Mac does not appear to exist.
Katherine
Word and Pages are hardly minimalist applications!
The example of Word is instructive, though. They say most people use only 10% of Word’s features. But Word is so bloated because it’s a different 10% for everyone.
Likewise with Scrivener. I never use the screenwriting features. Screenwriters rarely if ever use footnotes. But eliminating either screenwriting or footnoting would cut out vast swaths of users.
Katherine
I would like to see Scrivener for iOS get some more features.
But I would also be very happy to use the iOS version of Scrivener on the Mac. I much prefer it overall, and always write on it over the full version.
The ability to do this is not something I’ve ever thought about – and I don’t personally see it as a big deal. But if I had the option, I would certainly use it.
I have a question that may not be very relevant, can the full version of Scrivener be taken from Mac to iPad as it is, Scrivener looks quite native on Mac, there are also a certain number of programs that have implemented this in recent years, such as Davinci, etc., what about the technical difficulty of doing so? The Current iOS Version Looks so plain.
iOS is not even a little bit capable of running desktop software (as noted in the existing thread above, that I’ve merged your query into). The only feasible away of doing what you describe is more like what was proposed above: scrapping the desktop version entirely and making a much more basic program that can operate on the lowest common dominator. We’ve decided to go another way than that, and will be putting out a very basic program, some day, that works very similarly on mobile.
If you do want the full version of Scrivener on a mobile device, you need something more like a Surface, where the OS is fully capable and can run normal software normally. I think for those that adopt the limitation of only using Apple hardware, the only solution is some kind of VNC-based approach, where it’s more like a portable screen to the main system.
I’ve noticed that DaVinci Resolve and Clip Studio Paint were developed using Qt5, which enabled them to be successfully ported to the iPad. Recently, WPS Office, also built with Qt5, has started its own iPad TestFlight version.
There are already many successful examples.
So, it might actually be feasible to port the Windows version of Scrivener (developed with Qt6) to the iPad.
Some features that rely on .NET interfaces, such as license verification, might be affected. However, license verification could be handled by Apple, and any other unsupported features could be temporarily disabled. Even then, it would still be far superior to the current iOS version, which is missing many features and hasn’t been updated for two years.
Although not porting the Qt version of Scrivener to Linux and Android might be due to concerns about potential cracking, why not port it to the iPad? The Apple App Store should provide sufficient security.
And if it’s sold as a one-time purchase through the Apple Store, it could adopt the same pricing as the desktop version.
Overall, I think porting the Windows Qt version of Scrivener to the iPad —rather than the macOS AppKit version—is a solution worth considering.
Juat a view here, but if you look at Davinci Resolve and squint a bit, it’s composed in some senses of conventional UI parts, combined with mini-apps in boxs for the more graphical features. In that view, it’s mainlly a collection of graphical feature boxes, swapped in when you change through its sequence of modes.
None of this is much like Scrivener iPadOS at all. Keith has used every aspect available in the iPadOS repertoire to layer in features right where you need them – inside of one unified interface. Thinks like the sliding buttons, that reveal many functions you didn’t expect but find very easy to use.
This is all very much in the visual and touch language Apple evolved; he’s taken every advantage of it. There is learning involved before you realize what you can do, but then you get the advantages.
Now, for the extras we’d like to see added, it seems the new iPadOS pane extensions might give ways to have them, extending rather than modifying this original powerful set. Other than those which depend on computational/linguistic features which just aren’t available in iPadOS beneath the skin.
Handwaving a bit as it’s late, but you might kind of get what I mean…
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Yeah, I totally get the advantages of touch interaction.
But Scrivener is a writing app. On the iPhone, touch interaction matters, but on the iPad, most of my interaction happens through the keyboard, not by touch. I almost always connect a keyboard (or a Magic Keyboard) and keep the iPad on a desk. In that situation, having full feature parity and proper shortcut support is way more useful than gestures.
If the goal is to make the iPadOS version as capable as the desktop one, compiling the already cross-platform Qt framework for iPadOS might actually take less work than adding new features one by one. After all, one approach is subtraction, the other is addition.
And given how feature-heavy Scrivener already is, maintaining project-file compatibility across different implementation methods would be a massive engineering task.
Also, a Qt-based version could easily coexist with the current native one on the App Store. Selling an extra copy wouldn’t hurt, after all.
The current iOS version of Scrivener hasn’t been updated for two years, and it’s already somewhat out of step with what iPadOS 26 emphasizes in terms of functionality.If that weren’t the case, I probably wouldn’t even be suggesting this kind of porting approach.
I think the iPad version of WPS Office, which was developed with Qt5 and compiled from the PC version, works remarkably well. It’s almost fully featured (except for AI and VBA on the PC version) and maintains excellent compatibility with Microsoft Office. Having a fully featured Office suite makes a significant difference in iPad productivity.
Below is a screenshot of WPS sheets — its pivot table feature works perfectly.
If the full version of Scrivener developed with Qt could be compiled for iPadOS ( like WPS Office ), my expensive iPad Pro would no longer be just a video player most of the time, but would finally become a truly capable writing tool by itself.
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I like my Magic Keyboard too, but the iPhone and iPad are still touch-based devices, and the design of iOS Scrivener reflects that reality.
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