Hello Keith,
I canāt deny my own preferences regarding PCās and Macs. I have my own history: after a few years as a Windows user, I decided to move back to Mac because of a major loss of information and a really bad virus attack on my old PC. That was about four years ago. A few months later I was able to buy my MBP.
Iām currently a Windows 7 user: I have Mac at home, but I have to use a PC at work. So I know both systems pretty well. But even there, even if the PC itself may survive, the institution is studying the possibility to move to open source software.
This year, Iāve seen the iPad phenomenon differently: Iāve already known people who sold their netbooks (Windows) and switched to iPad (not to Macā¦). It almost hasnāt been a restaurant or cafe where someone doesnāt ask for the iPad, not the customers: the clerks. I have seen people of many different social origins or incomes talking about the iPad, wishing one, buying one⦠Even my mother, who is afraid of almost any computer, wants one.
I live in a small country, away from any real metropoli (New York alone is more populated than the whole country), and even here the iPad is becoming a popular culture phenomenon. Everybody knows what it is, like an iPod, and the word itself its taken over the word ātabletā. Just like the iPod word did. People donāt say ālook my mp3 playerā, they say ālook my iPodā, even if its a Zen, a Sansa, or any other brand. And itās happening to the iPad.
And then I see the numbers⦠The last numbers published by Apple show a huge mobile market. iPads, iPods, iPhones⦠If you consider them all together, you have a huge amount of people who was probably out of the PC market anyway, or the Mac market, or the whole desktop computer market. People who use their cellphones like computers, people who live away from the major cities but are, by no means, ādisconnectedā from the world.
In Costa Rica, the iPhone arrived officially two months ago. Before that, every iPhone you saw (and there were plenty) were jailbroken phones bought abroad at a very high cost ($500-$1000). The day the iPhone arrived, people made lines to buy it, even though the iPhone 5 is around the corner. We have a single phone company (state monopoly, thanks goodness) and it announced it immediately in TV: and here, he who controls television, controls popular culture as well.
So Iām an iPad user, but also a Windows user, and, for a brief period, I even was an Ubuntu user. And Iām also a writer, and an editor (otherwise I would have never found Scrivener). And I like to watch closely the social and cultural changes happening around me. And Iām not seeing a technological phenomenon anymore: itās bigger than that, and it runs deeper into the minds of people.
So, you canāt blame me for my interest on pushing the iPad as far as I can. For example, I work for the biggest distance university of the area (I mean Central America, not Costa Rica alone). Our goal as university is bring education to everybody, no matter how far away they are, or whatever social, physical, or cultural differences exist. And right now, technology is a major issue for us: if the student lives in an island or a mountain without internet access (and we have plenty of those, including students in indigenous communities and penitentiary centers), and is a person who doesnāt have enough money to afford a computer⦠then we canāt force that person to use technology. But at the same time, that future professional would be defenseless in a professional world that requires computing knowledge for almost everything. So theyāre planning on giving people tablets. Probably not iPads, just tablets. And all of us have to be certain of one single thing: that our students will be able to do absolutely everything they need with that tablet: checking email, surfing on the Net, participate in virtual courses, reading their books, submitting papers⦠Everything, because they wonāt have a printer, or a computer.
So, not just in theory, I need to know how far an iPad or any tablet can go, by my own experience (I donāt want to be told). And these little pieces of hardware go as far as their apps do.
Thatās why I canāt stand a world without Scrivener, and the market tablet has become, right now, at this point, part of my world. You canāt blame me either for pushing you, as most as I can, into it. Iām an user, thatās all. But youāre already made your decision and, as youāve said before, your team doesnāt have the resources this change requires and need to set priorities. I understand that, always did.
As for other peopleās software, I think we all have the right to be informed and to know our options; although thatās as far as Iāll go. Iām not selling anything to anybody.
Thatās why yesterday I asked, again, if you had any serious (real, on going) plans for an iPad version. Thatās how this thread begun: because I needed to be certain that I was making the only possible decision I can make at this point. If you had answered that I had to wait a month or two, or even a year, this would have been different. But you didnāt. You were honest, so am I.
Do I think there is another Mac software superior to Scrivener? No. Even now, thatās my answer, honest as it is. But regarding iPad, after using Notebooks, Simple Note, Index Card, Circus Ponies Notebooks, iAWriter, Pages, Evernote, Noterize, Nebuolous, and Notability, Storyist for iPad is the first real writing application Iāve seen, for my standards (standards that youāve set with your software). And it looks like it will work for me, for now. I donāt know about other people. I encourage them to make their own decisions. And for what Iāve seen in this forum, they will. This is not a place populated by easily influenced people. Theyāre all adults with their own minds. Thatās why I love this community.
I hope Iām not banned or something, though. Because I intend to remain a Scrivener user. Iām not throwing away my MBP. Iāve always been supportive on my blog, and tell everybody I can to switch to Scrivener, if they can.
Jacqueline