Scrivener for the exploding Android-market?

I would never use such an online app. I don’t want my stuff in the cloud if I can help it.

4 Likes

I believe this is correct. There are a number of people who were members of L&L staff in 2013 but no longer are. Probably the referenced post belonged to one of those people.

Posts from dead non-staff accounts are handled slightly differently and will not have the “admin” shield icon.

1 Like

I don’t speak for Keith, but I believe he has previously explained that “only some minimal platform-dependent tweaks” is a fantasy for applications as complex as Scrivener, and that he is uninterested in web apps for a variety of reasons.

2 Likes

Just so everyone’s aware…

Hi - Android users are very important to us, and we are carrying out work behind the scenes to make this happen. (Source)

That’s a comment under one of Scrivener’s Instagram posts on 27 August this year.
2022-09-07 16 56 18

There’s a post somewhere about Scrivener 4 being a major rewrite. Perhaps S4, if built from the ground up, will start with cross-platform compatibility as a fundamental tenet: Scrivener was originally developed for macOS (January 2007), before iOS (June 2007), cloud storage, and syncing were issues that programmers had to consider.

A lot of apps that have since been coded in the age of iOS, Android, cloud storage, etc already offer ‘full’ cross-platform compatibility, unlike the gaps that exist in Scrivener for macOS, iOS, and Windows; and support multiple syncing platforms, not just Dropbox. Scrivener has a lot of catching up to do in a lot of areas: good to have opportunities.

We know that Android users spend a lot less on apps than iOS users do, so presumably an app that has a single code source would be more viable going forward rather than making a version of Scrivener that is coded purely for Android. Would enough people actually buy an Android-only app to cover the cost of development and support? Are there enough potential users in the areas of the world where Android is popular? (Presumably L&L knows where its productive markets are.) Would L&L launch an Android version of S3 if a revamped S4 really is now the focus?

On top of that, there are already (more) powerful cross-platform writing apps that are free for personal use. Wonder how many Android users would pay for Scrivener when they can already have other apps for free. Or perhaps Scrivener will also be a free app with some form of revenue-making add-ons available for users who need increased functionality. Again, how many Android users will actually pay for a writing app or for a service offered by a writing app, especially when other apps and core services are free?

Scrivener for Android has been talked about for over a decade. Unless a revamped cross-platform Android-friendly S4 is right around the corner, I think Scrivener for Android is likely to be in gestation for a (long) while yet.

That’s wonderful news. Can you name one?

6 Likes

It is now nearing the end of 2022 and still no app. I don’t have iOS so I am not sure how things are going, but it has been years since this convo began and I would love it if I could work on my projects from my phone, especially when I am out and about and a random idea comes.

I have no plans of ever buying anything from Apple, so would love to have a Scrivener app for Android!

Sync + JotterPad

Caveat emptor. The App Store review of it is pretty damning. Plus, unlike Scrivener, it is a subscription-based “service”.

1 Like

??
Perhaps it changed since I last used it, but I don’t think you actually have to subscribe to anything to be able to use it.
You don’t need the full package of service.
If all you need is a nifty text editor on the go, that should be perfect.
And last time I checked, the overall reviews were pretty good.

Chromebooks with Ryzen 6000 chips may be available soon. Link. Such a Chromebook running Crossover should be able to use Scrivener for Windows. If so, I will be buying one due to the low maintenance of Chrome OS and the long battery life of such Chromebooks.

According to this recent article, “The Chromebook with the best battery life is the Acer Chromebook 514. It lasted a shocking 14 hours and 8 minutes, according to our in-house battery testing. To give you some perspective, the average Chromebook lasts 9 hours and 58 minutes.”

Not sure if you’ll get those 14 hours with Scrivener running on top of a compatibility layer. And that’s still less than a base model M1 MacBook Air (15+ hours). Which, to be fair, also costs easily twice as much, so you could buy two Chromebooks and get 28 hours… :thinking:

Just my thoughts.

That Acer is running on an Intel chip which are far less power efficient and run hotter. I wouldn’t suggest a Chromebook with an Intel chip.

Me neither. So are the compared devices all running on Intel? (Didn’t check the specs.) Otherwise, I would’ve expected them to be superior in terms of battery life.

ADD: The review lists the Acer with a “MediaTek Kompanio 828” CPU :thinking:

Electron is not native. It’s a thick wrapper of a Javascript engine running a webapp. It’s memory guzzling, CPU hogging, battery life killing, and on top of that very fragile.

This is one main reason I use Scrivener. It’s a native app. Not some kind of Javascript abomination running on a browser with the url bar removed. The difference in performance and battery life due to this is astounding.

Bump. Scrivener for Android for 2023.