I disagree with your assertion that this thread and its title make no sense at all.
There are so many people here (including me) who use different writing tools for different parts of the writing process.
For example, although I am using Scrivener exclusively at the moment for my novel, when it comes to my next writing project - a screenplay - I will use Scrivener to centralize all of the files except the actual screenplay format file; I will use Movie Magic Screenwriter to write the screenplay file itself.
And for a series of very short short stories, I will probably just use Word.
So, this thread and its title make a lot of sense.
You are assuming your version of the future is the right one.
PC’s and Macs are very much today and tomorrow’s tools. PC sales have gone through the roof in the past year, as have Mac. Apart from iPad, tablets are pretty much a slow market, with consumption (apart from iPad) being the norm.
Your comment reminds me of those just a few years back that Chromebooks, Netbooks and other web based OS were where it was and the PC/Mac was dead. Move on, what, 5-10 years depending on product and Netbooks are dead and PC/Mac is still king. Chromebooks have been most successful in education at giveaway prices and certainly have not taken over the world. Android was also going to be the big PC/Mac/iPhone killer. 14 years later, they are all going strong and Android is half the revenue of iOS and a fraction of PC/Mac. (I know there are billions of Android phones out there, doing nothing much but play free games)
Until an iOS device can edit 4 or 8k video with ease, do everything that Scrivener Mac can do, I (and millions of others) will be sticking with ‘yesterday’s tools’.
I didn’t know this, but it makes perfect sense. With the pandemic, suddenly people who would maybe check email on their phone or tablet found themselves needing a full-fledged home office environment (plus video conferencing!), and so they turned to office-capable tools. Mobile devices only replace PCs and Macs for people who didn’t need full-grown computers in the first place.
If I had $10 for every time I’d heard this same description for any given technology, I’d … well, I’d not be Jeff Bezos, but I’d definitely own a few more, nicer guitars.
One of the constant trends in IT, and has been ever since the dawn of computing, is the pendulum back and forth between centralized and de-centralized computing. As technology advances, the dominant computing paradigms tend to move back and forth between these two poles, even as the details of how those poles look changes.
PCs – or something like them that fulfills the same niche – will be around for a long time to come.
The software I use for my personal writing is pretty simple:
If I’m writing a book, I use Scrivener.
If I’m writing a script, I use Final Draft for the actual script writing, following an extensive planning phase in Scrivener.
Planning for any writing also involves extensive use of Scapple (which I tend to use nested within Scrivener), as well as plenty of old school use of whiteboards plus the always pleasurable good-pen-and-a-nice-notebook (my current preference is for the Stalogy 365 Days A5 Notebook, with either a Waterman Gentleman fountain pen with a medium nib, or one of several types of Blackwing pencil, ceremoniously sharpened).
I also make heavy use of Scrivener for iOS for research capture. Speaking of research, Firefox is my current go-to interweb browser, and I use the native MacOS / iOS mail applications for email.
I’ve previously used Affinity products for design / images, but these days I’m back on Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop and Lightroom for book covers, the occasional Illustrator use for logos and graphics), but don’t touch InDesign or any other book finishing / publication tools as I’m very happy with the quality straight out of Scrivener.
For corporate work, I use company provided / mandated tools: Mostly MS Word (which is good for its intended use) and Google Docs (which is a toy).
And that seems self-evident. But it leads me to ask what feels like a really dumb question:
When people use Scrivener on an iPad or other mobile device, basically a tablet, are they connecting a keyboard to it, either wirelessly or attached? I have to think so, since if you’re working with text and writing for any extended time, how could you not?
From upthread, I wonder: How does a “more transcendent platform concept” get around the basic form factor requirements in a device designed for extended use in writing and editing text?
But then again I wonder: why would one choose to use an iPad+kb instead of a real Mac laptop that is already pretty mobile?
Cost, portability, and battery life. I got a 128GB iPad 8th gen and AppleCare for $460 at Costco, with a BT mouse and keyboard for less than $100. This has become my go-to travel setup, since I can use it to browse media, c heck travel papers, work on Scrivener, and even be my GPS, and have lots of hours of battery life. If something happens to the iPad, it’s much less to replace it.
I have a pocket size keyboard for my iPhone and iPad. One for each in fact. I prefer at times to enter text by handwriting rather than keyboard. Many other writers use Apple dictation. I’ve also seen people touch-typing on their iPad onscreen keyboards.
So yes, folks use mobile devices to write with and they may not even use a hardware keyboard. I’ve been writing on mobile devices for more than 14 years, starting with the Palm LifeDrive, using its handwriting recognition as well as a wireless keyboard.
As for why I use mobile devices, when I started I was sneaking the devices into my place of work so as to write on my lunch break. Sneaking a phone-sized object into work is much easier than sneaking a laptop, especially the size that laptops were 14 years ago. Now I’m just used to it. I always have my work handy, so if I’m stuck waiting I can just tap or dictate something into my phone. And a small iPad plus a lightweight foldable BT keyboard (and/or stylus) is, yes, lighter than even my Macbook Air 11".
I don’t care about the sync issues. When I started Dropbox didn’t exist, and it was manual copying back & forth to my desktop Mac all the way. Dropbox is way easier.
What I don’t understand is why people lug huge 16" screen laptops around when they can do most of the work on a phone…
I use an iPad Mini with an external keyboard. It’s about the size of a “journal” size notebook. It has two big advantages over a laptop:
Because it’s smaller, it will truly fit in my lap. Useful for taking notes at conferences when a table may not be available, and also for my preferred reading spot on my office sofa.
Because it’s smaller, it doesn’t create a visual wall between me and a person I’m interviewing.
With that said, on long trips I tend to take both. The iPad goes to events with me; the laptop sits on the desk in my hotel room.
I, too, have given up on using iOS Scrivener. Between the level of fiddliness and the lack of Scrivenings, it really isn’t worth the bother. If I really need to write on my iPhone or iPad, I either use Drafts or Final Draft Mobile and then send the result to my Mac.
If I’m writing anything that isn’t a screenplay, I usually do it in Scrivener. I also use Scrivener for any kind of text analysis, including studying books or providing notes on screenplays. The multi-pane interface and binder make everything easy.
When I’m writing a screenplay, I go back and forth between Final Draft 12 and Scrivener. I also use Dynalist for outlining and Mind Node for mindmapping. Also, every single project bigger than a shopping list gets a Curio project.
You’ve probably mentioned this before Katherine, but what’s your preferred keyboard? I have a Satechi Slim X1, but am thinking of using a smaller alternative better suited to the iPad Mini
I use a Zagg keyboard/folio case. For the Mini in particular, I’d advise testing the layout before you buy. It’s smaller than a standard keyboard, and different manufacturers handle that constraint differently. The Zagg, for instance, has fairly large letter and number keys, but shrinks less-used characters a bit.
