Looking back on this post, I’m very proud of how it’s aged. Chromebooks are selling more than ever and gaining traction in this post-COVID landscape. Hopefully we’ll see Scrivener come sooner than later, but for those looking for an alternative until then, I discovered an application called Wavemaker. It’s a pretty full-featured application, and completely cloud-based.
2 Likes
Agreed, Chromebook sales grew to claimed something around 30M, about 10% of Win sales (Mac 16-18M estimate depending on which MS sponsored market stat company you listen to). Win sales figures include tablets, Mac don’t. Add iPad to Apple Mac sales and Apple is the largest computer mfr by a long way.
That said, education and very basic use are the majority of the ChromeOS market. How many will be potential Scrivener users remains to be seen. Also remains to be seen how many of those are prepared to spend money on apps. Android/Chrome statistically lower % prepared to outlay $.
Will be interesting to see what L&L eventually achieve with Android version. The Android apps I’ve seen (admittedly over 12 months ago) on even Android tablets, let alone ChromeBooks have been underwhelming with most not scaling well from phones.
Regardless, will be good to see an Android version eventually so certain people have no excuse to claim for not writing. 
I think it’s far too early to be claiming a post Covid landscape. Almost all the world is still a basket case. Some countries (Aus/NZ) doing well but USA/Europe in the crapper.
1 Like
Many Scrivener users do not consider “cloud-based” to be an advantage.
Katherine
2 Likes
Agree whole-heartedly. I frequently write while travelling in our motorhome, often in regions with lousy to non-existent cell coverage, so any cloud based solution would mean no writing.
Any hardware/software option focussed on cloud would be a serious non-starter not just for writing, but other work including video.
1 Like
Opinion and reports out in the past day put a bit more perspective to this.
Apparently the vast majority of ChromeBook sales in the past year have been pandemic related, home education, chasing cost rather than performance… It remains to be seen if this will translate to greater ongoing movement to ChromeBook.
Opinion from The Register from an article on the threat to Windows
‘Google wants to marry Android and Chrome OS, but while the bodged-in Android system in Chrome OS works much better than it should, it’s at a cost in usability, stability, and the unmistakable fact that phone apps are clunky as fudge on a laptop.’ - You can say the same about the result on a tablet.
Unless Keith and Co achieve the unachievable with their Android version, I don’t see it as being the ChromeBook users dream.
Well, many users do! I’ve found that when MS OneDrive is set up to function as the default storage location for all apps in Windows, Scrivener works quite well in that way. But other programs with more cloud awareness built in, work even better.
I believe One Drive still stores a copy of the project locally. Often, “cloud-based” means “doesn’t work without internet,” which gets a hard NO from many people.
Katherine
2 Likes
It does, in fact, do exactly that, as long as you have set the modern versions of OneDrive to keep local copies of the various files on the hard drive. You can manually tune them now on a per-file basis to keep them cloud-only, let them stay on the local drive if they were created there, or always keep them on the local drive.
They also seem to have finished the move away from the Groove-based sync engine that was causing reliability issues, and have a unified sync engine now that works both with consumer OneDrive and OneDrive for Business. I have found this client to be one of the most pleasingly stable and reliable OneDrive clients ever, actually, although I still only use DropBox for my live Scrivener projects.
1 Like
Yes, in effect, I have Windows 10 set to store the file name structure on the Local HD, while the actual file is stored on OneDrive. There is no duplication of files between the HD and OneDrive. It has worked flawlessly for me for the last two years or so with Text (Scrivener, Word & Others), Photos (ACDSee Ultimate), and Videos (TechSmith Camtasia, ACDSee Luxea & others). This isn’t some special thing I have created, it is well documented by Microsoft.
I am never without the internet, even when I travel, and as a retired DBA, I have a strong understanding of proper backup strategy, and disaster recovery. It’s not for everyone, I admit. But I DO think modern software simply MUST be more internet aware to stay competitive.
1 Like
Be aware that Scrivener expects all files in the project to be locally available. If you attempt to open an item in the Binder that is actually stored remotely, Scrivener may show an “empty” document. The document “reappears” once it’s been downloaded, but many users find this behavior extremely alarming.
From my point of view, the issue is not really that software needs to be more internet aware, but that humans do. The vast majority of synchronization-related support issues come down to either human error or human expectations that don’t align with the realities of internet connectivity.
Katherine
1 Like
This is where I would be using that folder-level granularity I mentioned to have a folder tree for active projects that is always synced to my drive. I usually have Internet access, but between power and signal strength concerns, sometimes that access is not reliable for file syncing. Moving my active projects into one folder so that I know they’re automatically being synced as my machine has power/signal means less mental gymnastics on my part, to talk to Katherine’s point.
In my case, I use Dropbox for my active Scrivener projects (because then they are also available on my immediately beloved new iPad (how the hell did I ever live without this thing???) and use OneDrive to archive my backups and inactive projects. This lets me balance power, drive space, Internet, convenience, and risk at a level I am comfortable with.
Your point is well taken. But, to Scrivener and to Windows, the files ARE local. The supporting file infrastructure is stored locally while the files themselves are stored on OneDrive. Calls to retrieve a file, occur locally, and Windows then intercepts the call and retrieves the actual files from OneDrive. Scrivener and other apps see all this as a local transaction. This has been rock solid and reliable for me with 100mbps download speed at home, the slight delay in retrieval is not noticeable to me.
Now, I’m not saying this is for everyone. But certainly, it will be useful for some people. And those who think it might be useful for them, should do some testing with expendable older projects. AS always, something like this requires a solid Back up and disaster recovery plan.
If you make money from something, or if you love your artistic endeavors, then it is worth taking the time to make sure that you have planned for as many disater scenarios as possible.
Yes, I understand that. That’s how any “smart” sync mechanism works. Which is exactly why, if the download fails for any reason, Scrivener will show an empty file rather than a file not found error. Which, as I said, many users find distressing.
Katherine
1 Like
Just for general information, I use Joplin to type on my 8" tablet. Joplin is a cross-platform open source software with desktop versions for Mac, Windows and Linux and mobile versions for Android and IOS. It takes notes, has notebooks, syncs using just about anything (I use Dropbox).
Structurally, the desktop versions look a lot like Scrivener. A notebook pane, an articles in that notebook middle pane, and then either one or two writing panes. The system and Android version present the panes on at a time (space) and is based on Markdown instead of RTF, but, I can do what I want faster with markdown than with Scrivener’s RTF. For example, it is faster for me to type ## whatever my subhead is
than ctrl-Shift-2 that I type in scrivener. Certainly easier on a tablet.
typing 1. first point for a bulleted list etc.
If you have a good Android keyboard (I use Fleksy) I can type almost as fast on my tablet lying in bed as I can at my desk.
The android version bogs down after a couple of pages on an article, so you have to break them up.
Then just copy and paste from the desktop version of Joplin into scrivener.
Joplin also has a web clipper to grab pages off the Internet, and a solid import from Evernote. It is an open source Evernote alternative.
Just looking at some stats released this week. Android paid app sales are still less than half that of iOS despite device numbers, which makes the ‘market size’ argument a fail.
Programming for Android is more difficult than for iOS especially when trying to factor in all the different device sizes, OS versions etc.
Even Android Authority recognises the limitations of ChromeBooks for real world applications. As far as I can see, there are four claimed benefits of ChromeBooks I’ve taken from the various Android sites.
Cost - ugly cheap to cheap - flip side woefully, woefully, under spec’d, even at the top end.
Light weight. A MacBook Air is 200-300g lighter than all of the ChromeBooks I checked from ASUS, Lenovo and HP.
Battery Life. With the new M1 MBA and ARM Win devices, if they ever sort out ARM Win, the battery argument is moot. All the ones I checked advertised in the region of 12 hour battery life vs 18 for an MBA.
Web based - also one of its major failings, so double-edged sword. If you really want, there are web based apps for Mac and Win.
So, in the end it came down to Cheap! There is often a flip side to cost. Grand daughters school threw out ChromeBooks due to poor mechanical reliability. Now all iPad and MBA depending on class year.
Not saying ChromeBook isn’t a valid option, especially when almost free for cash strapped schools, but as soon as those students want to do much more than run kludgy Android or web apps, they will be headed to Win or Mac.
Yes, I agree an Android app will be nice to have as an option, but there is little to suggest it will be other than just another potential revenue stream to add to where L&L already make money. I recall in one post an Android user expected the Android app would be free to entice users to perhaps one day pay for a Win or Mac app, which illustrates a mindset in some that needs to be conquered.
Certainly not the Holy Grail suggested by some.
1 Like
Looking back on this post and checking latest US sales statistics, the picture is not looking too rosy for Chromebooks.
HP’s Chromebook sales crashed over 30% and ASUS, another major, over 20%, so Chromebooks in the US are in fact selling SIGNIFICANTLY fewer devices as people working from home are moving to full spec laptops to achieve actual work. Mac sales meanwhile have skyrocketed and the latest MacBook Pros are backordered out towards 2 months for some specs.
We have a NYT best-selling author in our group here on the Central Coast and she ordered a 16" MBP the day they were released. She writes, generates covers under contract, edits for other authors and a Chromebook would never cut it. I’m about to order a well spec’d 14"to supplement my M1 MBAir as I don’t need the portable screen size of the 16. It will be as powerful as most higher end desktops when paired with 27" monitors.
Win machines have also seen an uptick.
3 Likes
To some of your points on the 4 benefits of Chromebooks:
Cheap - this is a misconception; while Chromebooks start affordable, they go upwards of $1000, and share the same specs as a Windows computer if you really want to. Most people using Chromebooks do not need anywhere near that kind of power, but for outer use cases such as my own (using Chrome OS’ linux terminal for heavier use) you can find very high spec’d Chromebooks. This argument is invalid.
Lightweight - when people talk about Chromebooks being lightweight, they are not usually talking about their actual weight. They are talking about the lightweight operating system that is Chrome OS, that uses way less system resources than both Windows and Mac OS, as it is at its root a Linux operating system.
Battery Life - yes, you can get great battery life on a lot of devices nowadays. Not nearly as much on lower end devices though. In these cases, Chromebooks excel.
Web based - this comes down to preference. In an age where you can type documents (MS Word, Google Docs), UI/UX design (Figma), and even some lightweight video editing (Clipchamp) all in a browser, I don’t see this as being a downside, but to each their own. There are even web apps that allow you to work offline, called Progressive Web Apps, and Wavemaker, the free competitor that reminds me of Scrivener is one of them.
Sad to hear your granddaughters threw out their Chromebooks, however I only see the poor reliability on the lower end of the scale. If you spend around the same on a Chromebook as you do on a Windows or Mac computer you don’t see those same issues, I can attest to that.
And I can already hear the “why would you do that when you could get a Windows or Mac machine?” coming my way. Sometimes people prefer other operating systems. I think it’s ridiculous in this day and age to dismiss Chromebooks as just some web based platform that can’t do anything. First, the web enables us to do way more things than it used to be capable of, as I touched on previously. Second, and I know this is more of a fringe case, but it still stands true: Chrome OS is a Linux operating system. There is virtually nothing I can’t do on a Chromebook with the right know-how and a properly spec’d machine. It’s fine if most people aren’t going to use them in that way, but to dismiss that entirely is to dismiss the whole Linux platform. Chrome OS is the most easily accessible Linux platform, and it is also the budding platform that students today are first growing up with, regardless of whether it’s due to affordability or whether it’s because of security, or even if it’s due to the fact that students can take advantage of the Linux terminal to practice coding in school, something I’ve started to see in more and more schools.
As for your argument about Chromebook sales statistics, I recommend you read this article:
Yes, the sales are dipping, but it also makes sense that the market is fully saturated, something Apple also sees with their phones and laptops from time to time as people tend to hold onto their devices for a few years. I don’t see this spelling the doom and gloom you’re suggesting, as Chrome OS is still the second best-selling desktop OS. Yes this is likely due to more affordable price points as compared to Mac, but that does not make it any less valid.
Perhaps an Android app isn’t specifically what we need though. Perhaps the real pivot should be to a Progressive Web App. These are something that can be repackaged into an app in the app store, and also makes a neutral platform that can be used on Windows, Mac, Chrome OS/Linux, iPhone, Android, and whatever else is out there. Or perhaps I should be asking for better support for the Linux beta (though I believe that helps sufficiently less people). But there is definitely enough people asking about an Android version to merit some sort of support, and now that Windows machines are starting to “talk” better with Android devices, even going so far as to support some Android apps, I think the world deserves access to one of my favorite writing apps in a more agnostic way. The future of software is accomplishing whatever task you need on whatever device you have access to or prefer, and that is a hill I will die on.
Also wanted to touch on your app sales stats. I do not dispute those; however I think taking that at face value and assuming that my argument is a fail dismisses some very basic possibilites.
-
As I believe you or someone else already mentioned, one of the reasons Android has a larger market share is due to a likely majority of those devices being more affordable ones. If we were to compare devices only within Apple’s price ranges, we may find a different ratio on those app sales stats.
-
Another reason Apple may have more app sales is due to there being a lot more exclusive apps on Apple, which keeps them in that walled garden, leading to an inconsistent comparison that may not be that way if Apple were more willing to play nicely.
-
I can guarantee that a majority of those app sales are games. If we were to filter down to more specific categories, we might find that sales are more equal than it appears.
You may be correct in assuming that it is easier to develop for iOS. But with tools like Flutter that allow you to convert an iOS app into one that can be optimized for Android you don’t really have to do too much more to bring it over. Most of the work is done, now it’s just down to optimization.
“Just down to optimization” is a dead giveaway that you haven’t personally attempted to do this with an application remotely as complex as Scrivener.
2 Likes
I don’t speak for Keith, but I believe he has previously expressed near-complete lack of interest in a web-based version of Scrivener, and significant skepticism about purported “neutral platform” development tools.
1 Like