Godtfred Kirk Christiansen et al, filed Jul 28 1958 [US Patent Office/Google Patents via 365blanc]
Previously: The Lego brick turns 50; Lego cannot be trademarked, European judges rule.
Among the minimalist writing apps for iPad, two have come out on top: Hog Bay Software’s PlainText and Information Architects’ simply named Writer (an app which Om clearly enjoys). Both do basically the same thing: create plaintext files that sync to Dropbox. Their approaches to the writing itself are very different, however.
Writer will cost you $5.00, while PlainText is free. If cost is important, then you should definitely go with PlainText. But if you’re not concerned about dropping a little cash, read on.
As mentioned above, both apps use Dropbox sync, so you don’t have to go through the horror of copying files over with iTunes. I do like PlainText’s implementation better, though. It gives you more options to tell it when to sync, and tells you whether Dropbox is down or not. It also gives you the option to rename the folder it syncs to on your Dropbox, but you have to unlink your Dropbox account first. Writer, on the other hand, offers only the option to link to Dropbox. Folder names can’t be changed, and there’s no behavior customization available.
PlainText offers a number of ways to tweak your Dropbox sync settings.
With PlainText, you can also use TextExpander, a third-party app that lets you define short abbreviations to expand into longer snippets, i.e., expanding “TTYL” as “talk to you later.” Writer doesn’t offer any text expansion support.
Writer and PlainText's main screens, side-by-side.
As far as the writing environments go, Writer provides a more focused experience. It uses a large monospace font called Nitti Light, which was created by Bold Monday specifically for the iPad, and is easy to read. Writer also has a “focus mode” that fades out everything except the current three lines. This does make it easier to focus on your writing, but you can’t scroll in this mode. You have to manually hit the cursor button on the software keyboard in order to move around the document, which is annoying.
PlainText also has a full-screen mode, but this mode only hides the sidebar and does little to make it easier to concentrate. PlainText also wastes a lot space on both sides of your document in landscape view, even in the full-screen editing mode.
Writer has the edge when it comes to the virtual keyboard. The default iOS keyboard has been extended with an extra bar above it that holds some common functions and punctuation:
In PlainText, it takes longer to get to punctuation since you have to flip back and forth between symbols and letters.
One of the more noticeable differences is that PlainText has a sidebar to access folders and documents, but Writer doesn’t. PlainText’s sidebar makes it easier to navigate around chapters or sections without having to press a button a bunch of times (anyone who uses Mail in portrait mode knows what I’m talking about). This makes it much easier to take notes, and indeed I’ve found myself using PlainText more than Writer for taking notes during my college courses.
Both apps give you the word count of a document, though Writer displays the number of words in the top bar of the screen, and PlainText shows it as a contextual menu with select and paste:
PlainText adds word count to the contextual menu.
Writer also has offers an extra feature: reading time. It calculates the time it would take the average person to read the entire text in the top bar, and adds marks on the side of the display showing you the reading time up to where the cursor is.
Honestly, I think both apps are great. PlainText has better organization and Dropbox integration, but Writer has a more focused environment and better typography.
Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):
Try This: The Feed. Gorgeous new iPad news reader
TNW Quick Hit
The Feed is a Google Reader client for your iPad which lets one decide how to consume news.
Hits: Wonderful design,
Misses: The first release of the app can be a bit buggy, with occasional crashes. No Instapaper support at present.
Overall: 4.5/5
The Details:
Reading news is one of, if not, the thing I enjoy doing most on the iPad. Initially I was hooked on Early Edition but quickly tired of it. Reeder replaced Early Edition until my favorite news reader, River of News, was released. While not ready to rid myself of River of News, a new app, The Feed (free), may soon become my default news reader of choice.
Why? First, the price. It’s FREE. Yes, I’m cheap. Early Edition and Reeder are both $4.99, while River of News is $3.99. A hefty price for apps that do no more than aggregate news and allow you to share stories you find interesting.
The Feed is not only free, but features a terrific design reminiscent of Pulse, while offering sharing features that rival the more expensive counterparts listed above.
After launching the app and syncing your Google Reeder account, the super slick display presents itself with all of one’s feeds.
The Feed’s interface offers one an overview of everything on the menu, along with a versatile filtering system and two different zoom levels. Further, The Feed uses proportionately sized stacks to illustrate your read and unread items, a grand feature.
Should one find something they wish to share, The Feed allows one to do just that. One can share on Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, email, or simply copy the URL.
The Feed is, without a doubt, a great reader for the iPad. Version 1.0 does have occasional crashes, and Instapaper support is needed, hopefully these will come in time. That said, if you like news reader apps on your iPad and seek the best of the best, you’d be hard pressed to find one as grand as The Feed.
HEY. ENJOY THAT? MORE TNW Apps:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jeff Cormier, a graduate of SMU and the TW School of Law, is the co-founder of C4 Universe, LLC. Desire to know more? http://about.me/jffcrmr/bio...
>
Comments & Pingbacks
Trackbacks
[...] more here: Try This: The Feed. Gorgeous new iPad news reader Comments [...]
[...] The feed app for Ipad | Jay Oyakawa URL: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2010/11/24/try-this-the-feed… [...]
This is a major update with many improvements and fixes. The first change you’ll notice is the new layout of the list screen:
See?
The change is more subtle on the iPad, which now displays one more line of text and has the new length-and-progress indicators:
…but it comes with a huge hidden improvement: the iPad is now much faster to download updates.
The iPhone’s font panel also got its most highly requested feature, a Light/Dark toggle without needing to leave the article:
But you won’t need to use it as often, because I’ve added a ridiculous little feature:
You can now have Instapaper automatically use dark mode at night and normal (light) mode during the day.
But how, exactly, do you define “night”? There’s no API access to the iPhone’s ambient light sensor, so I can’t just enable dark mode in dark rooms.
And I can’t just define hour boundaries, because 8 PM in December is much darker than 8 PM in June.
And I can’t just look at hours and the date, because 5 PM in December is much darker in Alaska than in Costa Rica.
So I used with the most reliable method I could think of: sunset times in your location. Yes, Instapaper is now location-aware, but only for this feature. (Leave it to me to come up with the least-social use of locations possible.)
I’ve left this feature enabled for the last few weeks on my own iPhone and iPad, and I absolutely love it. I no longer need to think about dark mode: it’s just always set to what it should probably be.
Instapaper 2.3 also contains a lot of less flashy improvements. With one of them, I hope to reduce one of the most common support issues: customers who have mistakenly entered different usernames in the app and Mobile Safari. 
Often this is from a simple typo or consistency mistake, such as entering “user123@gmail.com” in one place and just “user123” in the other, and mistakenly registering a new account (people don’t read text, especially in dialog boxes, remember?).
So there’s a new “Sync Account with Safari” item in Settings that launches Safari, checks that the usernames match, and offers you the choice if they don’t:
Tap the one that you want to use in both places, and Instapaper will sync Safari and the app to use it.
I’ve also overhauled the back-end login system to tolerate username changes, give more helpful errors (instead of “No internet connection”) on authentication failures, and fix the “username is already taken” bug in the login screen. Hopefully, you’ll never notice.
The bookmarklet installation now skips the Select All and Copy steps, since the app downloads and copies the required bookmarklet code to the pasteboard for you. But bookmarklet installation is still needlessly complex due to shortcomings in iOS. Please, Apple, fix bookmarklet installation in Mobile Safari!
Instapaper now supports the “ihttp://” URL scheme to add pages. (Thanks for the idea, GoodReader.) If you can’t get the bookmarklet, the email address, or Copy working to add pages for some reason, or you just don’t like any of them (hey, you never know), there’s now another way to add pages to Instapaper from the iPhone or iPad:
Edit Safari’s URL field and insert an “i” before the “http://”, tap Go, and Instapaper will launch and offer to add that page.
So there are now four ways to get any web page into Instapaper:
Plus over 130 third-party applications that support sending to Instapaper directly.
2.3 also brings a lot of smaller improvements and fixes, including:
And, as usual, 2.3 is a free universal upgrade to anyone who has ever bought Instapaper on iPhone or iPad. If you really need to give me more money, consider becoming a Subscriber, but you really don’t need to.
What are you waiting for? Get Instapaper 2.3!
(If it hasn’t shown up in the App Store for you yet, it should within a few hours.)
Arguably, one of the easiest ways to publish online is with Posterous. Creating and updating a weblog with Posterous is as simple as sending an email. Now, the gang has created another tool for users to play with: Posterous for iPhone (free). I've been using the app for a couple of weeks now. I also had a chat with Posterous CEO and co-founder Sachin Agarwal. Here's our review of the app and highlights of my discussion with Sachin.
On Posterous
First, a bit about the service itself. To create a Posterous blog, all you need to do is send an email message to post@posterous.com. That's it. A site will be created for you with your email's subject as the first post's title and the body as the post itself. There's nothing to configure, install or set up. Likewise, creating a photo gallery is just as easy. Send your pictures to the same address (using the email address you initially chose) and Posterous does the rest, creating a gallery, thumbnails and so on.
Gallery: Posterous for iPhone
Of course, it's not limited to text and photos. "Our goal is to handle any file you send to us," Sachin told me. Indeed, you can send a .doc file, a PowerPoint presentation, a PDF, a movie, an audio track, etc. Posterous will host your file and present it in the most Web-friendly format possible. All from your email client. If that's possible, I asked Sachin, why go with an app? Sending attachments via email is so simple, and nearly everyone knows how to do it.
"The app gives more control and flexibility," he said. "It offers all of the options from the site, natively." Indeed, while publishing via email is terrifically simple, logging into your account from a browser offers additional options, like making certain posts private, support for multiple Posterous sites and simultaneous publishing to a number of platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook...up to 26 different sites at once. If you change your mind about pinging those other services, you can turn them on or off from within the app.
Using the app
Here's how to get started. When you first launch the app, you'll be presented with a welcome screen. From there you've got two options: create a new site or login to an existing account. In the Posterous tradition, creating a new site is ridiculously easy. Just tap the green Post button, compose your post and hit Post. That's it. If you've already got an account, tap Login and enter your credentials. Any Posterous sites connected to that account will appear.
To publish a post, tap the appropriate site. You'll get a list of recent posts, complete with a thumbnail of any attachments and stats on the number of views and number of comments. Next, hit the green Post button. A new window appears with several options.
The name of the site is listed above the title field. Below that is the body field. Fill both in as you will. Above the keyboard are four buttons. First is the compose button, which brings up the keyboard and input fields. Next is the Info button. Tap it to enter tags and enable geotagging and autoposting or to set a post as private. Note that creating a private post automatically disables autoposting to services like Twitter and Facebook, even if you've got them enabled by default.
Finally, the arrow button hides/reveals the keyboard while the plus icon lets you attach a photo or video. You can pull one from your library or create a new one on the spot. In fact, you can attach several photos at a time. Once you're done, tap Post. Uploading occurs in the background, so you're free to exit the app. A message will pop up when processing is complete. As I said, it's a breeze.
Posterous for iPhone has a number of helpful settings, too. Hit Settings at the bottom of the screen to setup autopost options, adjust media quality (photo quality ranges from full resolution to low at 500px, and video quality ranges from HD to 360x480), browse the help section, log out of your account or send an email to Posterous support from within the app.
The future
I asked Sachin about the future of mobile publishing and his company's other app, PicPosterous (here's our PicPosterous review). "PicPosterous will be removed from the store with the next revision of Posterous for iPhone," he said. "We want to add a few features to Posterous, like an option to edit posts and add media to existing posts. This is only the beginning." Sachin believes that mobile publishing is only going to increase in popularity, and says that his company is looking at the iPad as well.
One disappointment is that you're limited to posting photos and videos with Posterous for iPhone, but that's not the app's fault. Those wanting to share PDFs or PowerPoint decks, for example, must do so via email. But all in all, we're very happy with the app and anticipate what's next. If Posterous is the simplest way to publish to the web, Posterous for iPhone is a worthy companion.
