arrow-left arrow-right brightness-2 chevron-left chevron-right facebook-box facebook loader magnify menu-down rss-box star twitter-box twitter white-balance-sunny window-close
I always come back to Elements
1 min read

I always come back to Elements

I’ve tried nearly every (non-shit) writing app available for iOS (e.g., Notesy, Byword, iA Writer, Write, WriteRoom, PlainText, Nebulous Notes, Writing, Kit, etc.) and yet I still keep coming back to Elements. If memory serves, it was the very first (non-shit) iOS writing app that talked to Dropbox, and while I tried it on day one, I just couldn’t stand its icon (which was very similar to the image shown here); fortunately, the icon was “fixed” a while ago.

I think it stands out to me amongst a sea of minimalism-as-a-feature writing apps by being especially pretty and enjoyable to use, and it registers the swipe-left-to-right gesture as a “back” action. (This has kind of become the norm, particularly for jumping from a selection back to a list, but still some of these other apps don’t support it.)

It’s one of those apps that just feels good to me. It’s solid, and as far as I can remember, has never shat the bed during a Dropbox sync.

The main thing it’s missing for me is auto-lists; i.e., it doesn’t continue a bulleted or numbered list once I start one. This isn’t a huge deal, but I always find it a bit odd when a Markdown-centric app doesn’t do it.

You've successfully subscribed to Justin Blanton.
Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content.