I’m a fan of productivity apps and am always downloading note-taking and writing apps. Yet, when it comes to push and shove, I always end up resorting to my tried and true apps of Pages and AwesomeNote for writing on the iPad. I do HTML posts in Awesome Note and simple writing in Pages. Werdsmith drew me in and prompted me to give it a try based solely on its clean interface.
Lots of apps, not just Productivity ones, will have so many features to them that they get bogged down. The situation is reminiscent of the phrase, “Keep it Simple, Stupid.” The apps get way too confusing as they try to do everything and anything you would like them too. Werdsmith promises to both track your ideas and help you write as you follow your project from start to finish. I wanted to see if it did too much and got bogged down or if would stay as a clean interface.
From the opening screen, the app still doesn’t seem like it will get complicated. It’s still clean, in fact so clean that it left questions as to whether it would do enough.
As you get ideas, you can return to the app and jot them down quickly. This is really helpful for me. I get several good story ideas throughout the week, and it when it comes time to sit down and start writing, I can never remember them. With Werdsmith, I can just open the app and jot down my idea quickly, then go back to what I was doing previously.
To start working on a project, simply click on the story idea that was saved previously, then tap the gear symbol in the upper right of the screen and choose Create Project. This transfers it from the idea stage to the writing stage.
Werdsmith also helps you to create a goal. It asks you for a goal of how many words you would like the project to be. I typed in 550, the minimum number of words I wanted this article to be. For a unique perspective, instead of tracking the number of words in your article, it tracks the percentage until you reach that goal.
When you finish with your article, tap that gear symbol again and choose Finish. This transfers the article to the completed stage, holding it for you. It allows you to Share it by email if you wish. Additional sharing options, such as saving as a Word or Pages document would be great. There are other options in this menu including Delete and Edit Goal. If you decide you want to add more to the article, you can always click the gear again, choose Resume, and send the article back to the writing stage.
In the upper left of the screen is an options menu. Clicking this gives you an option to upgrade to the paid version for $2.99. The free version only allows you to save six projects. This menu also offers you the option to turn iCloud Syncing and Automatic Backups off and on. The app developer makes note that the Cloud Syncing doesn’t work well with iOS 6. Since iOS 6 is still new, maybe this will be changing. Additionally, there’s an option for setting the time of day you want to work on your projects. This will cause the app to send you a reminder.
There are a few small things that Werdsmith could do to improve the app, but for the simplistic interface that it offers, it does do as promised, taking a project from start to finish. It only needs to find a way to work with iCloud, as well as better sharing options, then it could truly be an app for all straight writing.
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