At The Rumpus we were missing the typewriter. We felt we were more productive on a typewriter because we had to keep moving forward. If we made a mistake, we kept typing. If we wanted to rearrange the information, we had to start over. With the word processor we’ve lost some of that immediacy. It’s too easy to delete, to cut and paste. Sometimes that means we get bogged down when the key to finishing a piece of writing is so often to just keep going.
Why don’t we just make a typewriter for the iPad, we decided.
Typing Writer works just like your old typewriter. When you type over something, you still see the original letter underneath. When you reach the end of a line, if you dont manually go to the next line, the typewriter will go to the next line for you, even in the middle of a word! Press your finger on the page and a white-out brush appears. Brush over a letter or a word. There will still be a white splotch, of course. That’s how white-out works.
Typewriter sounds are included, but you can turn them off if you prefer. If you’re like us you’ll realize you like leaving them on, just to hear the bell letting you know you’re coming to the end of a line. After you’ve typed your draft it’s easy to export and open in any word-processing software.
Typing Writer shows that we don’t have to sacrifice the benefits and enjoyment of old systems every time we improve them.