I use bulleted lists for organizing my ideas and outlining. It’s a basic writing function and yet not supported by this $24 app. Totally unacceptable.

It’s about time scrivener updates their writing app. Along with knowing page numbers (as an option), but also adding a grammar checking feature like Ulysses, templates, and a more in-depth research feature. The macOS app also allows you to see two documents at once…maybe allowing for split view compatibility is a good middle ground? I love using this app but right now, as a writer, I need more.

My only two complaints with Scrivener on the iPad is that there is no way to customize the default text styles, and they don’t have a sepia theme. The second one is obviously a minor preference, not really an issue with the app at all. But it’s an excellent writing app overall, with all the basic functionality you could need in a long-form writing app and none of the unnecessary frills that ultimately slow you down and distract you. I’ve used Scrivener off and on for years on desktop PC, but I always felt it was kind of clunky and hard to deal with. I got an iPad a couple of months ago and decided to try its condensed version of Scrivener. With a lot of the unnecessary features removed, it’s super quick and easy to use compared to the desktop version. It’s also much nicer to look at compared to the desktop version, which removes the subconscious discomfort of working with a less-than-pleasing workspace and actually makes it enjoyable to work with. The only thing I can think to improve are the aforementioned default text style customization and adding a sepia theme.

why the app doesn’t support any sync options other than itunes and dropbox baffles the mind, and really keeps it from being a better app

The functionality is sort of there but the user interface is so clunky. Why can’t you save a project to dropbox AND your ipad at the same time? Why can’t you copy a document between projects? Why do you have to tap so many times on different options to do something so basic? Why does it just lose your document when it won’t sync to dropbox? Truth is the app is dead there aren’t any new updates the developer was lazy and without drag and drop and being reliable DON’T BOTHER.

The continued lack of syncing to iCloud means even with a powerful iPad documents are trapped. The lack of syncing keeps me from using the desktop version as well. Just a waste. With Dropbox now having questionable AI policies, means that the available method of syncing can’t be trusted. They will have your documents ingested into their LLM before you even finish them.

I really enjoy working in scrivener. It’s good for almost everything and I tend to work better in scrivener but other things. But occasionally I have to use other apps (e.g. to get feedback from someone—this is really a google doc type thing because you want your in line comments and fluid working on the cloud). So I copy paste into google docs. Why is there no clean way to copy paste back? On any other app, I would be able to copy paste back and keep all my formatting. Scrivener forces you to choose between keeping googles ugly text formatting and losing all your italics. Why can’t I just copy paste like normal, keeping all the normal formatting you expect to keep (italics, bold—your basic markup stuff) while not getting the actual font and font size from a web page—those things are always going to be different. I just want it to be the same font as everything else, but with its markup preserved. Why is this not a possibility in scrivener? I write best on my tablet, no clue why. I shouldn’t have to go to my laptop and launder it through a rich text editor just to copy paste back into scrivener.

Lost my work during syncing one too many times. I’ll stick to desktop.

I love Scrivener on the Mac. Scrivener on the iPad is good as a standalone tool with a reasonable subset of the features from the Mac. BUT… the syncing between Mac and iPad is very unreliable in my experience. I’m constantly running into conflicts or having scenes just disappear. And that’s even when I try to wait to make sure that Dropbox has had time to update. Not sure if it’s my project (a longish book with about 100 scenes) that is giving me so much trouble, but it makes me not want to use the iPad app. Real bummer because I love Scrivener and really like Lit & Latte.

Scrivener’s the best software I ever bought. Wrote three books on it! And don’t think I could have done it otherwise. The ability to have different sections and folders in the same document is extremely useful. And to be able to do easy splitscreen editing. Especially useful for organizing research and turning it into a draft. So yeah, great purchase :)