Simpletext

The best app ever! But Cyrillics support would make it even better.

If you just want to write something and save a digital copy, this is your app. The developer does admit that you should not expect to care what it looks like. If you want to do anything else with it, forget it. I got the app because I wanted to paste some text and print it from my iPad. Lo and behold there is no print function. I wanted something simple, but not something that looks like a homework project in an introductory app development project, especially for 10 bucks.

Thank you for this gorgeous app. It's really hard to find a minimal plain text editor for iOS that has native integration with the file system, beautiful design, and user experience. And this editor checks all the boxes.

I have been using Byword since 2017 for my day-to-day stuff on my iPhone, but recently noticed that it had not been updated for three years, which helped explain why it looked kinda wonky on my phone. So after spending way too long looking for an alternative, I finally found Simpletext, and I am very much in love with it. I even put it on my Mac, even tho I usually use Nisus on my Mac for text because of GREP. On my Mac, iPhone & iPad, the simpletext interface is clean with lovely typefaces. The responsiveness on screen on my new M2 macbook and my iPhone has that lovely relaxed, somehow cushioned, pace you have always seen on Macs vs Windows machines. I do miss in-line markdown formatting in simpletext, but I can live with that and it’s hardly fatal to my use case.

I used WriteRoom for years, but his hasn't been updated and has a few glitches. I have tried many of the "simple" distraction-free editors over the years, and never found one with the simplicity of WriteRoom. Indeed, the distraction free editors are now competing with each other by adding features which are, well, distracting. Well, I think I now have found the best true distraction-free text editor. Simpletext is great. Only comment is that it took a bit of tweaking to get the font size and colors right. White text on pure black background is a bit jarring, the text width is weirdly narrow, and the default font is verrryyyy small. But don't let these defaults put you off -- these can be adjusted. I am using the apple colors aluminum on lead, I think, with a readable font size. Memorize fn-F for full screen and you are off. Tweaking of defaults needed, but highly recommended.

I've tried a few distraction-free editors in the past couple weeks, trying to find one that clicked with me, but to no avail. They either tried to do too much (and thus counter-intuitively adding distractions) or they were saddled with hefty subscription fees that rival that of Office 365. Simpletext, on the other hand, does exactly what it says on the tin and is a one-time purchase of US$5 for all of the major Apple devices. There aren't many features there, but that's not to say that zero thought went into it. Every time I use it I'm floored by how the editor gets out of my way and *stays* out of my way. In the age of constant notifications, extreme feature creep, aggressive auto-updates, and constant pointless UI/UX refreshes, this feels like a breath of fresh air. Typewriter mode also deserves a huge round of applause. It's one of those features that I didn't know I needed until I used it. The best part about it is that unlike the old DOS editors, you can just as easily flip back to your desktop if you need to look something up, pop on some tunes, or send a quick message. Simpletext also does a fantastic job at leveraging the built-in macOS/iOS services. Unsure about the spelling of a word? You can use the OS level spellchecker with a quick ⌘;. Want to make sure you're using the right word? Right-click and "look up" or just tap ^⌘D. The truly best part about Simpletext is that its compiled code (which, mind you, supports two different CPU architectures) and its bundled fonts can fit on a high density floppy disk with room to spare. Simply magnificent. I think the only thing I'd like to see at some point are a couple more "line width" options. With the font size I like to use wide doesn't feel quite wide enough (particularly on smaller devices like my iPad). EDIT (2022-05-15): As promised in this review's initial response, Yeow Jin added additional line length and spacing settings. The "Ultra Wide" width setting works perfectly across all my devices when using my preferred font settings. Thank you! 😁

User Pro-tip. I love the light and dark mode screenshot examples they show here in the app listing screenshots. I wanted to set up my Simpletext app like it shows in them so I went to the Simpletext menu VIEW -> COLORS and for each field (background/text) I tap the swatches to get the color picker to show up and then tap the inkwell icon to choose a color on the screen to sample from. I just sampled the screenshots to get those exact colors into my Simpletext color settings. It is such a pleasure to use these colors instead of Apple’s hard light/dark mode defaults. I know this is a minimal app and I love it that way so I’m not saying “Add these color settings to the app” because that’s "too extra". But I want to share how I got the effect in my own app so people can do it too. Thank you for making this incredibly stunningly minimal typing app. p.s. TYPEWRITER MODE... this is a dream innovation from the past I'm so thankful you offer here. I regularly type on my 63' Ollivetti Lettera 22 and getting that typewriter mode feeling in here is such a pleasant surprise! CHEERS!

I had hoped to replace the notes app with this app because I am so sick of notes not sticking to just the text I am trying to copy and paste into it. This app does really great with this part of my situation. Unfortunately I found out after writing hundreds of notes within the app that I can’t do search for a word inside one of the files created in the same way I can in the notes app. It’s a great app, but I can’t use it if I can’t find what I am looking for later.

On the iPhone, screen space is limited, so, when a plain text app has line spacing that could have been smaller, without sacrificing readability, and hence can pack more lines on one page, it should try to maximise it. Comparing SimpleText with Paper, I was able to see only 28 lines on SimpleText versus 38 lines on Paper with the same font size per screen. In fact the Paper font size was a little bigger than the smallest extra small font size setting on Simpletext but yet it could display more lines. Cut the line spacing so that we can have more lines per screen. Many people read rather quickly so having to keep scrolling is a tad annoying. Finally it would be more productive to have the search button appear straightaway on top of the keyboard when the keyboard appears, instead of having to first click the hamburger. In fact, why have the hamburger when you can put all the selections (Preferences, Search, Copy All, Select All) right there in place of the hamburger? The extra step is really unnecessary. Edited: Thanks for the clarification. My bad. The typewriter mode was indeed turned on. Once I’ve turned it off, I was able to select text without problem. On the last point, perhaps you can allow users to select which shortcuts they want to place on the keyboard?

UPDATED REVIEW Updating the review because the bug I encountered seems to be an issue with Dropbox Integration on Dropbox’s end. I’ve tested SimpleText with iCloud and it doesn’t have the same issue with freezing and requiring a restart. That said, there are still too many things keeping me from loving this app. As mentioned before, the largest font size is simply too small. Maybe the app isn’t optimized for an iPad pro 12.9” screen, but I can’t be squinting all the time. The filesystem isn’t particularly intuitive either. Having to dismiss the keyboard and then swipe right to get back to the file selector isn’t an intuitive way to do it and I had to come here and search reviews to figure it out. Additionally, the inability to create a file with a specific filename is annoying. Sure, I can create the file on iCloud drive, go into the filesystem and change the name there, but that’s a pain. I fully appreciate this no-frills app, and think a few tweaks could make it much better. PREVIOUS REVIEW: For some reason, it seems impossible to find a simple plain text editor that works. Simpletext seemed like it would be that app, and it might’ve been if it worked. The biggest problem I had is that in the span of five minutes, the app froze twice requiring a restart of the iPad. All I was doing was typing. If the app can’t handle that, then I’m definitely not going to trust it with my work. I removed the app and won’t be using it. Shame I’m out the $5. That aside, the other issue is that the largest text option is too small. Even if the app had worked, that issue alone might’ve kept me from using it.