Scrivener for iOS, part 1: the meh

Later this week, Scrivener for iOS will be hitting the Apple Store. After years (and years) of holding out hope and using makeshift solutions, we will finally have Scrivener on the go. For Scrivener users, this is a great opportunity, something we’ve all longed for for a while. The last few months, I’ve had the privilege of being a beta tester for the app, so let me share some impressions. Today, I’m going to talk about the meh’s I experienced with the app.

The Meh

Breaking with tradition, but let’s start with the meh in order to get it out of the way right away. My device for testing was an old iPad 2. This is pre-retina, pre-bells, whistles, or features. It’s an iPad that has served me well, and with any luck will continue to do so for a long time. Scrivener for iOS was built for modern hardware, which could make it a little funky at times. Sometimes fonts are grainy (solvable by zooming, but you should be aware). While the app is by no means slow, there were occasions where it took a second to respond. Nothing repeatable, so the delay could have easily been in my imagination as on the screen.

Dropbox sync is great, but there are times it can be annoying too. If you start up the app already in a document and want to sync, but forget to completely exit the project, you will find yourself in a loop where it wants to exit the project to sync, but it only seems able to go back one level. So if you were in a sub-sub-sub folder, it could take a few tries before the app has backed out far enough that it can run the synch with dropbox. On the same note of synchronization, I have found the conflicting copy resolution to be iffy. Even when you resolve the conflict, if you don’t take steps to delete the files created because of the conflict it will just repeatedly warn you of conflicts. As I type this I realize that’s a bug I should have submitted. Ack.

Scrivener binder in iOSThere is no outline mode. If you work like I do, haphazardly and in no repeatable fashion, then you know being able to work with the outline is great for those times you have a quick idea you need to shove in, or you want to rearrange some things on the fly. It’s ironic, I know, that as a pantser I miss the outline feature, but while I don’t do outlines, I do use notes and structures. Being able to switch over to outline mode real quick to arrange things, or get a glimpse of structure, works for me in a way notecards and binder views don’t.

The biggest meh, though, is that it turns out typing on a screen is not ideal. Being an older iPad 2, external keyboards tend to show lag over bluetooth (even at my mediocre typing speeds, its noticeable when you type a paragraph and it doesn’t show up until 30s later). Screen typing is fine for quick edits, but for writing long blocks of text on the B.A.R.T., it was a pain. This was the first time I’d attempted long text blocks on the iPad in a long, long time, so this was as much my not enjoying the general experience as anything specific to Scrivener. I found it cumbersome and hard, and frankly, it slowed me down immensely to be tapping on glass to make words. I’d joke about first world problems, but since I’m complaining about writing software on a tablet, I’m pretty sure I’ve already passed that bar a long time ago.

These are my complaints, trivial as most of them are. Tomorrow, I will take post part two of this article, highlighting some of the features I think deserve a shout out. See you then!