[ysleepy]

I like the article, but knowing they sell a polished plain text editor for 50 bucks makes the final conclusion less powerful.

I like iA Writer, but I don't think distraction free writing will solve our office problems.

PS: Also, fuck their AI bullshit, slop engine integration is so disgusting, I can't believe I've paid for this shit.

[reichenstein]

What slop engine integration? There is no slop engine integration. We do the very opposite. We separate between human and machine generated text, we are so careful about making sure that people know what they wrote and what they didn't that even make sure that you see when you spellchecked something with the help of Apple Intelligence. There's nothing to fuck or get angry about AFAIK, and I'm responsible for it.

[ysleepy]

You chose to pander to the slop flinging AI dullards so you can announce AI AI AI in 7.0.

Maybe we can enjoy the benefits of Electron in 8.0. At least then I can change the cursor color from the ugly cold blue. - You had to force your corpo branding on me while I'm writing didn't you.

[reichenstein]

I don't think your anger has anything to do with us. Your aggression sounds about as random as your rhetorical reference to Electron when we've been at the native app front for 15 years, or "why did I give them money?" when you were able to pay once and use our app without paying a subscription forever.

With AI also did the very opposite of what everybody else is doing. While everyone was integration ChatGPT calling it their AI we asked ourselves what would happen when everyone does that. We said: No to more money. We said no to AI integration. Instead, we drew a line that at that time literally no one drew.

That in contrast to iA Writer, in 2026, actual generative AI is everywhere, in every OS and every app... this is not a matter of pandering or whatever you may call it. It's a reality that we have to deal with. iA Writer is not an island, as a markdown app,, it is part of a process. Markdown goes from app to app as it should.

I think we did as good a job as we could, drawing a pragmatic line when no one did. Our goal is to make people think more, not less.

[ysleepy]

I don't know, could you imagine people doing human creative things could be annoyed being confronted by AI everywhere, the thing that is stealing from and destroying artists livelihood?

Yeah, maybe it is a gut reaction on my part.

Read your comment again and tell me that you fully believe in this feature and decided on it because it was important to your carefully crafted experience and human interaction design and not some compromise because everybody is doing it.

The marketing narrative is also jumbled, sorta derisive about artificial text, but telling people to make it their own. Is this the message you want to send? "Our text editor is for people passing off AI slop as their own by slightly rewriting it"?

Your choice of framing and center-staging this feature in the 7 release makes this distasteful.

[reichenstein]

You can find a fault and imperfection in everything if you really want to. I share your perspective in many ways, and my frustration is that no matter what we do, we get put in the same bad bucket with the very instances we have been battling forever.

I mean, what are you doing on Hackernews if you're a black-and-white AI guy? Look at the top page here: "AIAIAIAI".

Meanwhile, sooner or later, every post that points to us gets ghosted by the system (similar to Daring Fireball, as soon as you cross a threshold, the post gets hidden), who knows why, likely though we're perceived as too SV subversive or it may just be a bug. I am not writing this because I think anyone but you will see it, or because I think I'll change your mind. Just getting steam off my chest. I also take any critique as a critique that I haven't communicated clearly enough, but I still get frustrated and upset by such absurd diametral mischaracterizations sometimes, well, every single time this happens I get very annoyed.

Mostly, people understand where we come from. Even on social media, mostly they understood the last article. One guy thought he was clever framing it as "just an long boring ad from a competitor". Haha, "competitor"... Calling iA Writer a "competitor" of Word like calling "Hank's Special Brew" he makes in his garage a competitor of Heineken. I think that was one guy, and his idiot friend that agreed before he read the article. It still bothers me when I give my very best to be clear, entertaining, and as truthful as one can possibly be when you have a product you sell.

You're criticizing that we may have been too complex in our reasoning for V7? It fucking is a complex matter. No matter how much you want AI to just be a stealing operation... Hardly anything is fully black and white. AI and coding, f.i., are a much better match than I'd have expected. AI for writing much less. But not being a native speaker, it does help me with typos. To deal with reality means that you accept it first and then do what you can. This is what we did with V7. I am very proud of what we did there. It took courage, creativity, and determination.

After 15 years of mostly swimming against the stream, feedback like your initial one makes me fantasize about becoming like everybody else. "Flip the tables, switch sides, and float downstream for once, stop trying to do the right thing, and just make money, sell the whole thing, collect the ‘congrats,' and retire." I'm 55, fighting against windmills is not the healthiest thing.

I also know, however, that I am not swimming upstream because I am so heroic and tough. I just can't be a shameless opportunist to join the SV ranks. It makes me puke. It's against my nature. If our actions were motivated by pure virtue, I could calmly argue against it. Opposing power, for me, is not a conscious choice, it's who I have always been. In spite of all the complaining above, it kind of works, too. Now, if, who knows, against all odds, we do get a little slice of the part of the Swiss software cake that looks like it may be redistributed to a certain minor degree, let's say we get a handful of schools using our products, it would not be unironic (because I was the same relentless troublemaker in school that I am in tech), and yet not entirely undeserved.

[ysleepy]

Thank you for your frank words, you are right, we do agree on many things.

Sure, machine learning has its uses, but at the same time it will destroy the value of the written word. The web was already full of sub par, uninteresting, and even malicious text, but at least the price of admission was a human sitting down and writing it. In that sense as a reader I was at least connecting with another human being. Now that is gone.

You are measured by the standards you set. iA Writer is not a text editor, it is a design product, it sells an aesthetic. People aren't paying 50 bucks because it has all the features, they do it because they appreciate the process and value of writing, a human endeavour of mastery and creativity. Artists and Craftsmen enjoy thoughtful and focussed tools.

You are not the company, and the product isn't you. I as a rando commenting online don't have the obligation of moderating my rethoric to the extent of anticipating this sort of interaction.

Und scheiss auf die Leute im SV, jeder Aspekt ist dort eine Performance und das Leben selbst nur mittel zum Zweck.

[FinnLobsien]

I thought their nod to what they sell was extremely subtle. And I also don't think they'd seriously propose iA Writer as THE office solution for governments. That would be delusional.

[reichenstein]

Yes, subtle because one app is not the solution but using plaintext (likely with a light markup), splitting form and content is the way to go. And when we say that plain text is the way forward, this means that not one app is the solution but you're independent in your use of apps.

iA Writer is very well one very solid and proven solution for certain use cases. In fact, I would argue that, independent of what app you use, plaintext plus markup (with the right set of templates) is, methodically, economically and logically, a much more efficient solution than Word. And I'd even argue that it is more efficient in most government, school, NGO and corporate cases.

You may find that delusional. I'm certainly not delusional about the real challenge here. It is not what app you use, but the network of format and formatting expectations, and to make people change habits. After 15 years of trying to convince people to focus on content rather than form, we know very well just how incredibly hard it is to convince people and make them stay in what they enjoy more against everybody else.

[FinnLobsien]

Oh, I totally agree with this, and it's awesome to see you interact here. iA Writer is one of the favorite apps I have and I think your approach to building software is incredibly beautiful and more companies should do it this way.

I was responding specifically to a commenter who pretended as though the article was super promotional, which it isn't. I agree your proposition is the right way to transitioning away from MS Office.

Was just saying you're actually NOT proposing to get administrations on iA Writer as their default writing tool, as a prev. commenter was insinuating.