Writing Apps

Product Hunt recently had a list of writing apps that I found to be pretty interesting.

There are a few trends that seem to be driving the future of writing (and publishing) on the web. They are AI and command line UI. 

Artificial Intelligence is being used to help us write better. New tools are popping up to help us write more concisely, check our grammar, or give you insights into tone. We are just at the start of the AI revolution, and I expect more and more tools to pop up over the next year or so to help us write more clearly. Interestingly, I haven’t seen many plugins for Google Docs or Gmail, which seems to be where a lot of writing takes place in schools and business. The most powerful writing tools are the ones that get used. With the rise of bots I expect more and more AI writing tools to become available via integrations with Slack and other messaging platforms.

Many of the new writing tools that are coming out feel like a command line. These apps are focused on paring down everything except a blank area for you to create in, and they look a lot like the tools used by developers. From rough draft to papier, developers are ripping out functionality in favor of simplicity. The command line UI provides the writer with a distraction free environment where the only thing that matters is writing and adding text. With the distractions of social media, email, and the endless wormhole that is the internet, having a dedicated user interface that does just one thing is incredibly powerful.