Drafts Gets Even More Amazing, Is Now On iPad, And We Have Extra Copies!
Back in April, Drafts for iPhone came out and changed everything. Drafts became my go-to method of jotting down quick notes, witty Tweets, article drafts, ideas, and whatever else I could throw at it. It quickly became one of my most favorite apps, and has rightfully earned its place in my iPhone’s Dock. I like to call it “The Launch Center of Text.”
When Drafts first came out, it was already pretty strong with great features, such as Markdown support, Terminology Ph integration, word and character count, and lots of actions, such as tweeting, email (plain text or Markdown), copy the text and dump it into a third party writing app, or even view a live Markdown preview.
Then, several weeks after the app was released, Agile Tortoise continued to refine the app even more, bringing new actions, more sharing options, and even landscape support. And now, here we are at version 2.0 for the iPhone.
So what’s new in 2.0? Quite a few things, actually.
The app has gotten an even more polished interface, with several tweaks to all graphic elements and icons. There are even some fantastic new fonts (FF Tisa, FF Celeste Sans, and Inconsolata) for your writing pleasure. And with a full screen viewing mode for the current draft or the list of drafts or actions, you shouldn’t feel too cramped anymore with only half a screen for both.
One of my favorite new features, though, is the “Link” mode. When this mode is enabled (give that chain icon a tap), all phone numbers, addresses, and URLs in your drafts become tappable. Now you can instantly dial a number from within Drafts, or get directions to an address.
Have you ever had a moment where you jot down some thoughts but felt that it would be better off as being added to a file rather than starting a completely new document in your Dropbox? Now you can “Append to Dropbox,” where it will append the text of a current draft to a “Journal.txt” file within your Dropbox. It’s similar to the Append action found in Scratch, but not quite the same.
More third-party app actions were added, including Phraseology, Writing Kit, Threadnote, and Appigo Todo. Now there are even more apps in a growing collection that you can send your drafts off to, which is great news for everyone.
Another huge addition to Drafts is Simperium Sync. Once you create a free account and use it to sync, all of your drafts, actions, and settings will be available and in-tact on multiple iDevices.
Wait, what’s that? Multiple iDevices? Does that mean …?
Yes! Drafts is now also available for the iPad as a separate app for $2.99.
The iPad version will contain all of the goodness that you love from the iPhone version, but in an iPad optimized interface. It will also have a keyboard extension with shortcuts for undo/redo, navigating the cursor, Markdown syntax, and other commonly used symbols.
The full change log for Drafts:
What’s New
Drafts for iPad now available (sold separately, $2.99), Drafts 2.0 is a free upgrade, and continues to be priced at $1.99.
Lightning fast cloud sync between devices based on the Simperium platform.
Great fresh look, with new custom fonts action icons and more.
Time before a new draft is auto-created when returning to Drafts is now configurable, or can be complete disabled in Settings.
Swipe down on the toolbar to show your draft full screen for reading.
“Link” mode enables links for phone numbers, addresses and web links captured in your drafts.
Swipe up on the toolbar to give the full screen to the list of drafts or actions for easier selection.
“Delete” action to delete the current draft.
“Append to Dropbox” action append text of current draft to a “Journal.txt” file in your Dropbox.
More app actions including Phraseology, Writing Kit, Threadnote, Appigo Todo.
If you have already been using Drafts for your iPhone, grab the update for free. New customers can get Drafts for iPhone for $1.99, and the iPad version is $2.99 in the App Store.
GIVEAWAY: As a treat for our loyal AppAdvice readers, we have teamed up with Agile Tortoise and have some codes to giveaway! I have two copies for the iPhone version, and one copy of the iPad version that are up for grabs. For your chance of winning a copy, please leave a comment on this post (with a valid email so that I may contact the winner) with which version you’d like to receive, and how you will use Drafts. I’m leaving this giveaway open until Thursday, Aug. 23 at 8 p.m. PDT. Good luck!