iA Writer for iPad has been popular as a distraction-free writing app, and I’ve been looking forward to the Mac version. Now that it’s finally here, read on to find out whether it’s worth your money or not.

Writer is distraction-free in the truest sense of the term; it doesn’t even have a preferences window. You can’t change the font size, the font, or really anything else. The app is completely unapologetic about this, too; you either like it, or you don’t. But even though it doesn’t come with a lot of features, the ones it does have are well-implemented.

Writer showing Focus Mode and Auto Markdown

Most of the features from the iPad app are present in the Mac version, such as Focus Mode, which dims out everything except the current sentence, and Reading Time, which provides an estimate of how long it would take someone to read through what you’ve written. One of the new features that isn’t in the iPad version is Auto Markdown, which automatically formats text written in Markdown, in effect making it somewhat of a semantic text editor. This is a boon for web writers, as Markdown makes it easy to convert text to valid HTML.

Writer’s interface is one of my favorite things about it. The title bar is black and fades in and out, like QuickTime X’s. The scrollbar also fades in and out, like on iOS or Lion. In effect, all you see once you start typing is your text, and I love that. However, since this is a 1.0 release, there is some interface weirdness. For one, the dot that appears in the close button to let you know there are unsaved changes is always there, even right after you save, which kind of defeats the purpose. Another thing is that the title bar is black in focused windows, but in unfocused windows, it has the default “slate” appearance.

iA Writer is available in the Mac App Store for an introductory price of $18, which is 10 percent off. Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about the price. You don’t get many features, and you can’t even change the font size. Plus, the iPad version is $5 and offers almost all of the same things. But I have to say, writing with Writer is a pleasure. Something about making that funky cyan-colored cursor move across the screen makes me happy, and that’s worth the $18 to me. Whether it’s worth it to you depends on how much you trust yourself to focus.

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I’ve laid down a few criteria. To be considered, an app must easily sync or transfer natively with a cloud service (I’m assuming you’re going to be doing the bulk of your writing at home, and the iPad is the “writing at lunch” option). Since the goal for NaNo is to churn out 50,000 words, the app should have a word count feature, although there are two notable exceptions to this rule that made the cut. Finally, the app needs to be able to work both on- and offline.

I’m going to make a few observations on my time with each program, and you’ll see which I prefer. If word counts aren’t all that important to you, check out our roundup of office suite apps here.

Pages ($9.99): Pages is the best option if you’re also using iWork and have a MobileMe subscription. Pages for the iPad can natively save and download via MobileMe iDisk, but not Dropbox. Pages on the iPad is my choice when what I’m writing needs to look professional. It gets my nod as a NaNo candidate because it has a word count feature, is stable, and easily transfers documents via MobileMe.

Documents to Go ($9.99): Documents to Go connects to darn near anything: iDisk, Dropbox, Google Docs, and Box.net. One thing I’ve never liked about Docs to Go is the lack of margins on each side of the screen. I’m just so used to them that it messes up my mojo when they’re not there.

Elements ($4.99): Elements is a pretty neat program that automatically syncs with your Dropbox\elements folder on launch and exit. It’s just a plain text editor, but for NaNo that’s all you need; in fact, almost all my writing is done in plain text these days. The app is also universal, so you can write on your iPhone, too.

PlainText (Free): PlainText is the one of two exceptions to the word count requirement. The reason for this is when PlainText syncs to Dropbox, it’s the only current one I’ve seen that allows for subfolders in its Dropbox directory. This is important because the NaNo version of Scrivener for OS X that was just released (currently a preview copy; goes on sale Nov. 1) allows you to sync Scrivener projects to a Dropbox folder. Because each project in synced into its own folder, PlainText can then access the file for editing. When you load Scrivener, it imports the changes. Scrivener is my daily driver for writing. Almost everything I write goes through Scrivener, so the ability to write on the road with PlainText and easily get the edits back into Scrivener is a bonus.

Simplenote (Free): This is the second exception to the word count rule. While at its core, Simplenote is a note taking app, it’s also a handy way to throw gobs of text around different applications. Now, I’m not going to suggest you crank out all 50k words in Simplenote. However, since it syncs between all your iDevices and a web portal, it’s a fantastic way to bang out copy on your commute, sync it to the web portal and cut and paste it into your active document.

iPad Writing Tips and Tricks

I had a day recently where not much writing was done. In the Good Intentions category, I planned on writing while watching the first game of the World Series using my iPad on the couch. Yeah, right.

Writing on the iPad I’ve found requires more attention to ergonomics than a laptop. A laptop I can sit in my recliner and type with, but I’ve had poor success with that using my iPad. I have the best success with propping the iPad up, either with a pillow in a comfy chair or in bed. On a hard surface, I have much better results, even just using the virtual keyboard. I’ve banged out a few thousand words using the virtual keyboard when I’ve had to.

While it may seem redundant, I also keep my Apple Bluetooth keyboard in my bag. I’m considering getting either a Scosche folio case, or the Compass iPad stand. I’ve found the Apple case is okay for typing in landscape mode, but it’s useless if I want to prop it up to use an external keyboard — it’s just way too tippy. The Apple keyboard is great for when I really need to bang out some prose but don’t want to lug my MacBook with me.

Now you’re armed for NaNoWriMo, but that doesn’t make the task any less intimidating. The only way to do it is to dive in and give it your best shot.

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You can use your own backgrounds with a simple hack, though. Basically, you just replace the background images OmmWriter uses with your own, and then choose between them within the app. This can be useful if you don’t like the backgrounds bundled with OmmWriter, or if you want to use an image of your blog, so you can see what your text will look like when it’s published, like this guy did here.

To do this, go to your Applications folder and select OmmWriter. Then, right-click it and select Show Package Contents. There are three default background images used in the free version of OmmWriter, with names “background_white.jpg”, “paisaje_1920x1200.jpg”, and “textura_oscuro_1920x1200.jpg”. Choose which file you want to replace and move it to the trash (don’t worry, you can always drag it out again). Now you need to rename the image you want to use as a replacement with the name of the image you removed. Then, all you have to do is drag your replacement image into the OmmWriter Resources folder and that’s it. When you restart OmmWriter, you should be able to choose your new background image.

Your replacement background image will have to be a JPEG. Since you can’t change the color of the text in OmmWriter, you’ll want to choose an image that’s light enough for you to see the text. You can find some good images from InterfaceLift, and you can always change the opacity of the picture with your favorite photo editing software if you need to lighten it up.

You can also use this method to replace some of the audio files OmmWriter uses for ambiance. OmmWriter is a great app for writers looking to boost their productivity, and this nifty little hack should help you get even more in the zone. Does anyone else use these distraction-free writing tools?

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I solved this problem by defining for myself what Serious Writing was.

Back in my printing days, projects had three stages: pre-production, production, and post production. After mulling my quest over, I realized most of my writing falls into this as well. Pre-production is the point where you have your feet up on the window sill watching the birds and truthfully answer, “Why, yes, dear, I really am working. Why?” You don’t even need an iPad for this; pen and paper is probably the best choice anyway. Post production is where you get your writing into final form. You format it to meet your publisher’s requirements; get it into that godawful corporate template you loathe; or maybe drop it into a web-based CMS system for publishing. Most likely, the iPad isn’t ideal for this, either.

[inline-ad align="right"]However, the production portion is where the iPad can come in quite handy. The production stage is where I feel Serious Writing happens: the act of simply putting one word after the other. I am a big fan of Merlin Mann’s Making the Clackity Noise article, and the iPad helps me make the noise.

OK, before I go any further, I’m not for a minute suggesting an iPad is a suitable replacement for a laptop, desktop, typewriter or quill pen. However, I am finding the iPad is a decent balance of portability and functionality. While the debate over whether the iPad is a content creation or content consumption device will be everlasting, I’m willing to bet most of your every day writing can be done on an iPad. Working on that Executive Summary for your report on a crowded train? The iPad is great in cramped writing conditions. I’ve gotten work done in doctor’s offices, coffee shops, commuter trains, waiting for a conference session to start, and sometimes while I’m curled up on my comfy chair working while watching the Red Sox cough up a five run lead in the ninth inning. While at least 80 percent of my time spent with the iPad is consuming content, I love that I can keep current projects with me to work on when I need to.

That’s not to say it’s all beer and pretzels. The on-screen keyboard isn’t at all ideal. If I know I’m in for an extended writing session I’ll throw the Apple bluetooth keyboard in my bag. Getting files to and from the iPad is a needless pain. If your work requires heavy footnoting or citations, you’re pretty much hosed. I’ll often put the proper MLA citation in there, and link it to Endnote on OS X later. If I’m footnoting something on the iPad, I’ll cheat and put the whole footnote as a parenthetical (1 – Diet Coke tasted much better cold) and later in OS X Pages I’ll use the footnote command and paste the note in.

How exactly have I integrated the iPad to my work flow?

Outside of accepting the limitations of the platform, the big decision I made was deciding on a program I felt excelled at the “getting writing done” part of the process, and accepting the hassles of file transfers. After giving all them of more than careful consideration, I chose Pages to do my work. It doesn’t have parts I use a lot, like word counts, but I liked the writing interface (the file browser is kind of a mess) and felt it met my needs. Which is a nice way of saying it didn’t crash on me. To aid in file transfers, I just use the iWork.com beta since I also use Pages on OS X. While the other writing programs excelled at using cloud services, I felt they let me down when I wanted to get actual work done.

Nowadays, most of what I write passes through the iPad. The fiction projects I’m working on all have current versions on the iPad. This article was written predominately on the iPad, if for no other reason than to eat my own dog food. Sure, the post production stuff all happens off the iPad. This post was edited on WordPress in Firefox. A fiction manuscript will receive the proper editing and formatting in OS X. If I’ve kludged citation management on the iPad, I’ll fix it then.

The biggest reason I write on the iPad? It’s always with me. I want to have an excuse to write; not use a missing tool as an excuse not to write.

At first, I resisted getting the dock, opting instead for the Apple iPad case. When using the iPad in the case, it is possible to set the iPad on its edge and use the bluetooth keyboard to type. Possible, but not elegant. The case is malleable and unstable, so while the case can balance the iPad on its edge, to interact with the touch interface still requires both hands. If you don’t use one hand to steady the iPad, the first time you try to tap on a word in Pages you’ll knock your iPad onto its back. I’ve done this more than once and it makes a sickening sounding “whack” noise.

The case isn’t all bad. Using the case in its other, more stable position, laying down with the small edge at the back, lifts the iPad up to a perfect reading angle, and a good angle to type using the software keyboard. Once you try to use the bluetooth keyboard at this angle though, it becomes much more awkward, since the screen is sitting farther back.

There is no way to dock the iPad while it’s in the case, but sliding it out of the case is fairly easy. The dock is small, and at first I was worried about how stable the iPad would be resting in it. It turns out that its much more stable than I expected. The dock is surprisingly heavy and solid, reassuringly so, and most importantly it doesn’t distract with worry about the iPad tipping over like it does with the case.

I’m not convinced that the Apple dock is the best stand for the iPad, but I am convinced of the usefulness of the dock for the purpose of writing. Combining the dock with a bluetooth keyboard and Pages is one of the most elegant and relaxing writing experiences I’ve ever had. I’m looking forward to many long hours with this setup.

I’d love to hear your opinion on the case, the dock, or the software keyboard. Let me know your favorite way to interact with the iPad in the comments!

I did have an iPad-sized hole in my life. For me, a MacBook is weighty overkill. I have two jobs: the corporate-level one that pays the bills and my writing gig where I blog, freelance, and work on personal projects. The day job comes with its own Windows laptop that I lug around. I try to maintain a separation between the corporate job and personal work, so there’s very little in the way of personal data on the work machine. My commute is almost four hours round-trip. Most of it’s on a train, but if I wanted to write, I’d need the MacBook with me.

For personal work, my needs are modest. I need to write, research ideas, and read a book or watch a video. Simply put, I just need a tool to let me put words down. I don’t care about how they look when I’m composing on the iPad; just want to get them out of my head and onto what passes for paper for these days.

Productivity

A month in, I find Pages whelming. I felt Pages was about one patch from elevating itself from “merely OK” to “good,” and the 1.1 patch did that with support for landscape toolbars. I find myself to be fairly proficient with the virtual keyboard. While I am clearly faster and more accurate with an external keyboard, the iPad doesn’t seem to handle swapping between virtual and physical keyboards well, so I tend to stay with the iPad’s.

What I wasn’t expecting is, even at home, I prefer to write on the iPad. I think it comes down to a fantastic screen and, oddly, the single-tasking nature of the device. Pages gives me enough of a distraction-free environment that I can focus on writing.

For an in-depth look at Pages for Mac, view Pages 101 (subscription required).

I’m going to be giving a talk in a month or so, and as much as I try and tell myself I can do it on the iPad, the fact is, I can’t. While I tend to use my own fonts for my talks, I can design an effective presentation for the iPad using stock fonts, but I don’t want to be chained to the podium with no remote control.

The presentation issue pales to getting files to and from the iPad. Original rumors hinted of some sort of a shared-pool for files, but that never came true. Instead, each app still has files isolated to its own sandbox. You can use iTunes to transfer files into the sandboxes, but it’s a pain. Since there’s no true syncing, I can’t really work on a file on a desktop and get it back to the iPad without feeling like I’m playing a shell game. My ideal solution would be to have a Documents version of Photos. Apps could read and write to that sandbox to their heart’s content and there would be  OS-level integration of MobileMe iDisk.

These issues, while frustrating, don’t make me regret my decision to buy the iPad at all. I’m getting more done with the device, so that’s a win

Recreation

Like most writers, I read. A lot. I probably read about 30-40 books a year, not counting assigned reading for class and the like. I also am somewhat of a magazine junky. The iPad is indispensable for consuming this type of media.

Amazon’s Kindle app and Apple’s iBooks are both fine readers. Amazon’s selection is better, but I like the flexibility in iBooks’s presentation; the ability to change the order of my library is huge. However, when I’m researching, Amazon’s note tool wins out.  One small thing iBooks does is tell me how many pages are left in a chapter. That’s great for reading in bed and deciding if I want to commit to the next chapter.

I find the Zinio app fine for reading magazines. Recent updates have significantly improved page load times. As with the Amazon app, my chief complaint is not being able to arrange the library the way I want it. Deleting magazines seems undoable, also. I’d love an archive feature like the Kindle’s. I have a few subscriptions that thoughtfully provide DRM-free PDFs and GoodReader is my choice for reading them.

3G vs Wi-Fi

This was one of the hardest decisions I made regarding the iPad. In the end, I chose the Wi-Fi because it was out sooner. A close family member was having some major surgery and hospital stay before the 3G came out. I’d had some luck using the iPhone during a previous hospital visitation, but knew the iPad would be better. I also knew I’d be weak and keep the $30 data plan going and didn’t want the expense. While there have been times I wished the iPad had always-on Internet, I don’t regret my decision.

Final Thoughts

A month later, like my iPhone, the iPad is a device I rarely leave the house without. Its excellent battery life means I don’t need to worry about charging out. A heavy night of writing, surfing and game playing barely takes 30 percent of the battery. I like that I can get a creative idea and be writing it in less than 30 seconds. I do see an anti-glare film in my immediate future. It’s almost unusable outside, and a frequent place I use it has a fluorescent light directly overhead.

How about you? One month later, what are your thoughts?

If you’ve ever harbored the desire to write for the silver screen and tried to do something about it, you’ll already know about Final Draft, the showbiz industry’s favorite scriptwriting software.

Everyone in Hollywood uses it; Studio Execs, beleaguered Producers, hot-shot directors… even Michael Bay uses it, but don’t let that last one put you off. If you use Final Draft, you’ll be in the company of James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro and Richard Donner. JJ Abrams is quoted saying, “Even if you don’t own a computer, I recommend buying Final Draft.”

The company behind Final Draft — also called Final Draft — has crammed an impressive array of tools and functionality into version eight. In fact, there’s so much functionality that for novice users it can seem daunting getting to grips with it.

The good news is that it’s really quite easy to get started with Final Draft, particularly if you have some idea of how movie or TV scripts are constructed. And even if you don’t, Final Draft makes the learning process so smooth it’s really just part of your work flow. The software keeps your work in order, properly formatted, properly structured, yet never gets “in the way.”

There is a mountain of goodness packed into this release. So much, in fact, it’s beyond the scope of this review, but here’s a quick rundown of the highlights.

Templates

If you’re unsure of how to structure your script, you can use one of over 50 television and movie templates bundled with the application. There are dozens more available on the Final Draft website, too, though the assumption is that you are a naughty software thief so you must provide a valid customer number before you can download them.

Templates come in many of flavors, including movie scripts...

...TV shows...

...Graphic Novels...

...and even good old fashioned manuscripts.

Smart Element Formatting

The single greatest feature in Final Draft is its intelligent and intuitive element formatting. The software watches what you type and anticipates what you are doing next. With only the tiniest bit of learning, you’ll find yourself zooming through scripts faster than Stephen King can knock-out novels.

Smart Elements pop-up works a lot like IntelliType

Speech

Final Draft lets you assign the Mac OS X system voices to the characters in your script, and have them read-aloud. Ask any writer — there is enormous value in hearing another voice read your dialogue back at you!

Choose which character gets which voice...

...then hit play!

Scene Tools

Brand new Scene Navigator and Scene View tools provide handy ways to view, structure and manage your script without scrolling through a hundred or so pages every time you need to check scene order, or remind yourself exactly when it was your characters fell into that trash compacter… Was it before or after your hero blasted the controls to extend the bridge?

File Format

A new file XML-based file format improves compatibility with modern productivity software and other script-writing tools.

And more…

Also packed-in to version eight is improved page formatting and counting, workspace management, powerful production features for preparing a finished script for distribution or revision, a neat new toolbar and an apology from Final Draft for selling a copy to Michael Bay. (OK, that last one is a lie. But if you’ve cringed at the dialogue in Tranformers, you know that man owes us all. Big time.)

Just as a professional graphic artist can’t get far without learning Photoshop, anyone who’s serious about screenwriting should have a copy of Final Draft.

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Below is a roundup of weather apps for the iPhone, with features ranging from video forecasts to airport delays.

AccuWeather (FREE)

Features: Video forecasts, Radar, Severe Weather Alerts, and Weather Indices

This app’s user interface was by far my favorite, but at times it still felt a bit flawed. AccuWeather should have integrated typical iPhone gestures into the application as I often found myself wanting to swipe or enlarge something, only to discover that those features had not been implemented.

Despite this app’s shortcomings, AccuWeather still impresses me by the plethora of weather and climate information it provides. I love when things give me more than I need, it doesn’t matter what the product is. If I get more than I asked for, I am a happy customer, and AccuWeather sees to this.

One of my favorite features is its risk monitoring system, which breaks down severe weather conditions (rain, ice, fog, wind, etc.) and shows the chance of each of them happening over the course of the next 8 hours. Another feature that set AccuWeather apart was its indices feature, which shows UV, Air Quality, Flu, and Arthritis indexes for the day.

Weatherbug (FREE)

Features: Severe Weather Alerts, Weather Cameras, Radar, and Maps

I’ve always been a fan Weatherbug’s desktop variants, and was pleased to find that the iPhone version was comparable. Weatherbug has all the typical bells and whistles you would expect from a weather app, with a few extras, one of which is a real-time wind tracking, which is updated every few seconds, showing wind speed and direction. I don’t fly many kites or participate in many nautical activities, but I still find this to be a cool feature. It has the simplicity of Apple’s Weather app, but with a few extras, and unlike other free weather apps, it isn’t ad-supported.

The Weather Channel (FREE)

Features: Location-based Forecasts, Radar, Severe Weather Alerts, Video Forecasts, and Traffic Cameras

Being the No. 1 free weather app in the App Store comes with a bit of scrutiny. But what can I say? They are The Weather Channel, and they know what they’re doing.  This app doesn’t give any more information than the Weather Channel web site, but it’s great to have such information at your fingertip while on the go.  The map feature of this app uses Google Maps with a live update of radar, clouds, temperature, precipitation and UV index.  I have very few complaints about this app, but my biggest is the large banner ad on top of the application. I understand that it’s a free app and they have to make money, but it’s a bit obtrusive at times.

Weathereye (FREE)

Features: Weather Alerts, Hourly forecasts, Traffic Information & Cameras, and Radar

This app is brought to you by The Weather Network, which is a Canadian company. Therefore, this app doesn’t have many of the smaller U.S. towns and cities. Regardless, I still liked it. It’s very similar to Apple’s Weather app in that it is as easy as “swiping” your finger across to switch locations. However, like many of its counterparts, Weathereye is ad-supported.

This app does a great job of covering Canada as well as larger U.S. towns and cities. If you live in rural America…sorry, you’re out of luck.

Pascal Dreer: AeroWeather (FREE)

Features: Altitude, Wind Speed/Direction, Sunrise/Sunset Times, Location Awareness, and Runway Reports

I have dabbled in aviation in the past, and have always found it interesting. In the end, my pursuit of aviation was a short-lived one. When I was up there, I could only imagine how crucial knowing the weather could be — literally life or death.

Pascal Dreer took this into consideration by giving us AeroWeather, an iPhone weather app designed with aviation in mind. AeroWeather is a full-service app that displays wind speed/direction, altitude, sunrise/sunset times, runway reports and more. This is the perfect weather app for anyone in the aviation field.

NavClock (99 cents)

Features: Displays Time/Location, Elevation, Coordinates, and Zulu time for aviation

I like this weather app simply because it displays an exorbitant amount of information in an easy-to-read way. There’s no complicated user interface, no gestures, just a page of information, some of which is fairly irrelevant most of the time. Skipping the bells and whistles of other weather apps, this one leaves little to be desired. One feature I would like to see in upcoming versions would be the ability to customize the way NavClock displays the information.

Deluxeware Weather ($2.99)

Features: Wind Direction/Speed, Local Time, “Actual Feel” Temperature, UV index, Dew Point, Visibility, and Humidity.

Deluxeware Weather is a pretty basic app for the weather genre. That means no radar, no maps, no airport delays, or wind direction/speed. What it does have is all of your basic weather information, such as 7- and 14-day forecasts, current time, the “actual feel” temperature outside and UV index.

Weather Pro ($3.99)

Features: Location Awareness, Wind Speed/Direction, Radar, and Satellite Images

When released last October, Weather Pro had more than its fair share of bugs, many of which seem to be fixed now. This app did crash on me a couple of times, while the other apps in this list did not. However I kept coming back and retrying Weather Pro. What brought me back to it time and time again were the small things, such as a great-looking interface, 3-hour climate monitor and up-to-date wind speeds for all locations. So for $3.99, I suggest giving this one a try.

Fizz Weather ($5.99)

Features: Landscape Forecast Mode, Sunset/Sunrise, Radar, Wind Speed/Direction, Barometer, Visibility, and UV Indices

There were three main features in Fizz that set it apart from its competition. One of those was the slick user interface, the other was the creator’s decision to include reported and predicted airport delays. The third feature that appealed to me was Fizz’s landscape mode. If your iPod touch or iPhone is turned sideways, you have the ability to browse through several informative charts and graphs displaying weather-related information, which was a huge plus.

Overall this is a decent, feature-heavy weather app, however there are a few shortcomings. As most of these weather apps have a built-in radar feature, I found Fizz Weather’s to be the most lacking, which is surprising for one of the more expensive apps.

My Weather Mobile ($6.99)

Features: Radar, Wind Speed/Direction, Landscape Mode, and Satellite View

The term “perfect” has earned a certain point of exclusivity in my vocabulary. When I saw the rave reviews this app got in the App Store, I was a bit skeptical. Surprisingly, it lives up to every expectation and is as close to perfect as it could be. This app comes in as the most expensive of this lot, but I will say that as far as paid apps go, it’s easily among the more feature-rich.  In fact, it may just have everything you could ask for with a weather app.  The full-screen radar and 36-hour trend graphs are extremely beneficial.  The graphs are by far one of the greatest features of this application, as they are the powerhorse behind My Weather Mobile’s information.  There are graphs for total precipitation, estimated/active precipitation, UV index and more.

Like any iPhone App genre, there are hundreds of options, costing anywhere from small fortunes to nothing. There isn’t necessarily a right or wrong choice as far as choosing a weather application, rather ask yourself which app would be more suitable for your situation.  But since it’s also hard not to choose favorites, I find myself using Navclock quite often as a desktop weather and clock solution, and I tend to use Fizz Weather and My Weather Mobile while on the go.  I love the information My Weather Mobile provides, yet Fizz’s sleek interface keeps bringing me back for more.

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The game belongs to the Brothers in Arms franchise, which began with Gearbox Software’s 2005 title Road to Hill 30. The Brothers in Arms series is set in WWII, and console and PC versions feature first-person shooter gameplay mechanics. Hour of Heroes, developed, by gameloft, who also brought the series to the Nintendo DS, is a third-person over-the-shoulder shooter and finally escapes the single-track, limited character control found in similar games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

You can move about freely in the world of Hour of Heroes, though thankfully tilt control is not used for this purpose. Instead, a control disc appears on the lower left side of the game screen (the game is played in landscape mode, as you can see in the screenshots). Sliding your left thumb around this control disc allows you to move your character through the environment. Touching the screen anywhere where there is no interface button provides aiming and look control. Buttons along the side and at the top allow you to fire, interact with objects and vehicles, and change weapons. You can also reload and control grenade tosses using tilt, and zoom with your scope using multi-touch gestures. It’s one of the most complete, intuitive, and well thought out control schemes available on any iPhone/iPod touch game.

The intro movie is a tad misleading, when it comes to in-game graphics. It looks more like a trailer for one of the Brothers in Arms console titles than an introduction to Hour of Heroes. Still, in-game graphics compare favorably to most iPhone titles. Sound is well done too, and although there is no audio track for story dialogue, a few stock phrases sprinkled throughout the action go a long way towards enhancing the game’s atmosphere.

I was surprised at how easy the game was to pick up and play. The tutorial level gives you a really good introduction to the controls, and to your character’s abilities. And I got to blow stuff up right away! By the time the second level began, I felt like a seasoned pro, and possibly for the first time with an iPhone game, I was focused more on the game itself than on the medium.

If you’re looking for an example of what the iPhone and iPod touch are really capable of as gaming devices, especially insofar as they can appeal to core as well as casual gamers, look no further than Brothers in Arms: Hour of Heroes. You can get it now in the App Store for $9.99.

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Scrivener is billed as the only word processor that will help you do everything from the very first idea you have to the final draft. I find it easier to think of it as word processing on steroids. But it isn’t really a word processor, and Keith, the developer is the first to point out often that you will need a different word processor if you want to have a final printable draft of your work. You can do so much more (and so much easier) with Scrivener than Pages or Word. You can be pretty confident that the product is good when the developer links to alternate programs on his website. That shows that the intent is to provide a good user experience, and not only to sell a product. A little of that goes a long way.

Drawbacks

Let’s get the negatives out of the way so we can end on a more positive note.

There are no page layout views. Granted, there aren’t supposed to be any, but, it is still a drawback when you don’t have that and need to export it to Word to get it to layout correctly.

The first thing you will notice is that it is very different from most text editors because there is a lot more to do, which means a larger learning curve, though there is a great detailed (and long) tutorial, that will help get you on your feet.

When you are in full-screen mode, you can’t switch between documents. You must exit full-screen mode, choose another document, then open full-screen mode again.

Even though it is pretty much only teachers and professors who require a page count, and not a word count, Scrivener is not conducive to letting you know how many pages you have typed. Of course, it is not meant to. For students, it may be a drawback that when the window size changes, the text moves to fill the white space. That makes it difficult to know how many pages you have typed. This is, however a great feature for those who are not bound by pages, but rather by word count, or who just want to write–just bad for students.

Images inserted are treated as part of the text, which means no text-wrapping, and that can be kind of a bummer. It can be a little difficult if you want to include images.

Great Features

You can go to the Scrivener Web site and read all the information about what the features are that make this product what it is. I hope that here you will find how these features worked for me, and what were more worthwhile than others.

Whenever you open Scrivener, it brings you right back to where you left off. This is a great feature because it helps you pick up from your last ending point. It doesn’t make you miss a beat. It opens fast, doesn’t bog down the computer like Word does. Now, I do not know much about developing for Mac, but I will say that it is very nice when programs do not slow you down. This program gets out of your way and lets you write. And, it autosaves anytime you pause after a change for two seconds. You never have to worry about losing your work from a crash, because it saves so fast.

You can also set a character or count target. So, if you have to write 250 words, or are limited to 1000 characters, this would be a good way let yourself know when you have reached your target. Then you can occasionally look down at the footer and see how far you have to go, to reach your target. When you reach your target, the blue bars fills up and the target turns from red to green.

Links to the web and other Scrivener documents can be entered anywhere in the program. That way, you can reference different pages, websites or research files as you are typing. Also, you can have more than one document open for editing at a time. For example, I have the drawbacks document open while I am typing so that I can drop down or over and make some notes about anything that bugs me.

For this article, I had different documents open for each section. If I want to view everything all together, I can do that by selecting all of them (just like selecting multiple playlists in iTunes) and clicking “Edit Scrivenings.” It pulls them all up together and gives a background color for each different document.

The Corkboard feature allows you to put your ideas on a corkboard and move them around. This is so useful for organizing your writing. It looks and acts like a real corkboard, only you don’t prick your fingers when with the push-pins. As you move the notecards around, it rearranges them in the sidebar.

You can import nearly all files (RTF, RTFD, DOC, XHTML, HTML, Images), attach PDFs, and even import any QuickTime audio or video file. Export options include RTF, RTFD, Word Document, TXT, and HTML.

Application

Writers who write anything that is long would love Scrivener–novelists, researchers, screenwriters, and even this humble blog writer, can find uses that make it worthwhile.

There is a scriptwriting mode that removes the formatting pains that go with the territory, complete with keyboard shortcuts (TAB and Return are all you need) that are context aware. Scrivener knows what you need to do next, so if you have been wanting to write that screenplay, Scrivener is there for you. This is really slick. If you are interested, you should really give this a try.

Teachers who create their own worksheets and materials could use Scrivener to design learning units and handouts. You can specify what you want to export or print, so the notes, resources, and ideas can be kept so that only the materials the students need would be printed.

I have never written a long novel, but I can see how Scrivener would make it much easier to do. As I was telling my wife about this program, she said, “You should buy this for me for my birthday so that I can write a novel. Scrivener would be much easier than any other word processor.”

Scrivener costs $40, and is available at Literature and Latte.

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