Simpletext 4+
Plain Text Editor
Yeow Jin Gan
-
- $9.99
Screenshots
Description
Pay once, use forever — on Mac, iPad and iPhone. No monthly subscriptions.
The Simplest Writing App for Mac, iPad and iPhone
There are many writing apps for you to choose from today, so why bother with yet another one? Because Simpletext is simpler. It’s single-minded commitment to simplicity means you’ll get a no-frills writing app that works well and looks great, forever.
Simpletext started as a passion project because I couldn’t find what I was looking for. Most apps were trying to do too much and ended up bloated with features I don’t need. So I built Simpletext based on a simple premise — what if there’s an app that refuses to do more, choosing instead to do just one thing, and do it well? For Simpletext, that one thing is writing.
Why Simpletext?
Most people would say Simpletext is lacking in features, and they’re right. In fact, Simpletext began the opposite way — by listing down everything I didn’t want in a writing app. The idea is to create a dumbed-down writing app that inspires you to do nothing else but write. In order to achieve this, Simpletext is centered around four cornerstone principles:
1. Zero Clutter
Simpletext is unobtrusive. It provides a blank canvas to write with absolutely nothing to distract you from writing. There’s no visual clutter — the intent is to create a quiet space that helps you connect with your voice and get into the flow.
2. Beautiful Typography
Simpletext comes with three professional fonts for you to choose from, handpicked to provide the finest writing experience. They are: (1) Akkurat Mono by Lineto (Monospaced); (2) Graphik by Commercial Type (Sans Serif); and (3) Valkyrie by MB Type (Serif). If you have a personal favourite font, you can also use it in Simpletext.
3. Plain Text
Simpletext supports only plain text, which is lightweight and platform independent. It will never have rich text formatting, images, tables, etc — the focus is solely on writing, not formatting. Plain text also ensures your words are always accessible on every device, now and in the future.
4. Fully Native
Simpletext is a fully native app developed in Swift and runs natively on Apple silicon. It uses only Apple’s framework and UI components, the way they’re designed to be used without any custom workarounds. This means less code, less bugs and better overall performance.
Here's What Others Have to Say
"I just wanted to thank you for developing Simpletext. It’s perfect. I’ve enjoyed its simplicity and smoothness for quite some time, but now that I can use my favourite font in it (Sina Nova, free on Fontspring) it has truly become not just the best app to write in, but my favourite app period. Thank you for creating and maintaining it."
- Bart
“This app does everything it says on the tin. It is not meant to do a lot, but what it does it does very well. It is well designed and suits well those who want to focus on writing and avoid dealing with formatting, proprietary file types and hidden saving locations. It produces and edits .txt files, which will probably be around for as long as there are computers, and saves them in plain sight. Five stars.”
- Fernando
“I’ve tried all sorts of writing apps but Simpletext is definitely the best of all. So grateful for your dedication and those productivity tips in the blog post are so good. Simpletext is such a joy to use.”
- LWL Art Studio
“A writing app that is as simple as stated, beautiful to write with and opens and closes wherever you want. Simple tweaks are easily accessible, if required, and only add to the minimalistic perfection. Good job.”
- Tuntle
Go Back to Basics With Simpletext
In a world full of feature-rich, subscription-based apps, I wanted to create something that goes back to basics — but better. Everything about Simpletext is designed to make the simple act of writing enjoyable again. It’s an app I personally used, every single day. I hope you will too.
Best wishes,
Yeow Jin
P.S. Simpletext comes with a promise — find out more at simpletext.app/promise
What’s New
Version 4.5.2
Minor fixes and performance improvements.
Ratings and Reviews
Needs some refinements
On the iPhone, screen space is limited, so, when a plain text app has line spacing that could have been smaller, without sacrificing readability, and hence can pack more lines on one page, it should try to maximise it. Comparing SimpleText with Paper, I was able to see only 28 lines on SimpleText versus 38 lines on Paper with the same font size per screen. In fact the Paper font size was a little bigger than the smallest extra small font size setting on Simpletext but yet it could display more lines. Cut the line spacing so that we can have more lines per screen. Many people read rather quickly so having to keep scrolling is a tad annoying. Finally it would be more productive to have the search button appear straightaway on top of the keyboard when the keyboard appears, instead of having to first click the hamburger. In fact, why have the hamburger when you can put all the selections (Preferences, Search, Copy All, Select All) right there in place of the hamburger? The extra step is really unnecessary.
Edited: Thanks for the clarification. My bad. The typewriter mode was indeed turned on. Once I’ve turned it off, I was able to select text without problem. On the last point, perhaps you can allow users to select which shortcuts they want to place on the keyboard?
Developer Response ,
Updated Response:
Hello, just to update that Simpletext V4.1 has a new setting for compact line spacing so you can display more text on the screen. Hope it’ll come in useful!
Original Response:
Hello! Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with me. I note your comments and will definitely consider them for future releases.
Regarding the scroll experience when trying to select long text to copy — it is due to Typewriter Mode which tries to maintain the scroll position at the middle of the screen. If copying long text is a frequent action in your workflow, perhaps you may consider switching off Typewriter Mode? If you just need to copy all text, another shortcut is to double tap the screen with two fingers (I usually do it with two thumbs). Hope this comes in handy!
Finally, the More button was introduced to group less frequently used actions together to reduce visual clutter. I understand it’s subjective and every user has its own preferences, but it’s a design decision to ensure the keyboard bar appears lightweight and visually balanced especially when word count is shown. This design also allows for more actions to be introduced in the future (only if necessary 😊).
Many thanks again and have a good day ahead!
Search function does not work
I had hoped to replace the notes app with this app because I am so sick of notes not sticking to just the text I am trying to copy and paste into it. This app does really great with this part of my situation. Unfortunately I found out after writing hundreds of notes within the app that I can’t do search for a word inside one of the files created in the same way I can in the notes app. It’s a great app, but I can’t use it if I can’t find what I am looking for later.
Developer Response ,
Hi, by default the search bar only searches for file names. If you’d like to search the content, you can tap on “Contains [Search Term]” right below the search bar. Do give it a try and I hope it works for you 😊
LOVE! But also, I have a tip for everyone here...
User Pro-tip. I love the light and dark mode screenshot examples they show here in the app listing screenshots. I wanted to set up my Simpletext app like it shows in them so I went to the Simpletext menu VIEW -> COLORS and for each field (background/text) I tap the swatches to get the color picker to show up and then tap the inkwell icon to choose a color on the screen to sample from. I just sampled the screenshots to get those exact colors into my Simpletext color settings. It is such a pleasure to use these colors instead of Apple’s hard light/dark mode defaults. I know this is a minimal app and I love it that way so I’m not saying “Add these color settings to the app” because that’s "too extra". But I want to share how I got the effect in my own app so people can do it too.
Thank you for making this incredibly stunningly minimal typing app.
p.s. TYPEWRITER MODE... this is a dream innovation from the past I'm so thankful you offer here. I regularly type on my 63' Ollivetti Lettera 22 and getting that typewriter mode feeling in here is such a pleasant surprise! CHEERS!
Developer Response ,
Thank you for your kind review and happy to hear that Simpletext adds value to your workflow!
App Privacy
The developer, Yeow Jin Gan, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Yeow Jin Gan
- Size
- 391.5 KB
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
-
- iPhone
- Requires iOS 16.0 or later.
- iPad
- Requires iPadOS 16.0 or later.
- Mac
- Requires macOS 12.0 or later.
- Apple Vision
- Requires visionOS 1.0 or later.
- Languages
-
English
- Age Rating
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2018 – 2023 Yeow Jin Gan
- Price
- $9.99
Supports
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Family Sharing
Up to six family members can use this app with Family Sharing enabled.