5 ms·

Trapped in MS Office

10 points by FinnLobsien 8mo ago

ysleepy 8mo ago
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.
- FinnLobsien 8mo ago
  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 8mo ago
    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 8mo ago
      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.
- reichenstein 8mo ago
  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 8mo ago
    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 8mo ago
      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 8mo ago
        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.
benj111 8mo ago
I don't particularly see the problem with Libre office. But then they talk about collaboration and we've had that in the form of wikis for over 20 years, so I struggle to think what else this, as yet undefined, new thing needs to do. I'm kind of surprised they're thinking in terms of software rather than file formats though. Software choice is a good thing. Lock in to a file format, even if technically open, isn't a good thing.
- reichenstein 8mo ago
  "they're thinking in terms of software rather than file formats" where do you get that from? It's a longer article because it's a complex topic, but we explain in detail how the format it the core issue, and conclude that plain text (especially compared to the now common irrational .docx) would in fact be the preferable, future proof format.
  - benj111 8mo ago
    Yes plain text is mentioned in the last paragraph, but the article isn't about that. I'm sure you could set up word to just output plain text, you can set up excel to deal with CSV. That would not be congruent with the entire rest of the article. And plain text is not plain. You do a presentation with plain text. You aren't using those hyphens as hyphens anymore. So how does that impact those with screen readers? I mentioned CSV, that is still a format, it still has to be defined, you still have to decide how to embed a comma in it. We are talking about the governments of a continent. You have to have documents that are accessible to everyone. You have to have documents that are secure, you have to have documents that cannot be modified. Reducing that to plain text, is like saying unicode is easy because they're just characters.

10 points by FinnLobsien 8mo ago

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.

FinnLobsien 8mo ago
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 8mo ago
  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 8mo ago
    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.
reichenstein 8mo ago
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 8mo ago
  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 8mo ago
    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 8mo ago
      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.

benj111 8mo ago

I don't particularly see the problem with Libre office. But then they talk about collaboration and we've had that in the form of wikis for over 20 years, so I struggle to think what else this, as yet undefined, new thing needs to do. I'm kind of surprised they're thinking in terms of software rather than file formats though. Software choice is a good thing. Lock in to a file format, even if technically open, isn't a good thing.

reichenstein 8mo ago
"they're thinking in terms of software rather than file formats" where do you get that from? It's a longer article because it's a complex topic, but we explain in detail how the format it the core issue, and conclude that plain text (especially compared to the now common irrational .docx) would in fact be the preferable, future proof format.
- benj111 8mo ago
  Yes plain text is mentioned in the last paragraph, but the article isn't about that. I'm sure you could set up word to just output plain text, you can set up excel to deal with CSV. That would not be congruent with the entire rest of the article. And plain text is not plain. You do a presentation with plain text. You aren't using those hyphens as hyphens anymore. So how does that impact those with screen readers? I mentioned CSV, that is still a format, it still has to be defined, you still have to decide how to embed a comma in it. We are talking about the governments of a continent. You have to have documents that are accessible to everyone. You have to have documents that are secure, you have to have documents that cannot be modified. Reducing that to plain text, is like saying unicode is easy because they're just characters.