The Amazing Type-Writer review

Writing notes is boring. The Amazing Type-Writer is a fun and easy to use iPhone app from Doormouse Mfg that brings back the excitement of the classic Typewriter to your iPhone. The app is really simple and works as you would expect. If you’ve ever actually typed on a real type writer before, you’ll immediately fall in love with this “Amazing” little utility app.

Each note you write in the app is limited to a single sheet of paper or what the app calls a card. What’s neat about the app is not only the fact that you hear the typewriter sound every time you stroke a key, but the fact that you can move the typewriter arm freely and place it anywhere on the card and start typing. This gives you an unlimited amount of freedom, and people are taking full advantage of it as you’ll see in the public card gallery.

When you open up the Amazing Type-Writer you’ll be greeted with a social stream of what other users have posted on a public timeline. This is where you and other Amazing Type-Writer users have posted things they have written (or drawn for that matter) for the world to see and reuse. The social aspect of the Amazing Type-Writer app is what really puts it over the top in terms of popularity. You can not only view and share your card with others, but you can then pull in any of those cards into your own card library and edit them as your own. As you can imagine people are already doing all sorts of things with this. One of them being creating cards that have a statement with a blank line drawn out in the middle. Other users then copy the card and fill in the blanks and post their responses. Other users are spending way too much time on this app and are actually drawing fully photos using characters.

One final note about the Amazing Type-Writer. You can’t erase your mistakes. Pretty much everyone makes a mistake here and there, and we’ve become so accustomed to just hitting the delete key to instantly erase any mistakes. Well not in Amazing Type-Writer. There isn’t even any white tape. I hated this at first and eventually grew to appreciate it. There is a liberating feeling about not having to worry about making mistakes. You can hit the x key to go back write over a mistake, and the ink feels realistic in that it does get darker the more you write over the same area.

Not only can you post your card on a gallery, but you can also email them as an attached png file, save to your Photo Gallery, or even Tweet the card. Once you’ve posted a card on the public card library, you also get a public web url which you can view in Safari. For example here is the web URL (http://typewritten.doormouse.org/cards/VHB6GMZ) for the sample Card we created created for this review.

Overall, Amazing Type-Writer has a very simple and effective use, and that is what seems to be the winning formula for iPhone apps. Use it to jot down notes, and memoirs, write a love letter, or go crazy and test your creativity. Besides the 2 dollar price tag there isn’t much wrong wit this one.