Whether you proofread with Apple Intelligence, or paste from Claude, Gemini, or ChatGPT, the generated text now bursts onto the page with a colorful gradient. It looks as artificial as its origins. Think of it as a game: you got help, now make it your own.
We also made it easy to tell different human contributors apart. They appear in subtle tones. And you can choose a preferred color for saved authors in settings.
Reference material stays dimmed. Use this to see the changes you made to a downloaded contract, to track the progress since your first draft, or when you’re not sure how a text was created.
If you like the updates, please leave us a rating on the App Store. It helps a lot.
I decided to revisit the app and copied and pasted a copy of my paper on AI in education into it. I was quickly reminded of the reason why I can’t use the app for my writing.
Here is a paragraph from my paper in iA Writer containing hyperlinks. It is a mess—who wants to see that when they are writing?
It’s definitely a matter of preference, but I definitely consider the correctness of the link an essential part of when I write . I also use markdown so regularly that __ or ** has the same meaning when I read as seeing it emboldened or italicized.
When I use iA writer I often proofread in the preview mode and swipe back to edit mode (since scrolling is synchronized) to make changes.
I can understand a preference for either approach. I don’t know why they don’t make it an option.
I still can’t believe they haven’t updated their dark mode icon for Tahoe, so the icon changes even when the app is not open. Right now, the icon only changes between light and dark mode when the app is open.
I don’t mind the use of # _ and *, but those long link strings significantly distract from the focus on the text, which is supposedly the main selling point of IA Writers, aside from being plain text.
There are actually two ways of doing links in Markdown, and one of them is less intrusive than the other.
The first (the standard way, nowadays, I think) is to put the full link inline, like so [link name](link URL) and it can be messy, as you say.
There is another way, though, and that’s to use ‘reference links’, which hide the URLs at the bottom of the page, leaving only the link name in square brackets in the text.
So you have [Link name] in the text, and at the bottom [Link name]: Link URL. (The colon is important!). This is basically the same syntax as for footnotes, but footnotes have ^ at the beginning, of course
I hope this screenshot shows you the effect on your example:
It would look a lot better if you got rid of the marketing tracking on the Jenni link.
I see your point, though. Maybe iA should compromise by truncating the links and expanding on click. That would make clear you’re in an editing mode and let you see if you’ve included the right links, but the eye could skip a predictable distance over them.
Footnotes are not part of the basic syntax, they were added by others, while reference links have been there right from the start: Extended Syntax | Markdown Guide
Footnotes use the same reference link mechanism, but they are a special form of it, introduced with a ^. Basically, the variants (in MultiMarkdown, at least) are:
I would actually suggest removing all those UTM parameters in links (unless it is you who created that link and need to see the analytics) because they are used for tracking the success of marketing campaigns.
Most URLs can be cut at just the base URL (Amazon product URLs can also be cut right after the product ID without all the nonsense following it).
I agree completely. I’ve switched to a mainly markdown free workflow as I don’t like seeing symbols or URLs on the text I’m writing. The only use I have for it now is when I am writing HTML, which makes sense because I am typing less.
I am more than happy with Craft, Notes and Pages - and have come to realize I prefer to see the text as it will be in the final version rather than having to switch to a preview mode.
I’m with you on this. I’m currently using Ulysses for two big projects: a book and a white paper. Everything else is being writing in Pages. This is much simpler with far fewer steps. I’ve used Craft in the past and I like it, but with Notes and Pages and Ulysses, I don’t seem to have a need for Craft. How do you use it?
Recently I’ve been testing out Obsidian for writing. I created a separate vault for writing and then (taking some inspiration from Mike Schmitz) fine-tuned the settings and plugins to make it work for me as writing space. As iA Writer is my default markdown editor, I can also easily edit something I’m working on in Obsidian in iA Writer if need be. We’ll see if it sticks.
Also, on an episode of MPU last October, Chris Bailey talked about how much he loved writing in Bear, which allows you to hide Markdown in the editor if you prefer.
I’ve been using Craft for planning projects and to share drafts as web pages to people I work with.
For example, I’ve recently been tasked with designing new degrees and this has proven an excellent tool as I can drag rows and rearrange the degree programs as I need.
I use it as the first stage when planning any writing, as I like the drag and drop nature, especially on iPad. I also use the Safari web clipper extensively to gather research from the web and then refer to it while writing up in Pages.
Basically it’s where things start and where I store my reference materials.
The fact that the Pro version is free for educators also makes me happy to use it!
I registered with my school email and I’ve never paid a penny and everything is unlocked except advanced AI. I just have to send proof I’m still in education every year…
Well, now, though I prefer to minimize the number of apps I use (if I were a betting man, I’d be willing to bet I use fewer total apps than anyone in this forum! ), I’ll have to check this out. I may have a good use for a free program of this quality. Thanks!
. I also use markdown so regularly that 
