A new app debuted THIS WEEK designed for the iPad to recreate the nostalgic sense of typing on a manual typewriter, but updated to meet the demands of digital-age word processing.
The idea came about thanks to Oscar-winning actor and collector of vintage typewriters Tom Hanks. The app, called Hanx Writer, replicates the visual and aural sensations of using a typewriter.
"In the late 70s's I bought a typewriter - portable enough for world travel and sturdy enough to survive decades of 10-fingered beatings," Hanks stated in a note shared in the app. "I've since acquired many more - each different in design, action and sound. Each one stamps into paper a permanent trail of imagination through keys, hammers, cloth and dye."
Users can insert new pages or pull pages up or down to adjust where text appears, just like they would with an old-school typewriter, according to Reuters. After text is written, it can then be emailed, shared, and printed from the app.
The app allows users to type letters, stories, and emails on a virtual typewriter, accompanied by the sound of clanking keys as each character appears on the page.
Click here to download the app.
The app is available for download for free. Different sounds, visuals, ribbon colors, and other features are available at $2.99 each.
"Whenever you type, the sounds the typewriter makes you feel like you're composing something special," said Clinton Mills, co-founder and chief executive officer of Hitcents, the Bowling Green, Kentucky-based creative agency that developed the app.
Mills said that Hanks was actively involved throughout the process and even came up with solutions for challenges.
"He wanted to create a product that gave the nostalgia of a typewriter, but also composed well," said Mills. He added that Hanks "didn't want it to be gimmicky."
Hanks uses typewriters daily and has even written screenplays while using vintage devices, Mills said.
The company has plans to continue developing the app and to add more keyboards to the three available to users, according to Reuters.
There are other typewriter apps available like miTypewriter for Apple's iPhone and iPad and TypeWriter for Android. They cost between $0.99 and $1.99.
Though the app was the most downloaded iPad app last week, some have questioned its staying power.
"I grew up learning how to type on a typewriter. I still have the one I learned to type on, a Remington No. 2 from 1921, so I've experienced the romantic clickety-clack of the keys, ringing of bells and wonderful feeling of the keys as you type, called 'action,'" said Toronto-based journalist David Hayes, according to Reuters.
As soon as computers came along, Hayes, a typewriter collector, said he didn't see the point in actually using them anymore.
"I consider them 'objets d'art," said Hayes.
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