The Hanx Writer, a typewriter app from actor Tom Hanks, has proved to be a hit.
The app, according to the developers, “recreates the experience of a manual typewriter, but with the ease and speed of an iPad.”
The free app has an approximate 4.5-star rating on the App Store, and it has positive reviews.
“I’ve been sitting here typing in the new Hanx app wondering why I find this so delightful. I can’t help it, I just do. Maybe it’s the fact that I can have the best of both worlds using it. The nostalgia and feel of using a typewriter like I did in my youth, but also with the ease that modern word processors give us. There is no way that I would ever agree to get rid of my word processor to have a typewriter instead,” one person wrote.
Added another: “I cannot say that this app gives me the literal touch and smell, or weight of the keys that I typewriter would, but everything else has allowed me to get as close to the experience as possible. I found myself typing away into my thoughts, listening to the sound of the keys.”
The app was launched last week and now it’s No. 1 in the Productivity section and Overall.
It’s free but users can buy additional typewriter models within the app, according to TechCrunch.
Hanks wrote an opinion piece last year in the New York Times about the typewriter.
“Everything you type on a typewriter sounds grand, the words forming in mini-explosions of SHOOK SHOOK SHOOK. A thank-you note resonates with the same heft as a literary masterpiece,” he wrote at the time. He added: “In addition to sound, there is the sheer physical pleasure of typing; it feels just as good as it sounds, the muscles in your hands control the volume and cadence of the aural assault so that the room echoes with the staccato beat of your synapses. You can choose the typewriter to match your sound signature.”
