Planning for a mobile app
An update on the First Draft Pro mobile companion app you've been asking for...
One of our big goals for this year is to release a mobile companion app for First Draft Pro. It’s something you’ve been asking for for ages, and now that we’ve rebuilt the technology we use to run the writing experience in the app, this is finally a piece of work that we can start planning for.
What do we mean by ‘companion app’?
After a lot of discussion, we’ve decided not to rebuild the whole of First Draft Pro as a mobile app. The writing experience was designed for a larger screen, and we still think it works best that way.
But, we want to be able to do things like jot down notes and ideas, re-read a scene, or make small tweaks when inspiration hits at the grocery store, while waiting for our coffee order, or during peak bed-rotting time.
So: our goal is to build an app that works with the existing app and enables you to work on your project on the go, without trying to recreate every feature.
What’s the next step?
Building a mobile companion app is really like making another whole product alongside First Draft Pro. When it comes to something as big as this, we want to make sure that we’re solving the problems that you guys need solved. Especially given that we won’t be rebuilding every feature, we want to be sure that the features we do build are going to meet your writing needs.
To that end, we’re inviting some writers to give feedback on (a) the plan for the app (so far), and (b) to test it later in the year.
Who gets to give feedback?
Anyone who’s ever reached out to request a mobile app will be receiving a request to complete our planning survey next week.
If you don’t get a request by the end of next week, and you’d like to be involved, please reach out and we’ll happily include you! 😊
Latest release: v1.0.54
We released an update to the app on the 16th of February to fix two bugs that had crept into the writing experience.
Issue 1: Slow experience on projects with many comments (fixed)
If you had a ton of comments on a project, you may have experienced a frustrating lag in the app following our update to our underlying writing tech. There was a small bug with our comment placement algorithm that meant your manuscript was taking a very long time to load if you had a lot of comments on a project.
We’re happy to report that this is fixed now, and everything should be back to normal speed.
Issue 2: Chapters previewed during import not importing (fixed)
If you imported a project in the last week and noticed that chapter one or two was missing, we’re so sorry! There was a bug in the importer that meant that any chapter you previewed while importing was excluded from the import.
This has also been fixed, and all imports are running smoothly again.
A closing note
In case you’re new ‘round here…
Hi! I’m Tarryn 👋
I’m the founder of First Draft Pro, and a writer of fantasy fiction (in First Draft Pro). I love stories, silly puns, and building beautifully designed digital products.
If you want to read about the origin of First Draft Pro, you can find that here.