iA Writer aims to “provide the best writing experience on Mac OS, iOS, and Android.”

It is hard to create a new word processor. Many have tried, and many have failed. Most people don’t want to switch away from Word, or Pages, or whatever app they feel most comfortable using. iA Writer is attempting to lure people away from their preferred word processor through pretty, elegant design and cool, useful features. iA Writer is, at its core, a simple, basic writing app. It also does things most other writing apps aren’t capable of doing, such as embedding files, adding images, and adding tables, all using plain text commands. Once added, the results display in a well-designed preview mode.

Monotype World from iA on Vimeo.

iA Writer is designed to work on multiple devices. It looks as good on a phone as it does on a desktop, and is as easy to use on both. There’s also a ton of unique features, such as “Flow Mode,” which hides everything except for the sentence that you’re currently working on, to reduce the urge to edit. There’s also a “night mode,” which inverts the color scheme, in order to make it easier to write at night. iA Writer costs $9.99, but there’s also a free trial available. It’s worth testing out if you’re thinking about switching up your word processor, or if you want a new platform to test out your writing.