Meet Quip – the word processor app developed to be “mobile first”. Unlike traditional word processor softwares, Quip is uniquely designed for the touchscreen.
Mobile technology has grown leaps and bounds over the last decade. The introduction of the first iPhone nine years ago opened up the era of the smartphone. In a bizarre contradiction though, productivity software has not kept pace. In fact its stagnated during that decade, with barely any incremental improvement.
iPhones and iPads its argued, are great media consumers but poor media creators. Great for browsing Youtube but you wouldn’t want to write an essay on one.
However apps like Quip can begin to change that. Quip has stripped back the user interface and gone are the fluffy nice to have but never used features that you find on Microsoft Word. In return, Quip is basic, clean and infinitely more useful than any other word processor app. Quip is quite simply the best iOS and android word processor app.
It’s a bold claim but let me explain further. Word processors are simple pieces of software, illustrated by the lack of any development over the past 30 years. However shrunk down versions of the desktop version do not work on a 4 inch screen.
In truth, touch screens are never going to be great for producing longer documents. They’re imprecise and are more prone to giving the user repetitive strain injury and other discomfort. The problem has been compounded by the fact that mobile word processors are not even remotely adapted for the intricacies of this method of data input. Typing is thus onerous and time consuming.
So up steps Quip.
“On Quip, you aren’t restricted to a fixed A4 page size, that you have to pinch-zoom and scroll around in on your phone. Instead, we’ve developed an adaptive rendering system, that lays out your documents naturally on any screen size, from your phone to your desktop,”
Quip recognises that in 2013, people need to be creating and modifying documents across all of their devices,not just their desktop. Obviously syncing becomes an issue here, which again is handled nicely by this app. You simply create your documents when and where you like, then sync them when on wifi or 3G/4G.
Quip is also built for collaborative working, which is an increasingly common theme in the modern workplace. The simple integration of push notifications facilitates this, providing collaborators with a live stream of document updates.
Perhaps Quips best features demonstrate just how intrinsically mobile it is. So when you create a task list, Quip ties it in with your task app. Checklists are created from lists. Meeting notes are turned into individual tasks on the right persons phone. People can be referenced with an @mention, which links documents and workers together.
“Writing and editing collaboratively is a universal need. We’ve seen as many people using Quip for joint grocery lists, writing their applications to university, and planning family vacations, as we have companies and teams using it to communicate across continents and get work done,” said Taylor.
Quip is free for individual users or $12 per person for business users. It’s available on iOS and android, and works across five languages. It also works on desktop, making it the best cross-platform word processor.