Forum Posts Feed
Drafts 5 for iOS goes subscription
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Paul Korm
Apr 17, 2018 at 11:09 PM
Drafts has been a sort of mainstay iOS app for people who like plain text editors (markdown mainly). The app included some interesting automation, though It hasn’t received a lot of attention in recent years.
Now, there is a new version—Drafts 5. The release notes / what’s new can be found at the link below. Two things worth noting: there is a hint at a future Mac version. (Sorry, this developer doesn’t do Windows). Second—the custom actions (i.e., macro-like workflows) from Drafts 4 are put behind a paywall in Drafts 5—$19.99/year or $1.99/month. The website says Drafts 4 will be “supported but not in active development”. Meaning, some version of iOS can come along and break it. At least for now the custom actions are still available cheaply in Drafts 4. Since most of the other features in Drafts 5 seems minimal (tags) or cosmetic (themes), it doesn’t seem like a compelling purchase to me. I’ll wait for the technical reviews before deciding.
What’s new:
http://getdrafts.com/gettingstarted/overview
Posted by satis
Apr 18, 2018 at 12:49 AM
I ‘preordered’ - a slightly strange thing, since it’s a free download, so that just means it will auto-download to my iPhone on tomorrow. (A week or so ago the dev asked on Twitter whether he should so that and everyone basically responded Why Not.)
The app does some whizzy coding to bypass iOS’s 45-second limit on recording/transcribing voice dictation. The editor in v.5 is customizable, with themes and light threshold adjustments based on light in room. v.5 has tags, a robust tag editor and filtering by tag, and the custom keyboard lets you tap tags on active docs.
Fonts! Spacing! One thing I *really* like is the Focus Mode option, which disables the creation of new drafts, so going back to the app won’t hide the previously edited document.
Since I have v.4 I’m not in too much of a rush to go for the v.5 subscription, but there is a (7-day?) free trial of those features.
I use Drafts mainly for quick notes that go into other apps (or, just as often, to compose text to send into Messages). Not sure if I need to spend $20/yr on the Pro features, but the idea of getting rid of that bright white background and using my own fonts is appealing….
Posted by Chris Thompson
Apr 18, 2018 at 02:01 PM
Could you say a little more about how this feature works? I’ve looked at various options for online transcription of multiple very long recordings (think hours, not minutes), and even the Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure pricing models are prohibitive. I wish there was some way to reliably leverage iOS’s voice transcription, or the built-in local transcription on MacOS. Even if it isn’t great quality, it would be great. I’ve even thought of buying a used Android phone just to be able to use the local Android transcription features (apparently there are two modes, one that operates locally and one that sends things to Google to be transcribed), but that seems like such a rabbit hole. If Drafts could actually reliably transcribe long recordings, I would subscribe immediately.
—Chris
satis wrote:
>The app does some whizzy coding to bypass iOS’s 45-second limit on
>recording/transcribing voice dictation.
Posted by Paul Korm
Apr 18, 2018 at 02:51 PM
Drafts 5 uses iOS voice-to-text recognition. Drafts 5 is modified to record more-than-45 second chunks. Hours long? You’re best off asking the developer on that instead of us users.
FWIW, I record long sessions using the Dictate app on iOS. I import those to Dragon (from Nuance) for post-recording recognition and auto transcription.
Posted by Chris Thompson
Apr 18, 2018 at 03:12 PM
Thanks. Maybe it’s time for me to invest in Dragon.
—Chris
Paul Korm wrote:
Drafts 5 uses iOS voice-to-text recognition. Drafts 5 is modified to
>record more-than-45 second chunks. Hours long? You’re best off
>asking the developer on that instead of us users.
>
>FWIW, I record long sessions using the Dictate app on iOS. I import
>those to Dragon (from Nuance) for post-recording recognition and auto
>transcription.