Ever since I took writing here on the blog a little more seriously, I’ve been forever looking for a workflow that fits my needs. If an article came into my head, I’d sometimes write a sticky in Dashboard with the idea and hope I’d pick it up later. If I was on my iPhone, a note in Notes.app almost sufficed (and the addition of iOS 4 OTA note syncing with my MobileMe account certainly helped). However since the New Year I’ve finally starting putting Elements, from Second Gear Software, through its paces. Despite being brilliantly integrated with Dropbox, which many people rave about, I’ve never really settled into using it. I’m not sure whether it’s the distinctly Windows-esque web UI that put me off - but after Dropbox went 1.0 (congratulations to the team at Dropbox) I figured I’d give the service - and as a result Elements - a go.
Elements fits in just nicely - I write everything in Markdown (seriously: even copy bound for magazines starts in Markdown) and Elements offers a built-in Markdown preview. Then there’s the scratchpad which lets me note down any salient points once I’ve started writing, keeping them linked to the relevant document: it’s genius. Once at my Mac, Elements on my iPhone becomes my notepad - and because anything I’ve started on the phone (phrases that I particularly like etc) is already synced to Dropbox I really can take blog posts anywhere. Posts are saved as plaintext files, so even if you’re a Windows user you’re all set.
Elements is $4.99 on the App Store, and is a universal app for iPhone and iPad. I’ve only used it on iPhone (where it now resides on my homescreen), but when I finally get my hands on an iPad 2 you can bet this’ll be on that homescreen too.
This post is part of my weekly app reviews. You can read more reviews from the series here.
Posted on Wednesday February 2nd, 2011
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