iA Writer Improvements

For reasons unknown, I took about a year off from using iA Writer and recently rediscovered it.

They’ve made a lot of improvements. For example, you can import text into your document, and iA Writer will track that as imported text. This works well if you use a large language model (LLM) to help with your writing.

The ability to highlight structure and grammar is better than ever, and the library features are much improved. Historically, I felt that was the weakest point of this application. Another feature that caught me flat-footed was inter-document navigation. Just surround the document name with two square brackets and command-click to jump between them. Everything links these days.

I’ve always felt the iA Writer team has respected the application’s primary purpose: to give you a focused writing environment. However, the evolution of the application, with a few additional features, dramatically improves its utility without losing sight of that.

New Macs Coming Next Week

Apple is teasing an “exciting week of announcements” starting Monday. If you’ve been holding off on buying a new Mac, next week might be an expensive one. We’re expecting the M4 iterations of the MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac, which have been anticipated for a while now.

It looks like Apple won’t be holding a formal event but will instead roll out the new products over the course of the week. Rumor has it that we’ll also see USB-C versions of Apple’s Magic keyboard, trackpad, and mouse. So if that one remaining Lightning cable has been driving you nuts, relief is on the way.

I’m Still Digging Kagi

I just paid my monthly Kagi subscription and I’m reminded of how much I like this web search service. If you’re unfamiliar with it, Kagi is a search engine with no advertising. I’ve used it in place of Google search for most of this year, and when I occasionally stumble into a Google search, I’m shocked at how bad it looks and how much I prefer Kagi. In the most recent update, they’ve now started labeling artificial intelligence-generated images as AI in their image search. I know many folks are anti-subscription, and it seems silly to pay for a search engine, but if you search a lot, it sure is nice having one more concerned with giving you good results than selling ads.

A page from search engine Kagi showing results from a ‘macsparky’ search.
I’m still using Kagi as my search engine

I also just discovered that the same company that makes Kagi makes an accompanying web browser called Orion. I haven’t spent any time with it, but if you like Kagi, you may want to go check out their browser as well.

The bigger question for me is whether or not I’ll want any search engine in the near future as artificial intelligence gets better at bringing back results instead of a list of websites.

Focused 215: The Sparkly Language Model

Mike and I revisit the topic of AI on this episode of Focused to consider what’s changed in the last year and discuss how it can be helpful for those of us who strive to live a focused life.

This episode of Focused is sponsored by:

  • Zocdoc: Find the right doctor, right now with Zocdoc. Sign up for free.
  • ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Get an extra three months free.
  • Indeed: Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide using Indeed to hire great talent fast.

NotePlan Auto-Templates

Recently, NotePlan released version 3.14, which includes the ability to auto-generate templates based on the calendar item. I note this because I requested this specific feature when we discussed NotePlan recently on the Mac Power Users. NotePlan continues to impress me.

Since we aired that episode, I’ve heard from many listeners who have adopted the app and are enjoying it. Here are just a few things I like about NotePlan:

  • The data format is plain text using Markdown syntax saved to your local drive, just like Obsidian.
  • A one-man developer team actively develops it. Over the years, he’s proven his dedication to the app and willingness to tackle significant feature additions.
  • It’s a native app on all the Apple platforms.

To me, NotePlan lies somewhere between Obsidian and Apple Notes. It’s closer to Obsidian in implementation but has fewer customization options.

When I set up my 2025 technology stack, I’m going to be looking very closely at this application.