Tom Hanks released a typewriter app for iPad on Thursday, called the Hanx Writer, that lets you enjoy the thwapping sound of the metal stamping on paper.
Not only does the new app recreate the feeling of sitting down and typing on a manual machine, it allows you to load in new fonts.
"Hanx Writer is just my little gift to the future Luddite hipsters of the world," Hanks
told USA Today the same day he tweeted out his app announcement.
Hanks said that Hanx Writer is an homage to his love of typewriters, which he uses on a daily basis to write friends and make notes on scripts. He keeps a large collection of the antique machines, which once numbered as many as 200.
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"What's pleasing to my sensibilities is when you have the report of the key being struck, it allows for clear thinking," he said upon Thursday's release.
"I suppose some people who get the app may just be looking for a different sound, but really it's for people searching for a more personalized experience when writing on an iPad. There's also the opportunity here to take your iPad to a coffee house and be really obnoxious with all the clickety-clacking."
According to tech website The Verge, the app is free to download, but additional fonts and typewriter sounds cost $2.99 each.
Once a user has completed his or her composition on the digital typewriter, they can move their text to other programs, putting it in email to a friend, for example. The app also has autocorrect, and a delete key that works much better than any found on real-life typewriters.
"Tom wanted people to want to sit down and write a poem or screenplay with it," said Stuart Westphal, the app's designer. "He mainly said don't make it gimmicky, so it had to work with a Bluetooth keyboard, which is really where you get the full effect of seeing a blank white page slowly fill with black type."
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