OmmWriter App Reviews

I never realized how much I was held back by traditional word processors with their underlining and numerous font choices, italics, bold, underline, etc. I know that in many of those other programs I can turn these things off, remove bars all together, but with Omm writer theres something more that I cant quite put my finger on. Maybe its the music, or the melodic sounds they provide while typing, or maybe its the cleanness of the page? Notice how I say "cleannes" as opposed to "emptiness". With the background images you arent faced with a screaming, empty page. Im not sure what it is about this program that allows me to write thousands of words in a sitting, but whatever it is, theyve hit the nail on the head. This is writing in its purest form, and I think that it rivals pen and paper. Writing, specifically writing creatively, is all about finding the zone and staying there. When you plug in earphones and the familiar lilting music plays, youre already halfway there. Some things Id consider in future iterations or updates: - More backgrounds, but nothing busy. The snow scene is perfect as is the blue sea, more along those lines. - More music choices that reflect mood and atmosphere, maybe stuff akin to those sleep-aid sounds might be of use, crashing surf, jungle forest, etc. - Make it easier to locate the cursor. Sometimes I lose it and that interrupts flow. Possibly a button click that make the cursor emit light or colour or waves? - Create an iPhone version. - When you mission control in Lion, there is no preview window, just the icon. A bit annoying and gives you less room to click on to get back into Omm Beyond that, this product is the best 5 bucks I spent towards apps. It doesnt do all that a word processor does, not even close, but this isnt a word processor. Its a creative aid that helps you get in the writing zone and gets you to stay there. Thank you for this program!

There is plenty of long and detailed reviews out here, so I will add a short and straight to the point one. the sounds are fantastic, the graphics are GORGEOUS, ive never had that much inspiration in my life before. youll start making up excuses to use it! trust me, its awesome. Well worth every penny!

I love this app.. somehow its better than MS office :) but i have come to realise that some of the wallpapers / backgrounds does not support the retina display. And it looks weird to work with.. another suggestion is to have theme for the 4 seasons :) that would make the app perfect :) Thanks

Forget iA or whatever you used before. This is it. Im not a writer but I want to write things sometimes. The typing sound effects alone have a meditative quality that gets you into a zone right away. The beautiful backgrounds can reflect subject matter. And the music helps keep your ears busy. Only thing it needs is iClouds support, and I suppose it will be coming anytime now. Its a steal at $1.99. Get it now!

Just want to add my two cents and say that this is the BEST $1.99 Ive ever spent. Really. I used full-screen mode in Pages for a while but hated that it wouldnt show a continuous page, OmmWriter does. The music is fine (you can turn it off if you hate it) and the simple menu for changing things up and saving etc is nicely designed. It always runs in fullscreen too, so its just one click to get back to where you left off. The other neat thing is that the text box is as small or as large as you make it …just drag the sides to where you like. Word count too. Also, it has a nifty feature where if you move your mouse then all your editing menus etc. come up ….and then after a few seconds dissolve away from sight again, activated on mouse movement when needed. Very cool. Thanks guys …and gals :)

Ive been eyeing this app up for a while now, but have always avoided the purchase because it didnt seem like anything could deliver on the promises it makes. I finally gave in today, and am glad I did! OmmWriter gives a great environment to write in, and is genuinely effective at stimulating my creativity. That said, I have a few minor complaints that Id need to see addressed before I declare it to be the perfect writing app: - When you open the app, your most recent document is not opened - instead, you get a blank document. - Theres no iCloud integration, despite the presence of a mobile app. I cant just start writing a story on my desktop, then resume on my iPad (or vice versa). - Although the selection of imagery/sounds is good, the perfect and obvious choice is not present - a thunderstorm. Thats just a personal preference, but Id love to see that in the future. - The interface within the app is not always clear or intuitive. Some of the options forced me to try them out before I figured out what they did. All in all, this is a fantastic app, and I look forward to seeing what future updates bring!

My writing process has been instantly transformed. I am genuinely grateful to the developers for the research and work theyve put into this. I might suggest that you be able to control the volume of the music and of the keyboard sounds independently... but, maybe the levels are already optimal, and Im just used to being able to mess stuff up according my own whims via endless customizability. A beautiful app for creative writing. And Ive started writing journal entries on ommwriter and just pasting into DayOne. Not sure about using it for more technical writing (essays etc) but I can see how it would help for, say, brainstorming an intro, before moving into a more standard word processor for the body… Anyway, Im sure Ill find as many excuses as I can to use this app. Very, very worth it.

This program is fantastic, have no hesitations about making the purchase. I use it even if Im doing math homework and need to concentrate, the ambient music tied with a distractionless laptop screen helps me focus like no other. Very calming and simple.

EDIT: I had to bring this to 4 stars because Ive just been running into an issue: the inability to minimize the app, and still keep it open. As much as I prefer the fullscreen, sometimes when Im writing my novel Im refering to something online (especially artwork to help me with description) and Im unable to see both at the same time, and just keep switching back and forth every ten seconds. Please, please, please allow us to minimize the application without actually closing it!! I bought this app recently, and I am in love with it. Ive previously been using ByWord, but I love the music and typing sounds that this application offers. Many apps offer the same full-screen writing to erase distractions, but only this app lets you *enjoy* the process so much that you lose sense of time. It is so easy to lose yourself in your writing with this app, and I love the ability to choose different backgrounds and sounds to match the scenes Im writing. My only request is the ability to use our own fonts, perhaps using the font list for our recently used, or allowing us to alter it in a menu settings. Other than that, I am absolutely in love with this app!

YES!!!!! They finally fixed this so it works perfectly on the Macbook with retina display. I had rated it 3/5 before, due to the fact that there was a serious glitch in the old version, for users with the new macbook pros. Now I am happy to report that the background visuals work perfectly, as advertised, and it is now one of my favorite soothing writing apps of all time. :) I am off to loose myself in the omm writer experience.

Love Ommwriter, but really miss that first Zen-like music track in the old version. Would also like to see a couple of additional simple visual backgrounds, such as the winter tree scene. All in all, though, an inviting writing environment.

I dont know why they made the decision to change the audio for the new app, but I really preferred one of the music tracks in the old version. So I made a copy of the app, and then grabbed the audio file out of the old one, converted it to an M4V file, and then replaced one of the new audio files. I get hte bug updates, and some of the new music, while keeping the song I almost always use to work to. Its a shame they changed - I mentally associate that song with focusing and writing. Itd have been nice to have some sort of option to choose to keep the old music, but my work around works. Just have to remember not to blindly hit update. :)

Worth every dollar. Highly recommnded!

I am someone that is knew to writing and I have been dabbling in writing a novel for a few years. I purchased this app some time ago, and like others , I really like some of the older music tracks. Having said that, this app is the most amazing app for immersing yourself in writing. I purchased a dedicated writing software program a while ago, but I cut and paste from Ommwriter to flesh out my story. It is simply amazing for concentrating on writing versus the sterility of other programs.

This is a very nice program, and it does exactly what it promises - and does it well - but it is absolutely not a word processor. This is a program for typing and that alone. There is no way to print directly from the screen, no fonts (just variations on the one font), no sizing (just bigger and smaller), no spacing, no formating . . . This is a great program for writing if the writing is entirely your own but, if you are writing to standards set by others, this is not the right program.

I had never really written anything for the sake of writing. I love trying new things, so I went ahead and bought this to try writing. This was probably one of the best things I’ve experienced, and I am actually considering getting into writing because of OmmWriter. I never knew how much I enjoyed writing until I found a reason to try it. Thank you!

I love this writer, it is the most clean and well done software I have ever used.

The music included is much more comforting in the versions before the 1.3. Please add the older music to this new version. I like the concept of OmmWriter, which is made simple so that I can concentrate writing, sometimes with build-in soothing music of zen style bell.... The new music in the current version 1.3 irritates me quite often and I had to shut the music off. May be i should use my iPod from now on. How i wish you would restore or add old soothing music to this current version. Thank you.

please add the older sound! please! please! plea〜se!!! Especially the sound of the hustle and housework.

＜ソフトウェアの感想＞ 　テキスト編集機能の向上を求めたいです。せめて regular expression くらい使えて欲しい。 　昔の Mac でよくあった、「ショートカット一発で egrep/sed のワンライナーが呼び出される。」 　みたいな尖った進化があると、さらに嬉しいです。 　やはり、背景の音楽のラインナップがちょっと残念です。どれも、私には邪魔に感ぜられます。 　それとこれは私の環境だけかもしれませんが、音楽ファイル全般に耳障りなノイズが入っています。 　環境音はなかなかステキです。タイプ音は常時切っているので何とも言えません。 ＜音楽ファイルの入れ替えメモ＞ 　既にやってる方も多いかと思いますが、作業する上で有用かなと思った情報を。 　■ 所感と注意点 　・ このソフトはアップデート頻度が低いので、やる価値はあると思います。 　・ V1.11 → V1.30 の上書きで成功を確認しました。 　・ 変換作業には、iTunes や Flip Player よりも QuickTime Player の方が適しています。 　・ 新 Ver. 、旧 Ver. 、旧 Ver. 変換後ファイル　はそれぞれバックアップしておきましょう。 　■ 手順 　　(1). 旧 Ver. パッケージの音声ファイル (Contents/Resources/*.mp3) の内、新 Ver. で使い 　　　　たいファイルをコピーする。番号と音声の関係は次のとおり。 　　　　(V1.11) 　　　　　01:　trip_128.mp3 .... (音楽) ソリとトナカイが鈴鳴らして来る感じのアレ 　　　　　02:　bowls_192.mp3 .... (音楽) チャイムとトライアングル 　　　　　03:　hans_128.mp3 .... (音楽) 風呂場でエレクトーン。みたいな 　　　　　04:　nocturn_128.mp3 .... (音楽) 虫の音で始まる音楽。虫の音だけの方が良かった 　　　　　05:　alga_128.mp3 .... (音楽) ゆったりピアノメイン。NHK 教育・中学理科（実験中） 　　　　　06:　biblio_128.mp3 .... (環境音) 読書中。雑踏の中か街の書店といった感じ 　　　　　07:　corazon_128.mp3 .... (環境音) 心音をバックに、機械の作動音 etc. 　　(2). コピーしたファイルのフォーマットを *.mp3 から *.m4a に変換する。 　　(3). Ver.1.30 パッケージで、要らないと思うファイルを Resources フォルダから出す（捨てる）。 　　　　番号と音声の関係は次のとおり。 　　　　(V1.30) 　　　　　01:　song3_128000.m4a ... (音楽) セミクラシカルで RPG のイベント音楽っぽい 　　　　　02:　song1_128000.m4a ... (音楽) 瞑想系？ 文章書いている時でなければ聞ける 　　　　　03:　ambiente2_128000.m4a ... (環境音) 貨物車なのかもしれない 　　　　　04:　song2_128000.m4a .... (音楽) 冒頭ジブリっぽいと思ったのは私の勘違いでした 　　　　　05:　song4_128000.m4a .... (音楽) 瞑想系？ 今回の音楽では一番ゆったりした感じ 　　　　　06:　ambiente1_128000.m4a .... (環境音) 風の音 　　　　　07:　ambiente3_128000.m4a .... (環境音) 高速道路 又は トンネルの音 　　(4). (2) で変換したファイルの名前を、(3) で捨てたファイルの名前に変更する。 　　(5). でき上がったファイルを、Ver.1.30 パッケージの Resources フォルダに入れる。 　■ 余談 　　どこかにファイル名を指定するような機構があれば一発解決なのですが、ユーザ設定ファイル 　　　　~/Library/Preferences/com.herraizsoto.OmmWriter.plist 　　を見る限りは番号指定ですね・・・