Writing isn’t always a breeze but luckily for us, there are a lot of apps out there to help use stay focused, organized, and in some cases, motivated. No matter if you’re writing a grocery list or ta book, some of these apps are sure to have some features you’ll love. Check out our list of the best writing apps for iPhone and iPad.
The best writing apps for iPhone and iPad
14 Aug 2021, by  Christine Pamintuan
Narrative writer app for iPhone and other devices is a novel writing app for any web browser, with full feature parity on each platform. Live sync in this narrative iPhone app for writing pushes your words to all your devices in real-time. The versions feature saves regular automated snapshots, so you never lose a word. Detailed stats help you track your progress, and an integrated proof reader checks your grammar, spelling, and style in any of 12 languages.
- While using the app, the user interface fades out, so you are free to concentrate on your words
- When you work on any device, your words are pushed up to the cloud, and then synced down to any other devices you are using
- Get motivated, with detailed stats and charts on your writing progress
- An integrated proof reader checks grammar, spelling, and style issues, in several languages and dialects
- Export your work to share with others, or for publishing
Storyist, one of the best writing apps for iPhone is a powerful writing environment that lets you create, review, and revise your work wherever inspiration strikes. With this book writing app you can produce submission-ready manuscripts and screenplay, sketch out a story using index cards and then refine it with customizable plot, character, and setting sheets, review and revise on the go, keep all your writing organized and accessible.
- Rich text editor with support for fonts, colors, comments, images, headers, footers, and style sheets
- Files interface with the ability to collaborate with other writers, browse version history, and sync with your favorite cloud storage service
- Automatic manuscript and screenplay formatting with familiar tab and return key shortcuts
- Color-coded index cards
- Support for Storyist for Mac, RTF, Plain Text, Fountain, and Final Draft FDX files
Journi is the easiest way to capture your life as beautiful timelines with photos, notes, maps and more. Turn them into printed photo books in seconds & easily define which photos are private! Use it offline, create timelines together & sync across all your devices!
- Turn your adventures into beautiful stories with photos, text, maps, stamps, weather, flights and more.
- Order your unique photo book with one click.
- Use Journi offline, without Internet.
- Invite friends to follow or share your journi via iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook, Email, etc.
Creative Writer gives you a stream of suggested words and all you do is tap on the
stream, or you can type out words and allow the app to give you words using its predictive feature. The app’s words come from best-selling novels, poetry, rap, and other sources. Use the app to write short stories or poems, compose songs, smash your writer’s block, or even learn English. The app comes with a notepad feature that allows you to write down your story and a Dictionary Keyboard that throws antonyms, synonyms, rhymes, definitions, and examples at you, exactly when you need it. Creative Writer app review
- Recycle text from books
- Combine words into amazing new pieces of art
- A talking robot that talks and types by itself
- Live in a constant state of inspiration
- Free with in-app purchases
Wordsmith allows you to use your iPhone or iPad to write anywhere, anytime. Take down your brainstorm ideas, work on your ongoing project, and show off what you’ve written with friends. The app backs up all of your work in the cloud so it’s kept safe. The free version limits how many projects you can work on at one time and gives you just the standard theme. In-app purchases allow you to remove the limits or try out new themes. You can set writing goals to help provide you with motivation, get feedback from your friends, and never again make the excuse that you can’t write because you don’t have your project with you.
- Custom fonts and themes
- Get motivation
- Share and get feedback
- Back up your work
- Free with in-app purchases
Brainsparker works like a pack of cards. Need some inspiration? Launch the app, shuffle the cards, and tap on the screen to pick one for some fresh ideas. There are hundreds of creative thinking prompt cards to give you a mix of quotes, trigger words, images, questions, and actions. Use the app to overcome blocks, come up with new plot ideas, get inspiration for journal ideas, brainstorm concepts for products, and more. You can schedule a daily brainpsarker, share your brainsparker cards, and download free journals, templates, and creativity workouts. You can use this app alone or in a group for workshops and training sessions or with clients.
- Hundreds of cards with inspirational quotes
- Boost your creativity with a scheduled brainsparker every day
- Use it for teaching, blogging, brainstorming, writing, journaling, or more
- Use in brainstorming meetings at work
- Free with in-app purchases
One of the ultimate writing apps, Scrivener remains one of the best apps for those who want to put together a story. This app was specifically designed to create manuscripts and thus utilizes a variety of tools to make you feel like you are working on a digital storyboard, and even multiple storyboards simultaneously. Users can import research files including PDFs and media and have it open while they write. There are dozens of writing and format options and users have the ability to write in any order and organize their work later on. Completed drafts can be shared via Markdown apps or via email or synced via DropBox.
- Work on multiple projects simultaneously
- Write in any order
- Avail a plethora of format options
- Import research files of various formats
- Export in various formats and share with Markdown apps or email
Lists for Writers is another great tool for your toolbox and will offer help to novices and experts and everyone in between. It gives you prompts and ideas made up of action words, names, obsessions, occupations, plot lines, character traits, and more. There’s a shuffle feature if you just want a random prompt, or you can search the list as well. There’s a notepad so you can collect interesting list items, dictionary support, and more. You won’t regret buying this app. There are so many lists it’s impossible to write them all here, but just a few are Facial Characteristics, Phobias, First Names (male and female), Last Names, Body Types, Hair, Emotions, Hobbies, Bad Habits, Archaic Locations, Setting, Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, Conflicts, Plot, and Weather.
- An amazing tool for writers
- List upon list of prompts and ideas
- Shuffle for random words
- Search for a specific list
- One-time purchase
Prose is a community of people who share your love of reading and writing. Just download the app, sign in, and publish your written products. Read others’ work, get involved in feedback, and receive feedback for your own work. You will love the Instagram-type feed where you will post your creative work. It offers a simple interface and beautiful design that keeps calling you back. You will follow and interact with other writers, and they will interact with what you publish. There are challenges to enter, with amazing prizes like ebooks, publication with various platforms, and more. What are you waiting for?
- Social community of writers
- Publish your work on your feed
- Get feedback from other writers
- Enter challenges to win amazing prizes
- Free writing app for iPhone and iPad
Characterize gives writers, storytellers, and role-players ideas for new characters. The app offers a random name generator, stat picker that offers detailed traits, and the option to save and share. Generators you get include Modern Children, Modern Families, Modern Humans, Modern Men, and Modern Women. Bundles you can buy include Science Fiction, Mythology, Genres, Fantasy Race, European Languages, and Asian Languages. There are many other packs you can buy, like Heroes and Villains, Aliens, Anime and Manga, Pirates and Scallywags, and more. Don’t ever get stuck coming up with character ideas again!
- Trillions of default names
- Perfect companion for your stories, role-playing, and more
- Come up with a near-infinite number of names for free
- In-depth character creator
- Free with in-app purchases
Webster’s Writer’s Dictionary is more than just a dictionary. But you can use it to get inspiration, too. Have you ever paged through a dictionary looking at all of the words and reading the antonyms and synonyms? Taking leaps through the book because one word led you to another, and another…that’s what this app can do for you. There’s also a Word of the Day widget available as an in-app purchase. The app offers predictive text so when you’re typing in a word to search, you’ll see a huge list of possibilities so who knows? You might stumble upon a word or combination of words you would never have thought to use otherwise. Check it out.
- Improve as a writer
- Learn new words
- Use words you already knew, in different ways
- Fun to explore
- Free with in-app purchase
Writing Prompts uses scene elements, words, current events, colors, genres, sketches, and more to provide inspiration and writing prompts for when you need a boost. There are five prompt generators you can use to come up with ideas, and you can store your favorites by tapping the favorite star. There are more than 250 scene elements, 60 sketches, 400 words, 10 colors, and 80 genres included to generate millions of unique prompts for your writing. Each pack includes hundreds more new scene elements. You can store an unlimited number of protests in your favorites and quickly swipe through them.
- Get inspiration for your writing with prompts
- Uses five generators
- Millions of unique prompts
- Save your favorites
- Paid writing app for iPhone and iPad
IEW Writing Tools Lite is a free app that offers you lists and charts to help write organized papers. It uses the structural models and stylistic techniques from the Teaching Writing: Structure & Style program. It is meant to give you the tools you need to organize the way you write, no matter the style. There are also word choices to help you vary your sentence style. You get Dress-Ups, Sentence Openers, Decorations, Triple Extensions, Teeter-Totters, and Word Lists in addition to Structure Models. This app works for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.
- Organize your writing
- Structural models and stylistic techniques
- Word choices
- Sentence openers
- Free writing app for iPhone and iPad
WriteRight contains a huge number of antonyms, synonyms, and phraseology that helps you replace expressions that you use too much and spice up your writing. It makes intelligent replacements preserving gender, number, and conjugation. The iPad version offers an optional keyboard with frequently used symbols and Markdown keys. Functions include find and replace, character/word count, quick navigation through long text, and the option to select and transfer as many files as you want. It offers a minimalist appearance so it won’t distract you from your writing and it’s easy to set up and use.
- Smart replacements
- Preserves gender, number, and conjugation when suggesting other words
- Synonyms and antonyms
- Phraseology
- One-time purchase