I anticipate the questions I will get asked most about Phraseology now that it is released are related to the omission of a syncing solution – specifically, iCloud and/or Dropbox. This was not an oversight, but an intentional omission in this first release – a calculated risk, I suppose. I wanted to focus on the unique aspects of the app, and not get bogged down reproducing the features of competing apps.
Phraseology supports the iOS Document Interaction model. It registers itself to handle plain text files, allowing you to import text files into the app from other apps that support export (such as the Dropbox app). It also allows you to export your text out to any apps that support receiving plain text files (such as the Dropbox app, and many other text editors). This was a baseline to me and I feel like any editor on the iPad should support this form of file exchange. The app also provides support for easy use of email, the clipboard and printing.
As I thought about implementation of other syncing solutions, and reviewed the way it has been done in other apps, I didn’t “feel” it. I realized that I didn’t want a traditional file manager. Some people are not going to like it, but old school files and folders didn’t feel right to me on the iPad and it seemed like that was where you had to go with Dropbox integration. Before reproduced the methods I saw in the other editors, I wanted to hear from users who valued the unique features of Phraseology and listen to what they really wanted. It may be Dropbox, and I may release support in an upcoming version.
As far as iCloud, I like it, but didn’t seem the immediate benefit of implementing it for an iPad only app. It doesn’t solve the same problem as Dropbox. Outside of the rare case of a person with two iPads, syncing to iCloud did not seem to make much sense until I have an iPhone or Mac app to go along with it.
If you like Phraseology, let me know what you think…I’m all ears and plan to deliver one or both or these options, if not others, in an upcoming release.
