I was upset when I got my iPad Pro and Ulysses didn’t scale correctly on it, as that was the thing holding me back from a great iPad Pro experience. But then I got my hands on a beta of Ulysses Mobile, and since then it’s easily become my favorite app on iOS.
I’m in love with this app.
Most people I direct to Ulysses, end up liking it a lot too. It speaks to us all.
There’s a shit ton of great features, but who cares? You can go download the app, or read countless other reviews to hear about those. I’ll tell you the two most important things about Ulysses Mobile.
One
Hold Everything, Always Ready
A while back I wrote about how Ulysses is now the only app I use for my writing and digital notes. Not only is it where I store all notes — I also have two in progress books in the app. Even with all this in the app, I never delete anything, preferring instead to move old stuff to a group I labeled “Archive”.
Ulysses is approaching 10,000 sheets — which is what Ulysses calls “documents” or “files”, well kind of. Whatever, doesn’t matter.
This is all synced via iCloud with no issues. Rock solid overall.
Which brings us to what I love best about Ulysses — moving from my Mac, iPad, or iPhone is seamless. All my writing is there. All the same functionality (98% of it on mobile at least) and always designed perfectly for the device you are using it on.
Which version of Ulysses is the best, or which is my favorite? All of them. I couldn’t pick. The iPhone app is exactly what I would want in the iPhone version. Ditto the Mac and iPad versions. Each is perfectly designed to work well on the platform you are using Ulysses on.
I can stop writing on my iPad and start up again on my iPhone while in the lavatory. It is efficient from one device to the next and I can’t begin to overstate how great this is.
Two
No Bullshit
Ulysses isn’t “minimal” in the slightest sense of the word. It doesn’t try to be either. It is a full featured writing application — made to both handle the input of text, as well as to handle the output of your text. I could create an ebook from my iPad, without even leaving Ulysses. It’s stupid simple.
And that’s what I mean by no bullshit. Ulysses does a ton, and it attempts to do all those things in the simplest way possible. Anything the app does in a way which bothers me, I couldn’t possibly fathom how to make it better.
You won’t get lost in features and settings with Ulysses. The app won’t trip you up. Like with 2Do, Ulysses is malleable to how you work.
A God Damned Miracle Is What This Is
I’ve given up on writing long reviews. I’m also giving up on trying to convince you about two things:
- The GORUCK GR1 is a backpack which is simply unmatched.
- You’re wasting your time writing in any app which isn’t Ulysses.
Safari, Slack, and Ulysses is where I spend my entire day. Ulysses is almost always active in split view on my iPad Pro. I keep trying other apps, and I fail to understand why people would choose something else over Ulysses.
But, this wouldn’t be a review if I didn’t offer at least two complaints about something. So here you go:
- Where the hell is the WordPress publishing? ((Coming soon I am told.))
- We need some typewriter scrolling up in here.
Actually, the app really needs the variable type writer scrolling the Mac app has — though maybe that would be unfair to every other app. I mean how could any other app compete once Ulysses gets that feature?
Don’t waste time or money considering another app, get Ulysses, and get back to writing.