Tom Hanks’ Typewriter App Is No. 1 in the App Store

The power of celebrity endorsement at work. This isn't to say that had this app been built without any connection to Tom Hanks it wouldn't have found an audience, but this way it starts with a much bigger audience than it would have had on it's own. Now, nobody needs a typewriter styled text editor on their iPad, but we can all imagine Forrest Gump tapping out the first draft of his story on a manual Remington typewriter. And that inspires the desire for an app like this.

It's the power of the story you tell about your product, and celebrities tend to be expert storytellers.

Back in the early 1990s I was forced to do typing as a subject in the South African equivalent of junior-high school. We used mechanical (Olivetti?) typewriters (electric typewriters were for the older students who did typing as an elective). Even at the time, we found the whole thing archaic, as many of us had computers and printers, but obviously the school curriculum didn't move forward at the speed of technology. And mechanical keyboards aren't romantic when the typewriters and keys jam up and/or break in weird ways. Carriage returns weren't automatic either, as they are on the Hanxwriter app...you needed to manually move the lever on the left.

After a rocky start (because I refused to cheat and look at the keys), and two years of typing exercises, I found it was a useful skill, and, even now the keyboard "gets out of the way" when I type on any device.

I wonder if there are long-term benefits to formal typing education, vs picking things up, along the way, and if it is still taught formally at school.

As for the app, my first impression is that it provides an ersatz sanitised version of a real mechanical typewriter. Maybe that's a good thing, but it doesn't seem to fulfill any need that I have.

I was expecting a video with Tom Hanks typing "Dear ShopGirl..." :-(

He writes code by himself?

He's almost as accomplished as Kim Kardashian now then.

I guess this is the result of Apple finally allowing custom keyboards[1]. I've heard people say that you can make more money developing an app for iOS instead of Android and the fact that a simple app like this typewriter emulator - which would have been possible for years on Android - could sell so much reenforces that notion in my mind.

I suppose the success could just be due to the fact that it's being endorsed by a celebrity like Tom Hanks?

[1]https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documenta...