Thoughts on the Drafts App

Every once in a while I am told of an app for my iPhone that I think “that would be pretty neat” so I get it. Drafts is one such app. I would put a link to the App Store in this blog, but Apple has removed to IOS App Store from desktop computers in their latest iteration of iTunes. So any iTunes link I put to the drafts app would crash. So, if you want to see this app and try it, open the App Store on your phone or iPad and search for Drafts.

Anyway, the Drafts app is supposed to be “the place where text starts.” That is their tagline. A user opens the app on their iDevice and they are presented with a blank screen. They can type or dictate any text they want. When they are done entering text, they can close the Drafts app and the text will be stored or they can tap on the icon in the upper right of the screen and they will be presented with all sorts of options to send the text somewhere. It can be sent to an iMessage or a SMS message, to any of the IOS apps on the phone, to a email recipient. In other words, people can spend all the time they want entering text and correcting and editing text and when they are ready, they can send it anywhere.

Drafts also has a great watch app. On the Apple Watch, tapping the drafts icons brings up a dictation screen. The user can speak into their watch and the text will be captured. Drafts is pretty good about getting the right text. When the drafts app is closed on the watch, the text is transferred to the drafts app on the connected iPhone. From there the text can be edited, fixed and sent to anywhere.

Drafts is a brilliant idea. A place to write text, store text and then send it anywhere is a stroke of genius. So I got it. I put it on my Apple Watch and put it in the dock of my iPhone. And I have not used it in the last 2 months. If I want to message someone, I open the messages app. If I want to email someone I open the email app. I never think of opening drafts first to get the text just right, then sending it to another app. I guess I have habits of using single purpose apps for their single purpose. Because of this I tend to send emails with typos and texts with misspellings. If only I used the Drafts app to escrow my text until it is ready to send. Additionally, the Drafts apps keeps a record of everything I send, so even after I send a text, the original text is archived in Drafts and all text is synced through iCloud.

Drafts is a great app, that I need to learn to use. I cannot share the iTunes link for the app, but I have located some youtube videos of the app in action that might be of interest.

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