During my recent travels through Romania, I’ve had the opportunity to use a new indie app called Desk.pm for my writing. Simple, but powerful is its tagline, and I’ve experienced first-hand its effect of making people fall in love with writing, again. I’ve written longer blog posts last week than I have for more than a year before.
The focus of the app is simple: words.
Simplicity is not a new trend in writing world software, but following web apps like svbtle and ghost.io on the web, Desk manages to bring the same distraction-free experience offline.
My Personal Experience with Desk
I will make a confession – since my early days of blogging around 2008, I never encountered a desktop “blogging program” that I liked or planned to stick to. I think I tried around 10 or 12. They are usually very clumsy, and they add to the clumsiness of your web CMS, making the affair even worse.
But I like Desk. Especially since it’s not even claiming to be a blogging app.
It’s about writing.
One of the features I appreciate most is that you don’t have to publish what you wrote online to close the workflow. The posts are saved as files on your computer, so it’s just as easy to use for a journal or other kinds of writing directions. When I’m not blogging, it fits easily for notes and journaling.
When I am blogging, though, Desk does not cease to impress. I’ve had the chance to use it in publishing texts on both social networks and , all options being quick to setup (2 minutes tops) and as easy to use as saying “it just works”. It’s like sending a letter to your friends — you write intimately, but then they each member of your audience reads it individually. The platform integrations are built-in, and you can just drag and drop to insert pictures (although Facebook and Squarespace are limited by their API in adding media).
I did meet some minor bugs when formatting my ramblings, hopefully they’ll be cleared in the next release (which is already in progress). I have to say they are barely noticeable and generally didn’t make me stumble while letting the creative juice flow.
Speaking of creative, most of the design of the app is shifted to typography. And given its purpose, it wouldn’t be hard to guess that it features a typewriter font.
I’ve never used a real typewriter, but I love the idea of just having letters and paper. No distractions, no blockers, no gimmicks. Desk is the closest next best thing we got.
Simon L Smith says
I agree.
I was lucky enough to test it early on and found myself writing and blogging more than ever. That alone sold me!
I also bought it upon launch and am still writing more. Blogging less (working to finalize a manuscript) but using it for quick notes, initial drafts of what will be a blog post, etc.
There is a lot to be said about Desk, I write more and more often when I use Desk.
What more could you want?
Simon
Ajlan says
It would be a perfect app if multiple image upload could work. I bought this app with purpose to be able to blog more but unfortunately i realised that there are several big bugs for uploading multiple images in blog post.
After publishing a post, you must enter in wordpress account to find the original paths of images upload via desk app and return to your the post to paste this path for each images otherwise images are not visible. Considering that i’m a photographer sometimes i’ve got 20-30 images to change the path so for me, it’s a pain and this app is unusable. (i’m using the latest version Desk pm 3.1)
As announced from the developer i was waiting for the new version (3.1) to begin to use this app but the same problem persist.
Now i hope for version 3.2 or the developer solve my problem.