Ulysses' Companions' Odyssey (provisional app review)

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Apr 20, 2022 at 12:55 PM

The Ulysses/Inspire Writer comparison is instructive in illuminating the differences between the Apple and Windows environments.

I just checked out Inspire Writer and it seems like a very capable markdown editor, one of the best I’ve seen for Windows. It lacks the design polish of Ulysses. And it is missing two crucial (in my view) features that Ulysses sports:

- You can’t concatenate sheets in IW as you can in Ulysses. This alone makes Ulysses superior.
- Ulysses has a fully functional mobile version that works wonderfully on an iPad.

On the other hand, you have to pay an annual fee for Ulysses, whereas one fee (currently lower than the annual subscription rate for Ulysses) will get you lifetime access to Inspire Writer.

In my experience, Apple environment apps are generally more polished in their design and UI. And they usually have have apps for both MacOS and iOS, making them more universally available. But you pay a premium for this, both for the hardware involved, but also for the software licensing.

What is key here is that each operating environment provides an alternative to the other. I would hate to be forced to use Windows only. And it appears others feel the same about Apple. That’s why it is also nice that Linux is available.

Steve Z.