Further On Feature Request

A while back, I mentioned how desirable it would be for someone to construct a bare-bones word processor with the capacity to limit the number of typefaces in use, to limit formatting options, and so on — a very basic word processor with footnoting (and, possibly6, a defined-format bibliographic process, but that sounds like unnecessary complications). This morning I realised that a vendor such as Google or Apple or Microsoft, one that wants aggressively to increase its market share, could simply produce such a reduced-feature-set word processor for its preferred platform — quite possibly gaining a toehold among students, and winning endorsements from teachers. As far as the educational market goes, a brain-dead simple word processor is sort of a reverse killer app: not that it advances computing in a way that makes a particular platform desirable, but that it simplifies a near-universal task to the point that it would attract a lot of sympathetic attention.
 
(If one of you producers does develop such a thing, I’m available for consultation, and would only ask for a new computer as recompense. And I promise I won’t sue you even if you don’t consult me or give me a new computer.)
 

2 thoughts on “Further On Feature Request

  1. I really like iWriter for the iPad. It has a focus feature that only shows you the text you are writing and a couple lines around it. It really makes me concentrate on what I am writing and not what I have already written. I haven’t written anything scholarly with it yet, so I don’t know how the footnotes would work. I usually clean up the document in Word, so I would probably take care of them there. Cheers!

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