Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks is releasing an iPad app called Hanx Writer. It recreates the experience of using a typewriter with visuals (see the paper scroll move from left to right) and sounds (keys clacking). It’s the keyboard equivalent of hearing an old fashioned land line ring on a smartphone.
Jacob Kastrenakes of The Verge says: “It’s a fun enough way to type, but it’s hard to say that it perfectly recreates the typewriter experience.” The iPad can’t really mimic the experience of the old “hunt and peck” style on a typewriter. If you apply that kind of pressure to the “keys” using Hanx Writer, a flurry of letters appears, which we suppose is the closest thing to getting real typewriter keys stuck while striking. While there is a delete key on the app for 21st century typists, a “new” technology to brush out typos with White Out would have been cool.
