Co:Writer App for IOS- WOW!

I guess patience is a real virtue especially when it comes to developing apps for Apple's IOS devices. In the case of the Co:Writer App for IOS from Don Johnston, Inc, the wait was certainly worth it.  Co:Writer for Mac and PC has become to large degree the standard in the assistive technology field for word prediction. I can remember when I first saw Co:Writer for the first time I was floored just how good the prediction algorithms were. It had the uncanny ability to feel like it was reading my Co:Writer for IOS comes complete with a large library of built-in Topic Dictionaries, what happens when the student is writing for example a current events paper on the Civil War in Syria? Not a problem, Co:Writer for IOS can go out to the web and create a Scraped Topic Dictionary on the fly. Wow that is some powerful feature!

Co:Writer for iPad

mind as I demonstrated it on the computer. But what could we come to expect from Co:Writer on an IOS device? With a long history of being the standard by which all word prediction applications are measured could it really provide students with the level of support that they would need? I have to tell you that since its release a couple of weeks ago, Co:Writer lives up to its reputation and then some. I am really floored to watch Co:Writer run on the iPad as elegantly as it does never missing a beat. The word prediction is top rate even when students spell phonetically or leave out vowels. The killer feature as far as I am concerned are Topic Dictionaries and Scraped Topic Dictionaries. Those of us who have used Co:Writer are well aware of Topic Dictionaries that are included with Co:Writer on the Mac or PC and how well they can support students when they are writing a specific topic. Sometimes we forget what a difference it can make when a student is writing when we can provide theme with all those technical and topical words they will need to access. While 

As you would expect you can customize Co:Writer for IOS by determining the base number of words that Co:Writer should access which would depend on the students vocabulary and grade level. You can also set the Text to Speech feature to read letters, words, or sentences and set the rate of the speech. You currently can utilize five different fonts and change the size of the text and utilize a high contrast feature, black background white text. While Co:Writer makes it easy to get your ideas down on the iPad-it also gives you lots of options when it comes time for sharing your ideas. You can send the text to iMessage, Facebook, Twitter or Email. Better yet you can save it to your Dropbox or Google Drive account for easy access at home or in school. You can also copy. paste and print the text directly from the app. Don Johnston, Inc recently added iCloud support which will now sync your files across multiple devices which is a great feature. Co:Writer for IOS also supports external Bluetooth keyboards and will work on the iPhone. For students who need spelling support, having access to Co:Writer on IOS will be a dream come true for them.

To get a feel for Co:Writer for IOS please watch the screencast.