Updates, Updates…and a Rebuttal

Where to begin? Today is Monday, and so it’s a new week with a new update. First, The Skyscraper Thief is with my beta reader, so I should be hearing back with any updates in the not too distant future. With any luck it’s still on track for a late June/early July release but don’t hold me to that quite yet…

The War Between Worlds is advancing almost as fast as the Martian invaders themselves. I’m currently sitting at just short of 8500 words with a week of production in the can.

I recently read a comparative review of Ulysses and Scrivener, and I have problems. I have even more problems with the app the author said was better than either, but that’s a different thing entirely.

I’m going to start with the elephant in the room. Ulysses is subscription software. It costs $39.99 per year/$5.99 per month; each and every month. This is actually better than the price given in the review, which listed an annual cost of $49.99, but it’s still a subscription. Even so, the author of the review explicitly stated that it was a “good value.”

Scrivener costs $59.99, the review said $49.99, for a perpetual license. This, however is not described as a “good value.” Personally, I have been using Scrivener for twelve and a half years, and have spent approximately a hundred dollars in total. Yes, I’ve been able to take advantage of discounts, but I’ve also bought the MacOS, iOS, and Windows versions in that time.

Now while the person did admit that the one-time purchase option of Scrivener is better, the focus on the value of the subscription software is a clear sign of bias. Another level of bias comes in when they mention a feature both have as a benefit for Ulysses over Scrivener.

Next we come to Backup and Sync, and somehow the fact that Ulysses backs up on a fixed schedule–not saves, but backs up–of 12 hours, 7 days, and six months is much better than Scrivener because you have to close the program for Scrivener to run a backup. Somehow he fails to mention that Scrivener also supports running a backup with every manual save… so you don’t have to close Scrivener to run a backup.

Finally, the author talks about sharing and collaboration; saying that Scrivener doesn’t support third party apps and can only be used on one device. This is news to me, as I have been using Dropbox with Scrivener for many years, and have it installed on three computers. The limit is that any one project can only be open on one device at one time. If you try to open it on a second device, you have to create a second version of the project.

Needless to say, he awards the victory to Ulysses.

Now to be honest, it’s possible he is right. Ulysses may be a better writing app than Scrivener; though I think it’s more important to ask which writing app is better for you, than which is better overall.

Unfortunately, the clear bias in the review combines with the misstatements of fact to make it completely worthless for anyone aiming for an honest comparison of the two programs.