Those of you who know me reasonably well, know that I like to write stuff. Like the short film script pictured above or the odd comic. And I don’t like using a basic word-processor when writing scripts for screen or comics, I like to use programmes such as Final Draft. I have a laptop PC and a tablet with a keyboard.

The laptop is a heavy hitting, multimedia machine that’s built for gaming and audio-video editing. I do take it out and about sometimes, but it’s not travel friendly. Then there’s my tablet, which I can do a lot of things with: casually game, organise my life, watch videos, social media, blog – a gentle mixture of fun stuff and work.

But it’s an Android tablet. And Final Draft is pretty much refusing to work on an Android version of their software. There’s an iOS version, because (as far as I can tell) a) the screen sizes are standardised b) American creatives do appear to obsess over Apple products.

To be honest I could go and buy yet another portable device, like a notebook, but then again FD could just pick out the screen sizes of the high end, best selling, Android devices and programme for them. Like what’s been done for Grand Theft Auto III, which is compatible with my tablet. I don’t even mind paying a bit extra.

Anyway, here’s a conversation I’ve had with Final Draft over Twitter, during the past day:

Basically – if there was a will there would be a way, but I don’t think there’s currently a will. And I do think that due to the obsession the creative industries (especially in the US) currently have with Apple systems, other operating systems are being overlooked. But this is short sighted, because market share figures are not clear cut and shows that other formats need to be considered.

Seriously – pagination? Uh, what the heck did they use to do with different desktop screen sizes, resolutions, zooms…? I’m sorry, but Final Draft’s reasons are not good enough for a professional company explaining the absence of their software on Android.

UPDATE 21/03

Still not good enough.

UPDATE #2

Final Draft basically just jumped around my suggestion of having a report function in the Android app that would translate what the Android app displays into some stats that say what it is equal to on desktop or printed. All smelling like money, and while iOS is dominant, it’s not completely dominant, especially outside of the US.

They really, really didn’t understand my solution. It doesn’t matter what was displayed on the Android tablet’s screen, what would matter is a report back function to say what it was pagination would be like on desktop or printed.

Meanwhile, someone’s put this on Reddit and the debate is ongoing there.