Top all-time · #288
iA
Company blog · ia.net/know-howdesignwriting
iA is the company blog at ia.net, writing about design and writing. Since 2013, 174 different Hacker News readers have linked it 257 times, most often “IA Writer: The Benchmark of Markdown Writing Apps”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-20, and you can follow it by feed.
iA builds products for focus and flow.
Most-linked posts?
- IA Writer: The Benchmark of Markdown Writing Apps23 people · 26 mentions · first linked 2016-12-14
- iA Presenter17 people · 20 mentions · first linked 2022-09-06
- Subscription or no subscription? That is not the question8 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2020-08-20
- Our Android app is frozen in carbonite6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2024-09-26
- Web Design Is 95% Typography: How to Use Type on the Web6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-12-07
- /topics/in-search-of-the-perfect-writing-font5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2020-11-20
- iA Writer 75 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2023-11-30
- What happens to the traffic you send to the App Store?5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-01-18
- A Typographic Christmas: new iA variable fonts available for free on GitHub4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2018-12-25
- The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard (Guidelines for readable Typography)4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2013-12-06
What Hacker News says?
Reminded me of This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself mixed with Web Design is 95% Typography http://consc.net/misc/moser.html http://ia.net/blog/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period
Comment linking /blog/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period
on “This is a web page”Submitted Our Android app is frozen in carbonite as a story · 349 points
HN discussionI believe the parent was hinting at the other possibility: not use an image at all. When I see these AI-generated cover images in posts I'm left with a bad taste in my mouth. They look "ok" when glanced but pay more than a second of attention and they're terrible and uncanny. If you truly care about the image's place in relation to the post, you'd go through the process that you mention and most likely you will end…
Comment linking /topics/ai-art-is-the-new-stock-image
on “Anatomy of a credit card rewards program”Submitted Logo, Bullshit & Co., Inc. as a story · 212 points
HN discussionWhat do you call the Apple store then if it's not a monopolization of the iOS ecosystem? This article accurately captures all tech monopolies, Apple included. https://ia.net/topics/monopolies-apple-and-epic
Comment linking /topics/monopolies-apple-and-epic
on “DOJ will push Google to sell off Chrome”Submitted In search of the perfect writing font as a story · 121 points
HN discussion"Slow the f*ck down." - Oliver Reichenstein [1] This only happens because the software industry has fallen into the Religion of Speed . I see it constantly: justified corner-cutting, rushing shit out the door, and always loading up another feature/project/whatever with absolutely zero self-awareness. AI is just an amplifier for bad behavior that was already causing chaos. What's not being said here but should be: di…
Comment linking /*
on “Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work”Submitted Turning the Tables on AI as a story · 111 points
HN discussion> I've never run into any of the anticompetitive problems people claim are so damaging That sounds like you either haven’t heard all of the indie developers complaining or are inclined to find reasons to say problems with “your side” have some other explanation. For example, this was just a couple weeks ago where Google’s “open platform” blocked a popular app from doing what their mutual customers wanted: https://ia…
Comment linking /topics/our-android-app-is-frozen-in-carbonite
on “Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge”Submitted Subscription or no subscription? That is not the question as a story · 48 points
HN discussion> I wonder if there was some sort of back channeling with the EU No back channeling is required. It's literally written in the law that you can go ahead and ask if you're unsure: https://ia.net/topics/unraveling-the-digital-markets-act Scroll to Law: Ask us if you find issues
Comment linking /topics/unraveling-the-digital-markets-act
on “Apple reverses course on death of Progressive Web Apps in EU”Submitted AI Art Is the New Stock Image as a story · 47 points
HN discussionI've been using iA Writer for all of my text and writing needs for many years, couldn't be happier. https://ia.net/writer
Comment linking /writer
on “Write plain text files”Submitted Markdown and the Slow Fade of the Formatting Fetish as a story · 32 points
HN discussionlower contrast is not bad, I don't want all text to be #000 and #fff, but the contrast on DuckDuckGo is too low. As it says here your text should be as readable as #333 on #fff: http://ia.net/blog/100e2r/ There are also some WCAG guidelines on contrast. Here are some contrast checkers: http://snook.ca/technical/colour_contrast/colour.html http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/ http://www.checkmycolours.com/
Comment linking /blog/100e2r/
on “The next version of DuckDuckGo”Submitted IA Writer 4 as a story · 28 points
HN discussionPersonally, I'm happy with few tools that helps me write simpler (and hopefully better) English in my everyday usage. ## Long-Form When I'm writing a long-form prose/essay, I start writing in Hemingway[1]. Edits and changes are done there to cater to my target audience. I'd then pick up the draft from there and go through Grammarly[2] as the final passage. ## Quick, Short Writings For everyday use, I use iA / Writer…
Comment linking /writer
on “How to Write in Plain English”Submitted Designed in China, Assembled in California as a story · 22 points
HN discussionSomething not in the list that would make a good addition is iA’s (makers of the popular iA Writer app) fork of IBM Plex Mono. They took Plex and redesigned some of the more quirky, IBM-brand glyphs such as loosening the tight radii on the descenders of ’t’ and ‘j’, and built some fairly novel duospace and quad-space versions: https://ia.net/writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas The GitHub link is somewhat buried in t…
Comment linking /writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas
on “Programming Fonts – Test Drive”Submitted IA Writer in Paper as a story · 20 points
HN discussionIf you like that font, you could try out the mono version from iA Writer (a famous writing app) which they have released recently, it's based on plex but looks a bit better imo! https://ia.net/writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas
Comment linking /writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas
on “Programming Fonts – Test Drive”Submitted Logo, Bullshit and Co., Inc. (2013) as a story · 18 points
HN discussionThe team behind the iA Writer app recently released three variable fonts with an open source licence on Github. Details here: https://ia.net/writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas
Comment linking /writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas
on “Inter UI, a typeface designed for user interfaces”Submitted “Ethics” and Ethics as a story · 15 points
HN discussionHalf a year ago, I configured my IDE to use a _duospaced_ font: https://ia.net/topics/in-search-of-the-perfect-writing-font It mostly retains the advantages of a monospaced font while being a bit easier to read and fitting more characters on screen. I'd love to see more font-designers exploring this idea.
Comment linking /topics/in-search-of-the-perfect-writing-font
on “Dev Fonts”Submitted IA Writer takes Android app offline due to Google's policy changes as a story · 14 points
HN discussionMy favorite lately is iA Writer Mono: https://ia.net/writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas
Comment linking /writer/blog/a-typographic-christmas
on “Lesser Known Coding Fonts”Submitted Markdown and the Slow Fade of the Formatting Fetish as a story · 11 points
HN discussionI like monospace for writing Markdown. I can't point finger on why exactly, but it feels like a manuscript or something. (Although iA folks have quantified this a bit: https://ia.net/topics/in-search-of-the-perfect-writing-font ) Conversely, for reading Markdown, I prefer a rendered version in a proportional font.
Comment linking /topics/in-search-of-the-perfect-writing-font
on “The Monospace Web”Submitted Being Boring – The Silent Career Killer as a story · 10 points
HN discussion
