With realistic sounds and beautiful looks, Hanx Writer does a great job of bringing to life the humble typewriter. Sure it has a modern delete and a flickering cursor, but these can be turned off for a truly accurate typewriting experience. Tapping backspace now strikes through a letter, showing children just how writing was printed, just a few decades ago. You have one font, one ink colour and not a single emoji in sight.
However, the app does offer a few modern features through in-app purchases such as background colours, alignment options and photos — but most of these are unnecessary tweaks that you don’t really need.
Hanx Writer isn’t going to be your word processor of choice but it could be used in conjunction with a World War 1 or World War 2 topic. Many great speeches and books have been written on typewriters and it’s a great way of opening the minds of children. A bit like this video of kids reacting to typewriters…