Apps

[FDX Reader](http://fdxreader.com), our app for reading Final Draft files on the iPad, is now a universal app with support for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It’s [available on the App Store](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fdx-reader/id437362569?mt=8) today. It’s a free upgrade.

We developed the iPad version of FDX Reader first because the larger screen is such a natural fit for reading screenplays. We took inspiration from readers like iBooks and Kindle, flipping virtual pages. It’s been great to see it get such a positive response, both among screenwriters and the tech press.

But in some ways, I think the iPhone version serves a more crucial need.

Up until now, reading screenplays on the iPhone has been terrible, even with PDFs. The small screen simply isn’t friendly to 8.5 x 11 sheets of 12-pt Courier. You end up pinching and zooming and straining your eyes to see anything.

While it was technically possible to read a full script on the iPhone, you’d never want to.

Now, you just might.

Our design choices were driven by the smaller screen. The iPhone is nothing like a printed script, so we felt free to break from screenplay conventions. We sliced margins. We stopped flipping pages. We picked a font that worked great at smaller sizes.

The iPhone version of FDX Reader takes its inspiration from non-book apps like [Instapaper](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instapaper/id288545208?mt=8) and [Reeder](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/reeder/id325502379?mt=8). We focused on the text, not the area around it.

We kept two of the best features of the iPad version. The page popover lets you skip right to a given page, scrolling the text as you go. The type button gives you five choices of size — since people hold iPhones closer, you may find yourself going much smaller than you think.

And to maximize screen real estate, we dismiss the header with a center tap.

FDX Reader was made by the same team of Nima Yousefi, Ryan Nelson and me. Many thanks to all our beta testers for their suggestions and bug reports.

As with the initial FDX Reader launch, I’m sure we’ll find some unexpected situations as we expand support to additional devices. ((Previous issues that have come up: A4 paper, locations files, TV act breaks, non-Final Draft .fdx files.)) If something’s not working, [tell us](http://quoteunquoteapps.com/support/fdxreader). We’ve been able to iterate so quickly — five releases in seven weeks — because our users help us.

If you’re new to FDX Reader, check out the [demos and videos](http://fdxreader.com) on the site. If you’re already a user, the new version should show up in your Updates immediately.

Apple just approved an update for [FDX Reader](http://fdxreader.com). If you’ve installed the app, it should show up in your App Store updates soon.

Version 1.0.2 addresses two issues:

* A4-sized paper.
* Final Draft’s “Dual Dialogue” option.

Our trouble handling A4 paper reveals our provincialism; all of our beta testers were North American. A4 paper is common everywhere else in the world, and should be celebrated by geeks for its [mathematical purity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_size).

For this build, we focused on making sure A4 paper wouldn’t cause the formatting to go completely bonkers. We’re not yet paginating for the extra lines on A4, so page counts will be off for longer scripts.

(My A4 story: While in London prepping for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I had a minor battle with the Warner Bros. script department in Burbank. They reformatted our A4 script to 8.5×11, and claimed it was 10 pages too long. Ultimately, we threw their script in the trash — which we called the bin, being British and all.)

Final Draft’s dual dialogue option displays two characters’ dialogue side-by-side. While it’s often and easily abused, it is useful in the right situations.

Because we allow the user to increase the font size, trying to keep the dialogue side-by-side proved ungainly. So we’re unwrapping it, displaying the right-side character after the left-side character.

We have some ideas for indicating this dialogue is simultaneous, but your suggestions are of course invited.

Each time we update the app, our user reviews disappear from the [main screen](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fdx-reader/id437362569?mt=8). If you’ve left a comment about a previous version and want to leave another, by all means do. They help users see how the app is evolving.