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Introducing Quip

quip.com

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Re: Introducing Quip

#41

Post by benhoyt »

marcamillion wrote: post #32

This looks awesome. When I installed it, the first thing I am greeted with is a screen asking me to enter my email address. Given that my email is a Gmail address, it notifies me about wanting to manage my contacts and something else (that was the first off-putting step in my experience). I just met you, and your hands are already going down my pants. Then once I got in, the 1st or 2nd screen inside is about adding f…

Totally agreed -- I'm skipping it for now. "View my contacts" would have been one thing, but "manage"? Be nice if one could try the tool and invite friends later.

Re: Introducing Quip

#42

Post by finiteloop »

benhoyt wrote: post #41
marcamillion wrote: post #32

This looks awesome. When I installed it, the first thing I am greeted with is a screen asking me to enter my email address. Given that my email is a Gmail address, it notifies me about wanting to manage my contacts and something else (that was the first off-putting step in my experience). I just met you, and your hands are already going down my pants. Then once I got in, the 1st or 2nd screen inside is about adding f…

Totally agreed -- I'm skipping it for now. "View my contacts" would have been one thing, but "manage"? Be nice if one could try the tool and invite friends later.

We don't save your contacts. We use it to find existing contacts on Quip. Sorry it isn't an option.

-- Bret

Re: Introducing Quip

#43

Post by sytelus »

Definitely "not for my mom" product, at least not yet. I logged on using my Google account and it needed permission to manage my contacts and among other things! Why a word processor needs to manage my contacts? Interface on desktop Chrome is filled with undiscoverability issues like Windows 8 UX. For example, it took me forever to figure out that there was a "+" sign on the bottom right to start creating new doc. That was in fact only way to create new doc. I still can't figure out where is the button for making text bold or italics. After few minutes I gave up trying to figuring out how to change font.

Re: Introducing Quip

#44

Post by dakrisht »

ryandrake wrote: post #13

Is it just me, or are a lot of startups borrowing each other's value props? It's like a Mad Lib that everyone just fills in: "[Product] is a [app category] that enables you to create beautiful [output]." Everything's about "enabling the creation of beautiful" XYZ. Nothing against these guys in particular, I just happened to notice it while reading the site, and am thinking back to the N other new product announcement…

It helps to be the ex-CTO of FB when raising $15M for an app with not that many users. But best of luck to these guys if the product is good (haven't tried it yet, not much of an iPad typist)

Re: Introducing Quip

#45

Post by goldfeld »

Criticizes word processors as being from another era with old concepts. Then goes on to show a skeuomorphic interface based on even more elderly analogies, such as "desktop" and "folders."

Minor nit aside, the diffs do seem very helpful to the folks who pass around Word docs and such. I guess either technology or the tech world has only now caught up to this need with things like this and Draft.

Re: Introducing Quip

#46

Post by snom380 »

ryanSrich wrote: post #30

This looks great and I'm hopeful that it will do well. Having said that I can't help but think how strange it is that the launch of another word processor is novel enough to reach the front page of HN. I understand that the co-founders are big names in the valley but a word processor? Perhaps I'm missing something but the technology here seems anything but front page worthy.

It's a novel way of implementing a word processor and from the screenshots looks like a good start.

I'm getting pretty tired of these "how does this belong on HN" posts. Face it, most things in computer science have been invented before. The interesting thing is how well a product has been executed. Should we not have linked to the announcement of Facebook or Dropbox when they were announced, just because social networks and file syncing products were around before them?

Re: Introducing Quip

#47

Post by Void_ »

Are there really more users who own tablet + external keyboard, than those who own a laptop? (Even if it was for Apples only?)

I think writing documents, or doing any kind of work for that matter, on an iPad with external keyboard looks ridiculous.

Re: Introducing Quip

#48

Post by marc0 »

Great tool which solves several practical problems. Especially I like the ability to edit documents offline.

After looking at it briefly I came up with these points:

- I'd like to have an easy integration of multiple accounts, like a 'combined inbox', so that I can use quip for private and professional purposes at the same time

- For the desktop I'd like to have an app instead of editing text in the browser.

EDIT:

- In order to make a really great product, add LaTeX support, esp. for maths

Re: Introducing Quip

#50

Post by kfk »

Meh, MS Word is a horrible piece of software, but it does its job, how is this different? Collaboration? Good luck convincing the business world only with that, they have been emailing files for 20 years and they have been reading paper for over a century. Really, good luck.

Then, format? Open, closed? Are we again proposing creating documents on proprietary formats after all the issues we saw with .doc and friends?

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