
Introducing Quip - jamesjyu
https://quip.com/blog/introducing-quip
======
finiteloop
It's always surreal to read Hacker News threads about the stuff you make.
Harsh, but realistic. Anyway, I am Bret Taylor, co-founder of Quip. I am here
if you have any questions, etc. (Also posted responses on the existing thread
already).

Just to clarify a couple of points I have read:

1\. We do support desktops. We have a really nice web app. It is
Chrome/Firefox only right now.

2\. We have an Android app. It is a "preview release" because it is not
feature complete. We released it because it is pretty close, and you can
download it at
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quip.quip](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quip.quip).
It is early, but it exists.

~~~
tjmc
App looks great Bret. One question - given the focus on collaboration and
mobility and the very minimal formatting feature set, why the positioning as a
word processor rather than a OneNote/Wiki/Collab note taking tool?

~~~
wslh
I had the same thinking. I think Microsoft OneNote is the example to follow in
mobile. Microsoft had tried to port it to mobile devices but that is not the
real desktop OneNote.

Back in the iPhone 2g era I was developing a personal wiki with a WYSIWYG UI
but I stopped because I needed to use a lot of hidden UITextView/WebView
object methods that were not approved by Apple policies or write my own editor
engine. Many years later I don't see this kind of wiki in the App Store (no,
it's not EverNote).

~~~
porker
> (no, it's not EverNote).

Amen! I've run desktop wikis, Evernote, OneNote, plain text files, Markdown
files, Workflowy, Delicious, Diigo and more, and not fit exactly. Evernote is
so easy to dump things into (esp web page clippings) and oh-so-hard to
find/retrieve information. I've come to the conclusion tags don't cut it, as
vocab I used 4+ years ago may have changed by now - heck even terms I used 3
weeks ago change as my knowledge improves.

A wiki with structure, like the Leo Literate Programming Editor used IIRC has
come closest. But the space of PIM is ripe for a killer product that takes
semi-structured data and allows us to run with it.

Filemaker for the web, with a bit more flexibility.

------
marcamillion
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 friends
because it is better when you collaborate.

The only reason I saw the 'Skip' in the top right is because I was really
looking for a way not to do this.

So I think the issue I have with this workflow is that the expectations that
the landing page set are one thing (i.e. awesome document creation on mobile
devices) and then the experience is pushing me into a "hand-over-your-address-
book-and-get-to-sharing" experience right off the bat.

I get the whole "viral loop" thingy, and baking it into the product
experience, but I feel like it would leave a better taste in my mouth if I was
nudged into it - rather than broadsided.

That being said, I am likely to continue using it and playing with it (because
of the potential value that a word processor made for an iPad can have).

I was just put off by that digging into my address book experience...that's
all.

~~~
samstave
Sadly, I think this suffers from one of Facebooks greatest and worst issues:
"WHO WOULDN'T WANT TO SHARE THIS, NOW!!!"

> __ _" Uhm... because; Fuck You, that's why"_ __

I would suggest a much more clever way to virility; Help me actually MAKE
something I WANT to share...

How about a tutorial on how to build an utterly awesome [document] thaat I
just must share!

An invite, a how-to, op-ed...something!!

Here is an app that is looking to re-define how word processing is done, with
a social context built-in - yet fails to provide a compelling reason, way,
example, on how that should be done.

If word procs are so broken, give me an exciting example of how you fix it.

~~~
marcamillion
_I would suggest a much more clever way to virility; Help me actually MAKE
something I WANT to share... How about a tutorial on how to build an utterly
awesome [document] thaat I just must share! An invite, a how-to, op-
ed...something!!_

This is actually pretty clever.

Bret and Team...not to be presumptuous to offer you guys advice, but I think
this could be very useful.

Picture this....the way make/consume documents has changed drastically since
Word was initially created.

There could be a VERY powerful viral loop in here somewhere, but I don't think
it is on the surface.

If you guys built it into the document type being created, e.g. you made some
nifty tools that allow me to make 'wedding/party invites' from scratch (with
some sexy templates or features that add significant value to the creation of
an invite) - then you add the address book/viral element built into that
process, once it is done - it makes total sense.

Once they create an invite, they want to share it.

The same is likely true for other document types - e.g. Resumes, Basic Flyers
(say for Yard Sales, etc.), article that needs to be proof-read before
submitting (like an op-ed), a school paper, certain legal documents, etc.

So, I guess what I am saying is....if you take a step back and think about
different document types that people might want to create. Then you build
tools to make the creation of each of those documents easier, than say using
Photoshop, Word or Google Docs - then you build in the viral loop into the
appropriate document types that make sense for you to share it.

I think THAT would be revolutionary.

~~~
eitally
Think VistaPrint and their free business cards... free as long as you let them
print their logo on the back. :)

------
OoTheNigerian
Great stuff. Never easy tackling such an entrenced market.

I have a few suggestions though as someone that not only actively uses Google
Docs but practically forces people I work with to do so too.

1\. How do I make this appear in my existin Google Docs folder? I really do
not want to have another place for my documents.

2\. The pricing of Google Docs makes it really hard to beat. How does quip
plan to fight that?

3\. Still early days but people create different types of docs e.g
Spreadsheets and slides for the same projects. How does it work with them
without putting one type of doc in a differnt location from another?
Especially when they are fr the same project?

4\. My biggest issue when using Google Docs is that of formatting. The format
does not play well with Word (we have to accept Word I'd boss for now and a
monster number of people still use it ). Does the formatting work well with
Word?

From my very limited knowledge, I have a few suggestions

1\. Be the best at something and come inthrough the flanks. E.g the best way
to edit your DropBox documents (I actually thought Dropbox would have launched
a document processor by now). Coming through the flanks will remove the weight
of expextation and at the same time allow people to

2\. integrate you into an existing workflow for a large number of people. Eg.
Sync with Google Doc.

3\. Understandably, 17million is not a lot these days so you need to start
earning money. But consider almost everyone will already have away of
processing docs. I would find it hard to pay for something I have already paid
to do. And does far much more work for me. You need people to start geting
used to you and your pricing will limit adoption

The above is my feedback. I am sure you must have thought of it and more. I
wish you all the best.

~~~
bruceboughton
>> 1\. Be the best at something and come inthrough the flanks. E.g the best
way to edit your DropBox documents (I actually thought Dropbox would have
launched a document processor by now). Coming through the flanks will remove
the weight of expextation and at the same time allow people to

What's a DropBox document? I have Word documents in my Dropbox, PDFS, photos,
spreadsheets. I don't have Dropbox documents.

~~~
OoTheNigerian
As Wilfra stated, I mean documents stored in DropBox (Word, PowerPoint,
Excel(Spreadsheets) etc)

Sorry for the confusion and the one billion typos. I was typing on a mobile
first thing this morning.

------
pud
Quip is Bret Taylor's new company.

Bret founded Google Maps and FriendFeed. Then he was CTO of Facebook for 3
years.

So this should be interesting.

~~~
wilfra
According to [https://quip.com/about/](https://quip.com/about/) he seems like
an underachiever on the Quip team.

>>Ryan's resume intimidates small children and household pets. After co-
founding Google App Engine with Kevin, Jon, and Bret, Ryan boarded his hot air
balloon and ascended to low earth orbit. He then won a Nobel peace prize,
seven Olympic medals (all bronze), three Oscars, and the jackpot at Caesar's
Palace. Since landing, he's cured cancer, penned the sequel to Ulysses, and
achieved nirvana. That was on Tuesday.

They've evidently already raised $15 million as well. This should be really
interesting.

~~~
retr0h
Should add self-inflicted boners to the list...

------
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.

------
samstave
Nice subtle "Professional" marketing with the Quip Business screenshot for the
desktop NOT being on a Macbook. :)

However, this says nothing of compatibility with existing docs. What if I have
a ton of content trapped in .docx? What about Tables in docs? Are they
supported?

How do you send a document to a non-Quipper? Does it PDF? Export to ODF? DOCX?

Or are we to expect an email "Hey, I sent you this awesome document! All you
need to do to open it is install this app and reate an account!" type of
spreading?

Finally, while the UI is definitely beautiful, the collaboration part looks
like it suffers from Facebook's one-scrollable-column...

Ill definitely give it a try - but if the app is just a vertical data-silo
into which my content is trapped... then I don't see it being very useful for
me. Looks nice - lets hope its useful.

EDIT: I am really interested in the UX of creating a nice looking document
without a mouse! The speed with which I can type and navigate on any phone or
tablet is fractions of that of my desktop... I guess some people like
producing on a phone/tablet - I personally HATE it - so I'd love to hear how
people deal with it on this...

For example, there is no Search function for text on my iOS devices. They'd
better implement search and replace. Highlighting SUCKS on any touch based
device as well...

I am wondering if these UX issues are overcome by well built software?

Basically I see phones and tablets as almost exclusively data/content
___CONSUMPTION_ __devices - not because of size or form - but of the HID
/Input.

~~~
finiteloop
Right now, we natively support PDF export.

We also support "high fidelity" copy and paste, i.e., if you paste a doc from
Quip into Word or similar products, it preserves all the formatting correctly.
Not awesome and we will improve in subsequent updates, but it actually does
most of what you'd need in the meantime.

~~~
samstave
One of the best word processing docs I have ever used was Page Maker 5.0...
Everything you put into it was treated as an object. Tec: Object box. And they
were extremely precisely controllable. None of the god-damned app trying to
auto snap/move your stuff around.

You had a "page" which was actually just a backdrop on top of which your
content object hovered - and you had very very fine control.

If you have the ability to treat each piece of content as a discrete object -
and move, size and shape them precisely - that would be fantastic.

~~~
benaiah
Then you might like Office Publisher. But this seems like an entirely
different use case. In this case, writing/editing/collaborating is the primary
purpose, and formatting and style is only there for those purposes. This is
not a design tool - this is a writing tool. When I'm writing, all I want to
have to do is write (I might want to do some basic formatting, but that's
still within that purview). I don't want to design the document; I want to
write it. It seems that this is the main purpose of Quip, as it is the main
purpose of Word (despite that application being bloated and horrifically
misused by many).

------
ryandrake
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 announcements I've seen here
recently.

~~~
dchuk
Well, it's pretty well known that using "beautiful" in your headline makes for
a weak value prop, but it's also a hard concept to argue with. No one wants to
make an ugly anything.

------
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?

~~~
venomsnake
One of the problems I have with word is that the paper paradigms still
dominate everything there.

An word processor that is more rooted in the digital age have a fair shot if
executed correctly.

~~~
kfk
But guess what, people actually do use printers.

On top of that, I am doing my case here for "business use". If you are
targeting business, you have to look at Power Point, not MS Word. Most of the
business rules, presentations, information, are in a .ppt. Guess why. People
like graphs and images to convey information, they prefer 1 line of text and 1
image instead than a dense paragraph.

And the good thing is that there is something super tested that is already
great at that... the browser! Also, html, css and friends are a good open,
tested, vetted, format! Why do we keep reinventing the wheel? Why don't look
at making great use of web technologies?

What you want is a good alternative to Power Point, with presentations that
run into a browser and that can be easily saved as a .pdf. That's it. That's a
great product.

------
antr
The signup process is totally screwed up, in an infinity loop kind of way.

I signup: email, name, password. Sends me a confirmation email. I click on
confirmation link. Sends me again to the same signup page, only this time the
fields are completed. The only available next step is to click on "Next"
again, and the email verification is sent again, sending me to the same
completed fields page...

It happens on both web and iOS. I guess I'll have to stick with Google Docs
and Pages.

~~~
powera
If you email me your account information ( powera@quip.com ) I can investigate
this.

~~~
antr
Thanks for offering to help, but I've gone ahead and deleted the app. I'll
stick with Pages and Google Docs, a signup process to use a word editor isn't
for me.

~~~
mars
Didn't you signup for google docs as well?

~~~
antr
I signed up to Gmail in 2004, but not to Google Docs. At least voluntarily,
you know what I mean.

~~~
lmm
So you prefer to use a product that signs you up involuntarily? Interesting.

~~~
antr
It would definitely be _interesting_ if that were what I meant. Unfortunately
it isn’t.

------
jrd79
Who likes typing on a tablet or phone? They are for reading, not composing.

~~~
catilac
I love typing on a tablet. The tablet is actually a great form factor for
writing, and, more importantly, focusing on only writing.

~~~
finiteloop
The best part of Quip is portrait on the iPad - just a blank sheet of paper
with no toolbars. It is a really nice writing (and reading) experience.

------
ryanSrich
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.

~~~
snom380
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?

~~~
ryanSrich
> Face it, most things in computer science have been invented before.

It'll be hard to convince me that in only 400 years of its existence we've
managed to exhaust the majority of our capacity to expand computer science.

~~~
snom380
Good because I'm not trying to convince you of that. If you only want to read
about novel research, please go read computer science journals instead of
complaining on Hacker News when new startup launches get coverage.

------
jongalloway2
Kinda looks like OneNote for people who haven't seen OneNote. A few cool new
things in there, like the @mentions. Neat.

------
616c
Yet another company making Android a second class citizen? Pass. When you send
me that message early, all I can say is thanks. I know I will be disappointed
because other devices are a priority. At least you are honest.

------
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.

~~~
nilliams
>> 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."

Without dropping the notion of a 'document' altogether I can't really think of
a better way to convey a 'group of documents' than a folder. I feel like these
metaphors aren't going away anytime soon. What would be better, do they need
to be more abstract so as to not be _skeuomorphic_? A 'group', a 'set'? Having
a single long list of documents and _tagging_ them could work, but I've always
felt a large proportion of users prefer actual 'folders' to tags, (probably
why Gmail offers both).

I was really impressed with the UI. And it synced between my iPad and Chrome
desktop very nicely. Look forward to playing with this more.

------
pmarca
Boy, Hacker News has gone in a strange direction. Killer new product from
legendary engineers. Let's all get together and shit on it!

~~~
wilfra
^^that's Marc Andreessen FYI, those of you downvoting him.

~~~
cantastoria
So? If his argument for why this is good is that it's "killer" and from
"legendary engineers" then he deserves it.

------
paul
Looks awesome. I especially like the conversation column showing diffs and
messages together -- it seems like an elegant way to collaborate.

Congratulations Bret and team!

------
mercer
Compliments on the thing as a whole, but one thing stuck out to me
(negatively).

When I read about 'tablets' and 'interaction' and saw the screenshot of how
interfaces haven't changed much, I got rather excited about the idea of a word
processor that _truly_ tried to change the way we 'process words' on touch
devices.

Instead, it seems you've mostly focused on the stuff _surrounding_ word
processing. Which is a noble goal, but not what I was hoping/wishing for.

I'd like to see someone reinvent the word processor, or update it for touch
interfaces. In the same way that the mouse greatly changed the way we work on
'normal' computers, surely touch should give us similar new advantages.

I've been following a number of projects that try to do this, but they are
hyper-focused on just that text-input part. I'd love to see the best ideas
from those experiments find their way into Quip.

(This is just a general observation, not an attack on Quip. I can understand
that you have chosen a specific focus that doesn't happen to be what I care
about.)

~~~
tav
Could you share links to those projects that you are following and elaborate
on the ideas that has you excited?

------
taude
Played with the web version for a bit. Nice looking app, but doesn't really do
anything I need that I can't do with Google Docs, which my company uses for a
lot of collaborative writing. We still eventually publish the docs out to Word
and PDF because that's how they get consumed, but for the collaborative
writing part it's Google Docs all the way, so I see value in refining the
collaborative writing market.

Having offline mobile is "nice" but not totally necessary for my use case,
mostly because the number of people I know who car write decent sentences on
their mobile devices are few.

------
yread
I don't understand why do all (and I mean ALL) screenshots have to be on an
Apple device? Are you selling iPads or iPhones? Shouldn't your focus be on
your product and not on Apple's product?

Perhaps in the beginning somebody could be fooled that if you like awesome
Apple products your product will be awesome as well. Or that because iThingies
near perfection your service is also going to be highly polished. Obviously,
that is more often false than true - you're a damn startup and the products on
the screenshots are sometimes little more than MVPs (not in this case, I
guess).

What is wrong with just a screenshot?

~~~
dakrisht
Doesn't look as nice. Apple sells. You don't reinvent the wheel when it's
running well.

------
Schwolop
Interesting though this sounds, I get irritated whenever I read about someone
changing the existing paradigms of [insert topic here], and then continuing to
use all the existing metaphors from the existing paradigms, e.g.; 'desktop',
'inbox', etc.

And despite my rant, I'm not sure if there's a solution to this. You need
customers to understand how you're asking them to change, and without
reference to the old terminology this is damn near impossible.

~~~
samstave
Honestly, this wont change until we drop the skeuomorphing of paper...

Someday, someone will build something where "documents" may look like little
blocks, with little indicators on them as to which data-streams they connect
to live and how much social activity is happening about them - their
popularity, their rated completeness, how many links to that info, security
level, capabilities etc.

Take the whole idea of an entire stack and call it a "document" when you open
it - it may contain whole DBs, connect to N other things and be able to
produce X based on Y input from you or others. They may be intelligent enough
to know to ask you to input a certain set of content before they can move onto
the next phase of becoming complete, even with training information inside
telling you how to enter into them the info they need to realize completeness.

Compressed abstraction and virtualization into a single finite functional
datablock that can be moved sent secured monitored etc... just as much as any
other stack/cluster....

/daydream...

~~~
rcthompson
It's not a skeuomorphism. Some people actually print out these word processing
documents onto actual paper, so they need to be able to see what the document
will look like on paper before they print it.

As an aside, I typically use word processors in "Web Layout" (as MS Word calls
it) mode until I get to the point where I'm starting to think about print
layout. Only then do I switch to "Print Layout".

------
monatron
To me this feels like a group of friends that are already financially stable
deciding they're tired of working in a corporate juggernaut and just want to
"get the band back together".

Maybe quip works out, maybe it doesn't, maybe it's just giving these guys and
gals something to do for the next year or two... and that's just fine. Not
every product has to shake the foundations of society and life as we know it.

------
Someone
From the privacy policy;

 _" Information that we collect from our users, including PII, is considered
to be a business asset. As a result, if we go out of business or enter
bankruptcy or if we are acquired as a result of a transaction such as a
merger, acquisition or asset sale, your PII may be disclosed or transferred to
the third-party acquirer in connection with the transaction."_

Honest.

------
dylanz
First, great work. Second, please put something on your landing page that
addresses Google Docs. Address the top X document tools and explain to my why
I should use Quip. That was my initial question, and I had to scan through HN
to find my answer. Other than that... it looks great and I hopeyou guys rock
it!

------
bsaul
A bit off topic, but every time i see document-making apps, i wonder about the
lack of file manager.

My workflow is almost always, open the app, start typing, then ask myself "i'd
like to add a picture here". Now, on desktop that's simply a matter of
clicking "import image" and browse my hard drive to find the picture. It's a
pull workflow.

What's the worflow for that on an iPad ? Android has file managers, but iOS
definitely needs something more convenient than "export this image to".

EDIT : and that could be really easy to do from an API / UI perspective : just
create a system UIViewController like mail composer, that present the list of
apps (or app groups), and let me pick files that the apps put in their
"shared" folder (read only).

------
tigroferoce
Very interesting project.

Just a couple of feedback and a suggestion for a feature

1\. when editing a document, the left arrow works as opposite as one would
expect: instead of sending the editing fullscreen, it brings the toolbar in
foreground. In this case I would put a right arrow.

2\. I would put the graphics/table menu together with the
paragraph/heading/list

As a LaTeX user (and as a editor of many BS/MS thesis of non-technical
friends) I have always thought that defining the structure of a long document
before starting to write was fundamental. Therefore I would love a WYSIWYG
editor that forces (or at least guides) users to define the structure of the
document before and in a different place than where they write the content.

------
fieldforceapp
Nice. Seems very similar in focus to other document based collaboration
services, perhaps most notably these folks:
[http://www.collaborate.com/](http://www.collaborate.com/)

Quip seems closed, no links to Google Drive or Box that I could see, but they
include private links to hosted document storage and PDF export. It's like the
Asana[1] in that way, but Quip has a solid focus on documents not tasks.

Some strange UI artifacts on my iPhone 4s iOS7b4, text insertion didn't work;
wonder if this is due to a proprietary attributed uitextview?

[1] [http://asana.com/product](http://asana.com/product)

------
_cbdev
How your website looks when accessed over my 3G connection:

[http://imgur.com/fD2dC7f](http://imgur.com/fD2dC7f)

Annoyingly, all your images are loaded first (and judging from the load times,
they're not that small).

------
adwelly
Lost me at 'To create an account'

------
dakrisht
Hmmmmm

I'm personally not a tablet-typer and connecting a BT keyboard to an iPad with
a case is basically a laptop, so I'd rather just use an Air (wouldn't you?)

Quip looks nice, but from reading this thread, their and playing with the app
myself I have a few observations. After all, this is a thread where we come to
comment, so why not throw five minutes of my life into some writing, using my
BT keyboard, on a big heavy iMac.

First, saying that there is "barely a laptop in sight [in the Bay Area]" is
just rubbish - there are _plenty_ of laptops in and around the Bay Area, the
Valley, Southern California, California, the United States, the world.
Startups - your users are not all in San Francisco. It's like Tim Cook saying
"there are no Android phones at BJ's Grill."

I appreciate the forward thinking of this app in a very "post-PC" era kind of
way, but showing a screen of MacWrite from 1984 in the app page is just
ridiculous - there have been _plenty_ of great mobile-based word processing
applications in the past few years, in case you have not noticed. From Pages
to IAWriter to Textilus to Evernote, the list goes one. Saying the "software
that we use to get work done has not evolved over the past thirty years" is
just utter nonsense. It has evolved, quite a bit. As much as I don't want to
praise Microsoft, they've been improving Word (sure, Office for iOS is
terrible) slowly but surely over the years. It's a solid WP and you give
credit where credit is due.

With regards to this application, the "thread approach" to document sharing
and collaboration is an interesting notion. That is if you share a lot of
documents with other social-based users a la FB style, but I highly doubt
you're going to see attorneys redlining agreements in a feed - although it
would be nice to see people chatting regarding a document, pitch, brief,
agreement in real-time - but hey, world doesn't work that way (especially at
$500 an hour). I don't think a lot of users "enjoy" word processing. We do it
do get work done!

Editing document also appears to be a little strange (although I don't have
anyone to collaborate with yet) but the concept of including "documents edits"
in the activity feed makes no sense really. WP's such as Word (and WordPerfect
in the past) have always been known for a rich set of features, tools for
various professionals, the people who use WP's all the time. Formatting
options, graphics, tables, charts, margins, etc. These are all very important
features for the bulk of users. So while I understand the product and the
"modern word processor" buzzword, it's important to define what a "modern word
processor" is/should be and how you're going to get the majority of the world
(95%) or a small chunk (<10%) to shift away from Word and to this modern
design.

I get it - it's a social thing, the buzzwords are there, the skeuomorphism is
flowing with the manila folders, but Word Processors have in inherent
attribute that is tough to rewrite with graphics and sharing and @mentions:
it's functionality. And that's all the matters.

Best of luck to you guys.

Edit: I wanted to add that it's important to test, use, and discuss [new]
applications with an open mind. This is their first release, so things will
undoubtedly improve, user feedback is so important to a new startup/product.
Your users are everything - and certainly those outside of SFO (sorry had to).
I think Quip can learn a lot from comments here on HN, no matter how long you
work on a product and polishes the edges, it takes someone from the outside
looking in to really give you some great direction at times.

~~~
taude
"I'm personally not a tablet-typer and connecting a BT keyboard to an iPad
with a case is basically a laptop, so I'd rather just use an Air (wouldn't
you?)"

Yeup, exactly. And now that 10 Hour 11" Airs will be coming....

------
aresant
The messaging challenge Quip is going to have is that they have to call
themselves a "modern word processor" so we have context to understand what it
is.

But from the landing page this looks / feels drastically different from any
word processing / document creation tool I've used in the past.

It might be interesting to test a variant that starts with a screenshot that
centers visitors around what this has in common with today's word processor,
and then hammers home the "awesome" part after that.

------
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

~~~
marc0
Maybe I should expand about why LaTeX is so important to me. I use it as my
main text processor, not only because it produces nice maths. It allows to
abstractly structure a document (e.g. by defining environments that give
meaning to a paragraph, like summary, conclusion, proposal etc), it allows you
to define new commands (like functions), variables, conditionals and much
more. For me, LaTeX is something in between writing and programming, where
content is strictly separated from the layout. That's why I especially like to
use it for any creative activity, where a lot of ideas are floating around,
which can not (yet) be forced into a consistent document. And alone the
possibility to add comments in the source is indispensable.

------
aragot
I find inexact that word processing hasn't evolved since 1984. I have
personnally been working at Atlassian and I can tell:

Confluence has seemlessly replaced Word in the company.

The "share" workflow is pervasive in a corporate communication tool, and the
rich text editor makes it possible to build bigger, richer documents. The
reason word processors per se are being side kicked is they're only useful to
layout a letter.

------
shiftb
The danger in building a product like this is that you can try to be
everything to everyone and end up being nothing to anyone. They've combatted
this by positioning it as a simple word processor.

After playing with it, the product is much more than just a simple word
processor. It's really well designed, especially considering how complex some
of the ideas it tackles are.

Excited to see how things play out.

------
fauigerzigerk
No doubt, this is very hard to get right, it's amitious, and maybe these guys
do get it right.

I wonder, though, whether it is a good idea to sell the product as this
completely disruptive rethink of word processing as we know it. The "What Quip
does differently" section certainly doesn't make it clear to me what that
revolutionary difference is suppsed to be.

------
Hilyin
All devices, except your laptop. Who actually wants to write more than a few
sentences on anything but something with a keyboard?

~~~
_frog
> Today, we are extremely excited to launch Quip. Quip is a modern word
> processor that enables you to create beautiful documents on any device —
> phones, tablets and the desktop. If you haven't already, download Quip to
> try it out.

Literally the first paragraph on the linked page.

------
shortformblog
Why doesn't this support external hyperlinking yet? That's what I don't get.
It's like creating an epic meal and forgetting to offer a fork.

EDIT: I figured it out. I had to paste a URL in and then type over the
hyperlink. That's far from intuitive. It's too bad, because it mars what
appears to be an interesting product.

------
whocanfly
Download as PDF skips all people/document mentions. I expected some
alternative text or link, but it skips.

Screenshot of the Introduction to Quip PDF:
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14308170/quip.png](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14308170/quip.png)

------
evv
Looks like a pretty great service, assuming markdown export/import is coming!

Also, every time I open the app (on the web), I am asked to link facebook or
twitter for a profile picture. I'm happy to upload a profile picture, but I'm
very upset about being constantly pestered to link social accounts!

------
amasad
I wish developers would experiment with new ways of "typing" on touch-screen
devices. And I put typing in quotes because maybe writing on touch-screen
devices should take on a new form. This "disruptive shift" would not be
complete without a better way of working on tablet.

------
leeny
how is this wildly different than evernote? is it support of multiple types of
documents (spreadsheets etc)? i was looking at the bullets under "what quip
does differently", and i feel like evernote addresses all of those things.
what am i missing?

------
d0m
"We are starting with the word processor, but our mission is to eventually
build the productivity suite for the mobile era." -> Intriguing!

Basically, google doc for mobile. That's not a bad idea seeing how google are
closing products that people love.

------
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.

------
LukeWalsh
One suggestion I would like to see is a public permissions mode where anyone I
share a link with can create an account and then be able to edit the doc.
Looks great, very clean UI. I have been waiting for something like this!

------
akc
I'm curious as to how they were able to line up the NYT coverage
[http://t.co/qCFneXpJwV](http://t.co/qCFneXpJwV) with the launch announcement.
Any idea who reps them, PR-wise?

~~~
hunterwalk
it's the former CTO of Facebook. My guess is no rep needed.

~~~
wilfra
No rep needed if all they want is coverage. If they want to craft the message,
they still need PR. The job just changes from selling the story to getting the
right people to cover it in the right way.

That's why Apple still takes PR very seriously even though the media are going
to cover all of their product launches anyway.

~~~
corin_
I think he meant "No rep needed [to get NYTimes to publish to their
schedule]", not an overall piece of business advice

------
jcdoll
If you use gmail but don't want to use your google account for auth:

1) Enter foobar@hotmail.com and try to sign up.

2) The form will now ask you for your name and password. Fix your email
address and sign up.

(edit: first impression = google docs for mac users)

------
rdl
I'm curious about the business features listed on the site -- what exactly do
they mean by Remote Device Management? MDM, or app-level management from
devices?

------
hnriot
I tuned out when I read "beautiful". If only writing something beautiful were
as easy as picking the right word processor.

I'm amazing that anyone would enter the word processing space when we already
have dominant players with years of experience doing the same.

I'm sticking to Google Drive. I don't see any advantage of Quip and like that
google drive has many other features beyond Quip.

------
nathos
finiteloop: Can you talk about the UI at all?

Are you using any open frameworks/tools to emulate the iOS interface &
animations, or is it all homegrown? Will you be updating the UI when Apple
releases iOS 7 (and your UI suddenly looks out of place)?

------
tbassetto
It bothers me that it is free. What is the business plan? Are they going to
sell my documents to advertisers in a few months?

------
jalada
This is without a doubt the niggliest point ever: Your Twitter app description
just says 'Quip application'.

------
plg
what's the elevator pitch for why users should look at this instead of iWork?

------
ultimatedelman
sooo... trello meets google docs?

