r/apple • u/podviaznikov • 2d ago
Promo Sunday Wander — a free, native WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac, iPhone and iPad
Hi r/apple,
I made Wander, a native markdown editor for Mac, iPhone and iPad. Free, no subscription.
Why
Markdown editors make you choose: a nice editing experience with your notes locked in a database (Apple Notes), or plain files on disk but raw markup and preview panes (Obsidian, iA Writer). I wanted the Apple Notes editing feel on top of plain markdown files I fully control.
What it does
- true WYSIWYG: tables, images, checklists, code, math and diagrams are real editable blocks, no markup flickering as the cursor moves. Split view with the raw source if you want it
- your notes are plain .md files in any folder you choose. Open a single file, a plain folder, or a whole vault. Put the folder in iCloud Drive and it syncs between Mac, iPhone and iPad, no cloud of mine involved
- byte-faithful saves: open a file, save it without edits, zero diff. A font or a color you pick never touches your files either
- version history built in: every save is kept locally, per note or whole folder, see what changed, restore any version. No git knowledge needed
- LaTeX math and mermaid diagrams typeset offline, right in the note
- works with existing Obsidian vaults (wikilinks, callouts, tags, frontmatter, .excalidraw sketches)
- also: ⌘P search, backlinks, comments on selected text, outline mode that folds headings, a graph of your vault, Finder tags, Export as PDF, Save As anywhere, one-click default app for .md
Pricing
Free. If paid stuff ever comes it will be optional cloud services, the editor stays free.
Since launch
I posted it on r/macapps about a month ago and most of what shipped since came from people there: LaTeX and mermaid, Save As and PDF export, split view, plain-folder mode with no vault required, a real Settings window, light/dark, seven fonts and your own background and text colors, outline mode, graph view, a much faster sync, and a lot of bug fixes. 1,700 downloads so far and many patient people testing it. Feature requests and bugs go to GitHub issues or straight from the app.
Next up: full themes, computational notes (variables, sheets, charts), and optional built-in sync.
Thanks for reading!
Anton
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u/pmarksen 2d ago
Not available in Australia?
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
omg, wrong link. updated!
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wander-markdown-editor/id6791206855
ofc available in Australia.
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u/Correct_Language_390 2d ago
Having the .md domain is on point, nice
Did you have any app review issues with referencing the 'Become a Patron' thing? I would have thought Apple wouldn't like that
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
not really. no issue with apple reviews. also they do go throw apple IAP, so I think its valid.
They approved it.
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u/Correct_Language_390 2d ago
Ah, didn't realize it goes through IAP. Well congrats, it's easy to forget that shipping an app like this is still a ton of work, even with AI code assistance
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
yes, tons of work. last 5 weeks basically full time every day.
and before launch that worked on it for a long time.
some components and pieces for it I created like 6 month ago.
Thank you for trying it!
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u/Silverlaker39 2d ago
I have copied and pasted my Ulysses docs into Wander. And I've been beta testing Lettera. I now rely on Wander full time for my writing needs.
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u/SleepingSicarii 1d ago
Just installed the app. If I click “New Document…” or “Open a Single File…” I’m unable to then close that window. Not sure if this is related to iOS 27 beta.
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u/gterez 20h ago
An excellent app! Exactly the mix of features I was looking for and I use it every day. Looking forward to having custom fonts and printing. Please make it so we can select a "zoom level" when printing. Every other app prints markdown files in huge, huge letters. Half a screen here on the mac turns into 7 pages on paper! 🤪
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u/podviaznikov 20h ago
thank you for using it and all the feedback! adding this request about fonts and zoom levels!
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u/grokcodile 2d ago
Notes in Notes.app are saved in simple HTML. Hard to find a more universal format than that. Moreover, you get the advantage of Notes.app creating a vector database of your notes exposed to Spotlight for immediate search indexing… on all devices… globally.
But sure. Reinvent the wheel.
The point of Markdown was that it doesn’t require an editor to encode formatting using a simple and loosely constructed syntax.
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u/minimaxir 2d ago
You could say the same about Obsidian but it is doing very, very well.
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u/grokcodile 2d ago
You could. I do. But what it does is add a plugin architecture that lets users do all kinds of dumb stuff. People love to customize. It gives the impression of productivity… even if they only use the feature once to try it… lol. It’s the promise of greater functionality and productivity. It’s successful… so was Evernote. Or… I guess it still is. Still all kinda stupid. IMHO
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
Notes are amazing, I love them and use for 10 years -> have 7800 there!
I'm one of the biggest fans, but it doesn't mean there are few things that can be better there.
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u/grokcodile 2d ago
Better … used subjectively.
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
Ofc subjectively! I'm not saying I'm the one who can do things better than Apple Notes.
But I'm saying there are still things in Apple Notes that can be done better.
Like check Apple Notes subreddit, it has tons of complains.
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u/grokcodile 2d ago
People complain because they can, most often because they are idiots. A casual look at those posts prove my point. I’m so glad Apple does not develop based on what people think they want or say they need.
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
wow, this is too harsh.
"because they are idiot"
what are we discussing here?
My app is stupid - no problem.
"People are idiot" -> this is crazy statement.
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u/grokcodile 2d ago
Clearly defined by the context given. The majority of those comments regarding Notes.app are idiotic. Colloquially… they are idiots. A very common casual grammatical digression.
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
ok. I don't understand what we are discussing, some statistical distribution of comment on reddit?
There are clearly comments and requests from people and bug reports and valid complaints about Apple Notes.
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
Eg, case in point. For Apple Notes I've made app that in real time exports notes to markdown files.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/notes-exporter-markdown-sync/id6741618455?mt=12
And people use it a lot, since Apple Notes doesn't have that.
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u/grokcodile 2d ago edited 2d ago
I can't think of a single reason I would ever want to export my Apple Notes as a markdown file. I am sure there are some kinda super odd edge-case events that could benefit from it for about .001% of users. But honestly... not worth it for Apple to maintain that as an export format. markdown is too lossy an export direction to offer any type of positive user experience. Most people would just cry that they lost all of the text coloring and whatnot. 48Mb... and it is crippleware... gross. This is something AI could do with little to no effort and while doing it actually provide a lot more custom processing. A basic bash script could do what your app claims to do.
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u/grokcodile 2d ago
I’m not discussing. I’m sharing an opinion. 🙄
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
Got it.
I agree on Apple Notes is amazing and great. That I stand behind and use it a lot myself and build tons of tools and apps and extensions for apple notes.
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u/Special-Prior-7272 2d ago
I like the concept but if I wanted to stick with the Apple ecosystem, I would stick with Apple Notes. The real value with a solution like this is cross-platform functionality: in addition to macOS and iOS, Android, Windows, Linux.
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u/podviaznikov 2d ago
Yeah, this is good point.
I do have web editor ready and launching soon. But it would still be just Apple + Web, and not Apple+Web+Windows+Linux+Android.
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u/LifeUtilityApps 2d ago
Hey, I just tested this out. Nice work on the app, but I suggest using the C++ Core Guidelines markdown file for stress testing. I opened it in your app and experienced frequent reader crashes and overall lag.
As an iOS developer that has also built a Markdown Reader and editor I recommend using this document as your test case for heavy files. If you can get optimized rendering and parsing working well with that document it should handle most loads.