Haven puts you in an empty landscape punctuated by a leafless tree. A moment later your eyes adjust to the faintly falling snowflakes, and it’s no wonder why Haven’s developer calls it a ‘place to write’ rather than just a text editor. It pairs a minimalist approach to producing text with a full-bodied approach to coaxing creativity out of its users, resulting in a promising, delightfully confounding experience. Old Mac favorite OmmWriter feels like Haven’s spirit guide, as OmmWriter’s familiar UI overlay – as well as its way of generally making you feel engulfed by the app – was repurposed tastefully by Haven’s developer. From the column of unobtrusive on-screen menu icons you can parachute into one of eight different writing environments, each with an immersive background, looping ambient soundtrack, and subtly generated graphic effect, ranging from snowfall, to starlight, to swamp mist and more. The subtlety and raw quality of the app’s different keyboard click sounds, soundtracks, and other atmospheric strokes ranges from stunning – I loved the beautiful, clear Madeira – to particularly lacking at times (especially when you remember OmmWriter’s otherworldly purity), but an excellent baseline for quality has been established as these features continue to develop. Of course, Haven’s aggressive novelty doesn’t serve moments of pure content production, like when you’re banging out a pre-planned piece, but in truth, Haven doesn’t care about these moments. It cares more about those warm periods when you’ve swelled ripe with a wandering imagination and need a slight but sustained prick before releasing what’s within. A row of icons along the top of the app window displays each of Haven’s magic tricks. With a single click, Haven will sketch you a character, a situation, a localized myth, or do something more vaguely evocative, like display a floating word, or a quote from classic literature. If you’re willing to embrace randomness and follow a whim, then you have a perfect companion. In toying with Haven, I missed the smooth quality of apps like iA Writer or Byword that focus obsessively – necessarily – on the mechanics of typing out a piece of work. Haven would do well to incorporate the great strides other text editor apps have made. But when you want to let go of obsessive optimization, Haven will take you places, and you might even enjoy them.
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