Following a recommendation on Twitter from a contact in Texas, I downloaded iA Writer and am typing my first document into its clean and elegant interface. The application is, at its very basic level, exactly that - a basic level text application.
No preferences to set, no margins, typeface style and size options, no indents, justification, paragraphs, page breaks, picture insertion... The list goes on.
What it does is simple. It allows you to concentrate totally on one thing - writing.
The standard iPad keyboard has been slightly augmented with some simple keys along the top, to allow quick insertion of the more common punctuation characters and the ability to jump backwards and forwards through your text by word or character. In addition there is a "focus mode" button that enables highlighting of only the last three lines of typing. The rest fades to about 50% grey.
Documents can be saved for further editing in other applications should you wish, and there is also the ability to synchronise documents using Dropbox.
Many users of the more full featured and commonly used word processors find their interfaces overly intrusive and so many features totally unnecessary. For pure writing and getting your text onto a page iA Writer is unbeatable.
iA Writer can be found in the Apple iOS app store and further information on the developer's website.
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/
http://www.iawriter.com/ipad