There are several ways to write that novel you’ve always had in mind. There’s longhand, typed, smoke signals, or something like the Auteur. The still-to-be-crowdfunded device isn’t a novel concept; it’s just the latest to make the attempt.
Auteur is little more than a mechanical keyboard, an internal battery, and an e-paper display — it’s like a Kindle with a fancy typing interface. It’s supposed to evoke the days when the typewriter was king. Among a certain sort of writer, it’ll find its place. But then, so does the FreeWrite.
They Auteur do it
Given how much the FreeWrite costs, however, if this planned gadget can come in at under R10,000, it’ll find its way into a few more starving writers’ hands. Since it eschews wireless features, making writers transfer their transcendent passages to their main devices via USB-C, it could well be more affordable.
The planned design is certainly typewriter-y, with the mechanical keyboard taking up most of the available space. The company behind it is using what looks like a Kindle display. At 6in, it’s almost certainly cribbed from an actual ereader. The internal specs are known, but they’re not especially interesting. If you had access to the correct mainboard, it’s probably possible to make one with a Dremel, an old ereader, and a compact SteelSeries keyboard.
It’s not a small critter, either. The Auteur will weigh 1.36kg, so it’ll fit in a laptop bag, but it’s hardly portable. Good for clunking onto a coffee shop table so everyone knows you’re about to commence Very Important Writing™, though.
The Auteur is set to go live on Crowd Supply, one of the lesser-known crowdfunding platforms. Its creators haven’t said when this’ll take place. Nor have they indicated what the writer’s gadget will cost. Hopefully it’s more accessible than the (still-impressive) FreeWrite.
