While laptops and iPads have made things easier and faster, they are not necessarily better options. Passionate writers, poets and dramatists – both amateurs and professionals – cannot get over that romantic seventies image of a scruffy beard, a smoking pipe, horn-rimmed glasses, a baggy housecoat…and the music of a typewriter. Or, remember Pheobe rhyming Bing with the typewriter’s ‘ding’ when she was talking about how the writing apparatus made journalists look oh-so cool?

Today, people still buy vintage typewriters to bring home a piece of sweet nostalgia. But, thanks to Tom Hanks, there might be another option. Hanks, has helped create a typewriter app for Apple platforms which allows you to enjoy the sound and pace of a typewriter while typing documents. Titled Hanx Writer, the app has already hit the No. 1 spot on Apple’s iTunes Store. Available in three versions for the iPad, Hanx Writer also allows you to mail, print, save and share documents. The Guardian quotes the Academy Award winning actor saying that he was taken in by the ‘colourful, charming experience of typing on a real typewriter, complete with satisfying clicks and that unmistakable “ding” as the machine moves to the next line…’

“In the late ’70’s, I bought a typewriter – portable enough for world travel and sturdy enough to survive decades of ten-fingered beatings,” says Hanks, in his introduction of the app. “I’ve since acquired many more – each different in design, action, and sound. Each one stamps into paper a permanent trail of imagination through keys, hammers, cloth and dye – a softer version of chiseling words into stone.”

While the basic version is available for free, additional versions are available for £1.99 (or $2.99 in the US).