# Etch: Write to Remember — Write it down. Keep it. > Write it down. Keep it. (iPhone/iPad app by 宏 周.) - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/etch-write-to-remember/id6779050358 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`) - Developer: [宏 周](https://appshunter.io/developer/6779031562) - Category: Education, Reference - Price: Free - Age rating: 4+ - Requires: iOS 17.0 · 11 MB - Languages: English - Released: 2026-08-19 - Data updated: 2026-09-19 - User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/etch-write-to-remember/id6779050358/reviews.md ## What is Etch? Note: Etch's interface and its AI-generated definitions are in Chinese. It is built for Chinese speakers learning English. I built Etch because vocabulary never stuck for me. Words I looked up were gone the next day. My dictionary app held hundreds of saved words and not one of them had become mine. What I eventually understood is that the problem was not recall — it was writing. Reading a word ten times does less than writing it once. Psychologists call this the generation effect: producing the answer yourself leaves a far stronger trace than reading it. So Etch does one thing well. It makes you write the word. Capture without leaving what you're reading A Shortcut pulls the selected word in along with the sentence it appeared in. The sentence where you met the word is the sentence you'll see again at review time — words stripped of context are the hardest to keep. The entry fills itself in Pronunciation, definitions, example sentences, morpheme breakdown and common collocations arrive a few seconds after you add the word. Senses are ordered to fit the sentence you captured, rather than copied from a dictionary in fixed order. Review by writing, not by recognizing Write with a finger or Apple Pencil, get judged the moment you finish, and see letter by letter where you went wrong. Three modes: write from the meaning, write from the pronunciation, or fill the blank in a sentence. Recognizing a word is not the same as being able to write it — that difference is the whole point of Etch. Scheduling is handled for you Etch uses FSRS-5. It schedules each review from the word’s difficulty, stability, and current retrievability, aiming to bring it back as memory weakens rather than promising an exact moment of forgetting. One vocabulary across Mac and iPhone Capture on the Mac, review on the iPhone, progress syncs both ways. A home screen widget keeps today's words in front of you, and the ink darkens as you finish them. Etch is free, carries no ads, and does not sell your data. You can export your whole vocabulary at any time, and delete your account from inside the app. ## Version history (last 4 releases) ### 1.1.1 — 2026-09-12 Refined the About Etch page with updated wording and a compact layout that adapts to smaller screens and larger text. ### 1.1 — 2026-09-02 Adds a guided first lesson: choose a word from a real sentence, explore the complete entry, and finish your first dictation. Also improves handwriting layout and Shortcut guidance. ### 1.0.1 — 2026-08-25 - Add a word from a copied sentence: pick the word from a list instead of defaulting to the first token - The full sentence is saved as context and the AI explains the word in that context - Rare words and project names the AI is unsure about are now clearly marked - Minor fixes ### 1.0 — 2026-08-19 No release notes. ## More apps by 宏 周 - [Knock-Knock: One Question](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/knock-knock-one-question/id6793407664) All apps by 宏 周: https://appshunter.io/developer/6779031562 --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-09-19.*