Vim User Reviews

What users say

Top reviews

window focus

iPad Air M3, with external keyboard & mouse. Using iVim simultaneous with other open windows, is proving to be not possable, because, iVim is not allowing the mouse pointer to focus in another window, when clicking in another window, the pointer focus will not hold, closing iVim down, fixes the problem.
Show more

IVim is better

With this it’s just vim, however it’s pretty hard to escape out of insert mode or visual mode bc they don’t put an esc directly on the keyboard. Use iVim instead, it puts the esc on the keyboard so it’s easy to use

The real Vim

Of course you’ll only benefit from this iOS port if using a physical keyboard, but that’s the whole point. It’s a true build of Vim, not a half-baked replica.

Serious problem in iOS 12

When using an external keyboard under iOS 14, there is no way to type the space,

The same set up, iVim is working fine with all the keys.

Great idea, but needs work

I love the idea of having a VIM on my iPad. As other reviewers have pointed out, the app can be improved by deeper integration with iOS. Critically, my folio keyboard really doesn’t work with the app, with keys periodically becoming non-responsive. Since the development appears to be largely stalled, would the developer consider making the project as an open source? I doubt this will ever be a huge money maker, but could attract a small motivated community of developers.
Show more

Wouldn’t suggest it

I wanted to use my magic keyboard with my ipad and use vim, but the space bar wouldn’t work. It’s extremely buggy. Would not suggest it.

no esc key function

When an external keyboard (magic keyboard 2) is connected, the esc key is not recognized. Without esc, vim is useless.

No Logitech K830 keyboard support?

And not enough Gvim in it for people who are intermittent users of Vim, & therefore don’t remember all the complicated mapping’s between char-sequences & functions...

( there is an excellent book, btw, called, iirc Practical Vim, which ups one’s Vimming spectacularly, which is what I wanted a Vim in iOS for: getting good at it, through my little bt keyboard! )

So, this is functionally broken, for me.

IF IT WORKS FOR YOU, enjoy!

It isn’t inherently no-good, it is no-good *for me*.

Namaste!

( :
Show more

Not very usable

I use vim on the desktop all the time, but this app is nowhere ready for prime time. You need access to special keys to be productive, including backslash (which is remapped to esc). Check out iVim instead—it has a special row.

As Described

Great for trying out a daily vim tip on the train to work.

Great app, thanks!

proof-of-concept only

This was an impressive proof-of-concept for porting vim to the iPad. Applidium deserves full credit to get the ball started on this and making their efforts open source. However, the app was never designed to actually be usable (broken font rendering, no way to actually open/close files, no ios-specific usability enhancements, etc). Even the recent beta update left much to be desired. Fortunately, others have continued the development. Currently, the iVim app is the actually useable version of this. Applidium should probably remove this from the app store at this point and contribute to the continued development of iVim instead.
Show more

Vim, not sure the use case, but like it’s what it is.

Not sure the use case of this, but like it’s vim. I want to pull in some plugins and update my .vimrc, but I’m not sure if that’s possible, but at the same time, I’m just happy this exists.

Need copy&paste funtion

Thank you developer!
Vim app is my saver!

I understand full function is hard in iOS, but It is crutial to copy and paste from Vim and other App.
So star(*) register needed to be clipboard register just like computer Vim.

Command line error occured!!!
- Found error
:ls >> error !!!!
:echo hi >>> backgroud error occured!
Show more

Doesn't work

Doesn't work. Get iVim, that works...

Please, Update

Soon iOS 11 will not support 32bit apps anymore, and this will no longer work.

Vim on iOS devices

Great contribution and commendable effort to bring and keep these tools alive. I used vi and later vim in my long years of computer programming, and system engineering. One suggestion. Can the font issue be fixed?

App needs updating or removal from app store

App is out of date.

Nice

Its look like a very good app but It had some bugs on IPhone 6 so I can't use it

Use cntl-[ for ESC

Why doesn't anyone know this? Use VIM as the Unix gods intended, on a Digital Ocean cloud Linux/Unix instance. ;) There you can use all your fancy :! magic and more. Use Prompt 2 for the beautiful Menlo font option and Panic Palette. Get cellular data on your iPad with a Zagg/Logitech BT keyboard. If you really need local development (from the plane) use your Macbook Pro (that you can't really be without fully yet) or a cheap Linux laptop you've built just for such offline development. Don't pretend that using VIM to edit iPad files has any value at all. Most of the power is in shell integration and vimrc file macros.
Show more

Great App, Please Update

If this app were updated to work with the Retina display and iPad Pro, I would be able to use it more often. It is a great application of existing technology, and a good introduction for students to learn to use Vim.