Shift Editor & Quick Lookup vs Jot
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Shift Editor & Quick Lookup
This app streamlines writing and referencing by integrating a browser with customizable text display. It offers smart Markdown shortcuts, multiple customizable presets for editing and viewing, and robust version control for documents. The app prioritizes a clean, distraction-free writing experience with advanced typography options.
- Integrated browser with custom color schemes
- Smart Markdown shortcuts
- Customizable presets for editing and viewing
- HTML preview sync
- Dropbox repository browsing
- Automatic document versioning
- Advanced typography options
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When we write, we reference the dictionary, Wikipedia, Google, and any number of websites. I made Shift to make writing and referencing both easy to do and especially, easy to read. The integrated browser displays text in your custom color-scheme using gorgeous fonts, so the web can readable at night and during the day. This means that you can quickly open Wikipedia or other text-based website and have the text size & colors match your custom choices without busy clutter. And Shift makes changing between presets easy. You have four customizable presets to choose from, accessible from the editor itself. Two touches, that's it. The MultiMarkdown editor syncs the text with an HTML preview that shows your work with the customizable style of your choice. Tap text to edit, pinch to preview. It's easy. Shift is smart about Markdown. Shift has shortcuts to create lists, emphasis and strong, indentation, headings, and more. All lines selected can be marked at once. For example, if you want to mark a few words to be italic, select at least parts of the words and press the italic button. Shift will insert the markdown where it needs to be. It's smart. Some Markdown documents or some websites are easier to read in landscape. That's no problem in Shift. You can use Shift in landscape view as well as portrait. And Shift can browse your entire Dropbox repository, not just a single folder. Every time you open a document, a copy is saved. Two previous versions are always available for you to revert any mistakes. There will be no tears when using Shift. I care about typography. Shift comes with Concourse, Equity, and Triplicate, three gorgeous fonts by Matthew Butterick (see http://practicaltypography.com). And so font selection and editor layout has been carefully put together. But you are free to change (and restore) text color, background color, highlight colors, and presentation style. You'll find that the keyboard color will follow your background color selection and other parts of the UI adapt to your choices as well. Shift is customizable, but it's simple. It gets out of your way so you can write and read the way you want. If you have any question, go to http://shiftwriter.com and press the "support" link on the bottom of the page. I'll answer as best as I'm able. Thanks for your time. A special thanks to Icons8 at http://iconpharm.com for the use of a number of their icons.
Jot
This app offers a unique approach to task management and note-taking, focusing on daily clarity and task resolution. It uses a physics-based simulation for unfinished tasks and a markdown editor for notes, with a history feature to review past work.
- Swipe to complete or shelve tasks
- Physics simulation for daily task pile
- Full-screen markdown note editor
- Task history and filtering
- Daily task expiration philosophy
- Export tasks as markdown
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Jot. Swipe down to add tasks or notes. No menus, no nested folders, no project-management overhead. Just today's plan, focused and clear. — EVERY TASK HAS A FATE — Jot. doesn't believe in infinite backlogs. Swipe to complete a task. Hold to shelve it for another day. Rescue it from yesterday's pile if it still matters. Active, completed, shelved, rescued. Every task finds its resolution. — A PHYSICS PILE, EVERY MORNING — Unfinished tasks don't vanish quietly at midnight. They tumble into a letter-pile physics simulation overnight. Drag the pile to send letters flying. Pick up what still matters. Let the rest go. — DAILY NOTES — Pull down on the note page to open a full-screen markdown editor with a floating toolbar. Bold headers, bullet lists, numbered lists, code blocks — your thoughts, formatted the way you mean them. — HISTORY — Every resolved task is saved by date. Browse by week, month, year, or all time. Filter by completed, shelved, or uncompleted. Search by task name. Export any day's work as a clean markdown file. — THE PHILOSOPHY — Jot. is built on one idea: your to-do list should expire every morning. Yesterday's priorities are not today's. A fresh start, every day. Do more. Think less. Just Jot.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Jot at 5.0 against Shift Editor & Quick Lookup's 4.6. Jot also leads on update cadence (every 4 months vs every 11 months). Shift Editor & Quick Lookup's advantage is ratings volume (11 vs 2) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Jot holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Shift Editor & Quick Lookup has 11 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Shift Editor & Quick Lookup ships an update every 11 months, Jot every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 12, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Shift Editor & Quick Lookup | Jot |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (11 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 11 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 11 months | Every 4 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 7.0 — better | 27.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 15 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | John Lincoln | Justin Cabral |
Customer experience
Shift Editor & Quick Lookup
Jot
In-app purchases
Shift Editor & Quick Lookup
No in-app purchases
Jot
No in-app purchases









