No accounts
No sign-up, no password, no mother's maiden name. You open the app and use it.
We don't want your email.A newsreel from the Skipworth Memorial Hangar
The Laboratories of Tomorrow …open for business!
SkipWire Laboratories is the house that makes SkipWire, SpitePDF, CouchWand, Igneous and TeleFolder: software for Mac, Windows, iPhone and iPad that does its job and then gets out of the way. No accounts. No tracking. No cloud of ours for your files to go to.
Wholly owned byAugustus Skipworth
One proprietor. Five inventions.
Zero shareholders to answer to.
Inventions on salefive
Ownersone
Accounts requirednone whatsoever
Board of directorsdismissed
“Behind every great invention, ladies and gentlemen, there stands a laboratory. Behind this laboratory there stands one man. He is standing on a moving walkway.” The Narrator
Thank you, Narrator, that'll do. Folks, Gus Skipworth. This is the front door of my laboratories. Everything I make is behind it, and everything behind it is mine. Have a look around. Don't touch the zeppelin.
Augustus Skipworth, interrupting
Reel 2 · The Catalogue
Now ShowingThe Inventions
Each one has its own front door. Pick one and walk through. Or, in the Founder's case, be carried through.
Invention No. 1 · The Flagship
SkipWire
Your own computer, delivered by wire to any screen in the house, or the world.
Free, accountless remote desktop. Mac and Windows hosts share their screens with iPhone, iPad, Mac and Windows at up to 120 pictures a second.
Mac · Windows · iPhone · iPad skipwire.app →Verdict“Free. Forever.”
Invention No. 2 · The Unsubscribed Pencil
SpitePDF
A fast, stubbornly offline PDF editor. You buy it once, like a pencil.
Mark up, redact, sign, fill, OCR and measure to scale. No subscription, no account, no cloud, no follow-up emails.
Mac · iPhone · iPad spitepdf.com →Verdict“Paid in full.”
Invention No. 3 · The Long-Distance Hand
CouchWand
Your iPhone or iPad becomes a trackpad, keyboard and gamepad for the computer across the room.
Encrypted, straight from phone to Mac or Windows PC over your own Wi-Fi. No account, and no server of ours in between.
iPhone · iPad → Mac · Windows couchwand.skipwirelabs.com →Verdict“Stay seated.”
Invention No. 4 · Notes Set in Stone
Igneous
Local-first Markdown notes that outlive the app.
Plain .md files in an ordinary folder, in a native Swift app. Mac-to-iPhone sync with no cloud in between. No Electron, no account, no analytics.
Mac · iPhone · iPad getigneous.com →Verdict“Cooled. Permanent.”
Invention No. 5 · The Pneumatic Filing Cabinet
TeleFolder
Project folders, found instantly.
A keyboard-first menu bar app. One shortcut, a few letters of a job number or name, Return: the folder opens in Finder. Local drives and network shares, searched as one list.
Mac telefolder.com →Verdict“Arrived. Thunk.”
Invention No. 6
In the Hangar
Miss Pell is working on it. Mr. Skipworth will announce that he invented it shortly after she finishes.
Reel 3 · The House Rules
Engraved Over the Hangar DoorWhat Every Invention Refuses
The products differ. The refusals don't. Every invention from these laboratories declines the same four things.
No
No tracking
No analytics, no advertising profiles, no “how are we doing?” Nothing about how you use our software is sent to us.
Different hobbies.No cloud of ours
Your screens, documents, notes and folders stay on your own machines. Where devices talk, they talk to each other directly.
Your desk, your papers.No rent
Free, or paid for once. The lone exception is SkipWire Anywhere, an optional service with real running costs, and everything in SkipWire works without it.
Wire isn't free. Software is.Each invention does its job. Then it gets out of the way.
Reel 4 · The Proprietor
Founder, Chairman & Sole OwnerAugustus “Gus” Skipworth
He inherited a modest fortune in 1949 and made it immodest by Thursday. He considers the fortune the least interesting thing about him, and asks that you do too.
Particulars of the CompanyFiled by laboratory staff
- Name
- SkipWire Laboratories
- Motto
- A Division of Tomorrow
- Ownership
- Wholly owned by Augustus Skipworth. One hundred percent, rounded down from more.
- Headquarters
- A decommissioned zeppelin hangar. He kept the zeppelin.
- Also on campus
- An observatory, a rotating theatre he paid to have rotate, and a lake with a smaller lake inside it.
- Chief Engineer
- Miss Harriet Pell, who has built nearly everything Mr. Skipworth invented.
- Staff
- The Skipwrights, the Narrator, the Agreeable Butler, the lawyers (sharp) and the accountants (sedated).
- Board
- Hired so that it could be dismissed. Dismissed.
- Investors
- None. He tried one in 1985. See the Ledger.
Asked whether he is a billionaire“You really think that little of me?”
Asked why so much of it is free“Because if I charged you, I'd have to care what you thought it was worth. I don't.”
Told something is impossible“Impossible is a word for people who rent.”
Reel 5 · The Bronze Ledger
From the Skipworth Memorial LobbyA Life of Relentless Progress
Mr. Skipworth commissions a plaque instead of apologizing. The lobby is running out of wall.
Inherits a modest fortune in fencing and baling wire. Makes it immodest by Thursday.
Verdict“Overdue.”Told to check out of a hotel. Checks the hotel out of its owners.
Verdict“Mine now.”Telegraphs himself across the Atlantic cable. Replies promptly.
Verdict“Well received.”Places a call to the Moon by telephone. Is still holding.
Verdict“It wasn't ready.”Stops walking. Installs a moving walkway from bed to breakfast.
Verdict“Further.”Right-sized by Solitary Lake Partners and escorted from the building at 9:04 a.m. Keeps the chair.
Verdict“The chair is the company.”Buys the company back, then the building, then the parking lot Solitary Lake Partners parked in. Asks them not to contact the company.
Verdict“Wholly owned.”Five inventions on sale. No accounts, no tracking, no rent.
Verdict“Merely accurate.”A footnote from the Narrator. Miss Pell's name is not on any of these plaques. She has a ledger of her own, kept by the Skipwrights, of what was actually built and by whom. It is considerably longer.
Reel 6 · Questions From the Audience
You in the BackQuestions, Answered Briefly
Where do I get help with one of the apps?
Each invention has its own front door, with its own support page: SkipWire, SpitePDF, CouchWand, Igneous and TeleFolder. Knock on the right one and someone will answer.
Do any of them need an account?
No. None of them. Where you pay, you pay through Apple's App Store or once, directly, and that's the end of the paperwork.
Do you collect my data?
No. Other companies collect your data. Mr. Skipworth collects zeppelins. Each app's privacy policy says so in more words.
Is there a newsletter?
Absolutely not. Mr. Skipworth doesn't want to write to you, and you don't want to read it.
Is Augustus Skipworth a real person?
He would prefer you didn't ask. The software is real, and so are the refusals.
Who is the Narrator?
His identity is undisclosed. He has never contradicted Mr. Skipworth. He only adds detail.