Tom Hanks just released a new app. With tongue firmly in cheek, Forrest Gump himself has put out an app called the Hanx Writer that turns your iOS device into … a typewriter.

Hanks says he uses typewriters daily and loves the feel of typing on something that responds and makes real mechanical noises. He says he once had as many as 200 typewriters.

“What’s pleasing to my sensibilities is when you have the report of the key being struck; it allows for clear thinking,” Hanks told USA Today.

“I suppose some people who get the app may just be looking for a different sound, but really, it’s for people searching for a more personalized experience when writing on an iPad,” he says. “There’s also the opportunity here to take your iPad to a coffee house and be really obnoxious with all the clickety-clacking.”

Stuart Westphal of Hitcents designed the typewriter emulator app according to Hanks’ specifications. He says Hanks wanted something simple.

“He mainly said, ‘Don’t make it gimmicky,’ so it had to work with a Bluetooth keyboard, which is really where you get the full effect of seeing a blank white page slowly fill with black type. Tom wanted people to want to sit down and write a poem or screenplay with it.”

Hanks jokes that there maybe an international market for a return to the manual world of typewriters, thanks to the N.S.A.’s penchant for spying on folks abroad.

“Well, I think Germany just said their government was all going back to typewriters, so they can’t be spied on by us,” he says. “But really, Hanx Writer is just my little gift to the future Luddite hipsters of the world.”

There is no word about whether keys jam on the app when you press them simultaneously.

The app is free for iOS, but is not currently available for Android.

Image via YouTube