Hanx Writer, a typewriter simulator app designed by Hollywood actor Tom Hanks, has hit the top spot on Apple’s iTunes store.

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The free app, which recreates an old-fashioned typewriter on your phone, only launched last week but has become instantly popular.

Hanks launched the app with a tweet, telling his more than nine million followers:

“The future. Will be written. On a #HanxWriter. This I vow. It’s free! Hanx.”

The app emulates all the features of classic typewriters – the ding when you finish a line, the keypad tones  – but with one added feature: the ability to delete.

It offers an on-screen keyboard as well as being able to connect to the iPad over Bluetooth.

“I find it’s like music that spurs along the creative urge,” Hanks told a Twitter user about his decision to design the hit app.

.@AppStore If you have writing to do, do it on a Hanxwriter. Maybe not a term paper or legal brief… #HanxWriter

— Tom Hanks (@tomhanks) August 14, 2014