i think i like the idea of noisli (nice look, something that says 'the user is a denizen of an urban habitat, and doesn't have any truck with new agey ambient music for meditation with obligatory photo of sunrise over mountains or leafy glades and whazzums but instead will use this super-stylised (those golf clubs are the symbol for wind, of course) and positively modern app to send myself to sleep.') also you can, within certain narrowish limits, create your own sound mix.

to my disappointment, however, the rain sound isn't quite right, at least it is not how i usually experience rain in singapore, in this house. and although people praise it for not using a short sound loop, the sounds are still too neat and same-y. the thing is, there are so many kinds of rain, but medium to heavy torrential rain coming down steadily on a roof and at an unvarying pitch is more or less what you get here. what about rain that is low-rumbling with thunder, rain that is uneven and tapdancing and tinny, drizzles that make a light muffled sound? what about layering the sound of falling rain with the sound of gurgly rainwater running off roofs (for if they're falling on rooftops there's got to be gutters too), or rain trickling off the eaves tip-tap-tip TAP (stillicidium!). what about rain on different kinds of roofs, tile and iron and kampong attap? and wind, the sound of wind sweeping rain into a sidewise curtain, wind that howls through the storm? (for more realistic rain, the rain sound generator does a more believable job. (plus, coloured frequency buttons, 'nuff said.) as for the pretty noisli colour changes, they're lovely, but not having control over colour sequences makes the colour-compulsive in me more tense.

[digression: if someone writes me an app to build my own rain sequence i would have one that is silent for about 10 minutes after you turn it on. that gives you enough time for you to settle down with your cup of tea and open up whatever documents you're working on and stop dithering and fidgetting and make a start, then the rain comes down suddenly giving you that, oh rain! thrill (ten minutes-ish: you sholdn't know when exactly so it would be a surprise each time) then it goes on a bit then it gets faint cracks of lightning, thunder rumbling, cue wind, the rain goes horizontally in sheets , and then it slackens and becomes more of a light drizzle, goes on for a bit in that 细水长流 way and you start to get used to that and pound out some paragraphs and suddenly it starts up again heavy, just like it really does in singapore.]

the text editor though is an excellent idea though.