Tech Tip — Revisiting Apple’s Freeform App
I originally shared a look at Apple’s Freeform in January of 2023. It was a new application that was announced and launched in late 2022. I was excited about the app then and remain a fan today. And, while I wish it would ‘grow up’ a little faster, it is still a solid app that is useful in many ways. When Apple first introduced Freeform, it felt like a fun extra. It was an open canvas to sketch out ideas, drop in sticky notes, and play with layouts. And while the development has been slow (in my opinion), it continues to be something I come back to for sketching out ideas and capturing quick notes that I want to see more visually.
Over the past two years there have been updates and upgrades, so while slow, it has not stayed still either. With new features like Scenes, Snap to Grid, and smarter handwriting tools, Freeform is one of the best apps for visual planning, brainstorming, and organizing ideas. It works especially well for those of us who think better when we can see everything in one place. Whether you're planning a store event, mapping out a project, or just capturing thoughts as they come, Freeform gives you the flexibility to do it your way. The latest updates make it even easier.
What remains great about Freeform?
The huge workspace and endless possibilities that await when you open a new Freeform space is still what makes this application a fantastic tool for just about anyone. It is easy to use, immediately intuitive, and provides enough tools that most people will find a good use for Freeform. Creating shapes, adding text, and adjusting colors works like other creation tools across most Apple applications. If you work in Pages, Notes, or Keynote for creating content of any sort, Freeform will feel like an old friend.
In my first article, I spoke about how Freeform allowed you to create ‘boards’ with sticky notes to quickly capture ideas. That remains true. The small but helpful addition of the ruler tool, allowing you to draw straight lines quickly, was a welcome addition last year. You can quickly place the ruler on the page and trace the edge to get a perfectly straight line. Creating grids or connecting items is a breeze with this tool.
What is new and improved?
The updates and changes have been somewhat limited, but important nonetheless. There have been what I would consider minor additions, but they are necessary to keep making this application as useful as it should be.
New Shapes
One subtle but valuable addition, most recently, are the updates to the shapes library. If you like to take notes in a more visual way, this is excellent for that. You can find almost anything you need. The beauty of this addition is that you can ungroup pieces of those shapes to use in different ways or changing colors. This opens up many creative options to group, ungrounded, and adjust to fit your needs. And it is still a complete joy to do these things on the iPad. I still believe this is by far the best device to work on when using Freeform.
Snap to grid
This feature is one that is easy to take for granted, but you miss it when you don’t have it. If you want to lay out any type of grid or make sure shapes are lined up correctly, snap to grid is a must-have. We get used to using it in things like PowerPoint or Keynote, and when it wasn’t in Freeform, it was hard to line up sticky notes or shapes to create the clean pattern you were looking for. Now, snap to grid is available and everything can be lined up and evenly spaced out. Whew.
Image Playground
Apple did add in their Apple Intelligence feature, Image Playground, to Freeform. This is likely as good a place as any to make that easily accessible. I cannot say I have done a lot with this feature, but you can create images that could work well with a workflow or visual notes. And with the recent release of iOS 18.4, there is now a sketch style image that can be created through Image Playground.
Scenes
This new functionality is my favorite addition and something that can be very useful for users. The scene function allows you to zoom into specific areas of your board, save that view (as a scene), and then quickly move from scene to scene. Imagine a PowerPoint deck that is laid out across a big whiteboard instead of individual slides. But then, you have the ability to show the scenes like slides to other people. It is an excellent way to storyboard ideas and show a quick version of that storyboard coming to life in an orderly way. No limits on the creative process upfront, just structure to show others the final thoughts. It is a lot like zooming in and out of a movie, allowing you to jump right into the message you want in the order you want to show.
The process is simple once you have your creative work completed on the board. You can zoom into the areas you want to show, and it will capture exactly what you see. Position the items on the screen the way you want them to appear. It is almost like taking a screenshot and placing it on a slide. This is just easier and built right into Freeform. Once you have all your scenes captured, you can re-order them if needed, or change the description name to make it simple to identify in your list.
What changes would I like to see?
As much as I appreciate what Freeform has to offer and the improvement they have made in the past two years, there are still opportunities that I would like to see Apple address. Oddly, I find the navigation and basic screen gestures are not as sensitive as many other apps. On the iPad, scrolling can sometimes be laggy or very delayed. Pinching to zoom or expand is buggy or non-functional at times. There are so many applications that are lightning fast and smooth with any screen-based gesture, I may be spoiled. It just doesn’t feel as good as it should in an Apple native app.
The handwriting with the Apple Pencil can still be improved. It doesn’t look as smooth as it does with an application like Good Notes. The writing in that app sets a very high bar, and Apple is well off the look and feel I get from that application.
There are also some copy and paste selections that do not seem available when choosing different objects on the page. Many can be duplicated, but not necessarily copied. It seems odd. I would like to be able to easily (and always) know I can select something I’ve drawn or created and copy it to another board. That does not seem to be the case with everything.
None of these are dealbreakers for sure, but for an application that is more than two years old now, I would hope that the improvements would keep coming fairly quickly. Apple is notoriously slow with its native apps. Basically, big changes only come once a year with major iOS updates, but a productivity application like Freeform should get more frequent updates, especially since it is still so new. I understand applications like Pages or Keynote are not getting regular updates; they are mature apps that don’t have a lot left to be added. They are simply good enough for almost any user. Freeform still has meaningful options to make it an even better application.
Why is Freeform still a great app?
Freeform is still an excellent tool for the sake of its name. It is free form. You can do nearly anything with it. The (nearly) infinite canvas is fantastic. It is nice to know you are not limited by the edges of a certain amount of space. I would have to believe very few people test the limits of the edges for this application, or many for that matter, but knowing you aren’t limited already helps let your mind be fully creative. It is a perfect space for ideation, planning, and capturing. Every time I begin using Freeform for a project, I wonder why I don’t use it for many other things. That full openness and pure blank space is sometimes as intimidating as it is liberating. My challenge now is to not allow the lack of structure to be the reason I don’t take advantage of the open canvas it offers, and let the material create the path versus having a path for materials to follow. I would challenge anyone who hasn’t used Freeform at all or in a while to do the same thing. Just put some ideas in there and see what happens from there. I think we’ll all be pleasantly surprised by what it can offer us in seeing it all together
How have you been using Freeform in your planning, note-taking, or ideation work?
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