Haven’t listened to the episode yet either. I hope Apple adds automation , both Shortcuts and AppleScript. Providing a URL scheme would really help – at least IDs that we can get via automation.
hence, IMHO, the need for a URL scheme to connect text notes to Freeform…
I just heard you say this on my commute this morning and I was just about to post it here too. This was one of the first things I tried out! At least in the short term I’m much more interested in Freeform as a free Omnigraffle/Visio replacement than for all the collaboration and mind mapping features you talked about.
I agree that the problem of handwriting drift is a real issue and needs to be fixed, but I also wonder if that isn’t a problem of how the team was using the app. I haven’t used it collaboratively at all, but I have to say the board created for issue 673 is strange.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the issue of handwriting stroke movement isn’t something most people won’t encounter, because I don’t imagine most people will use Freeform to create massive text lists like those in the show notes. As D & S said in the episode, they’e going to use Notes or Google Docs for those kinds of collaborative, text-heavy documents.
I imagine using this like a giant whiteboard. Text boxes will be for creating headers, but I imagine drawing on the iPad, using shapes, inserting images, etc. Not writing lots of text. To be honest, although the feature set is a bit more robust on the Mac, this is far more appealing to me as an iPad & Pencil app.
And I probably will try using it in the classroom with my iPad. It could be great as a whiteboard for my Latin and Greek classes, which I can project onto the screen and later print to PDF and share to students on our learning management system. (I currently do this to Notability or sometimes Goodnotes, but the open canvas of Freeform could be really handy. My wife, who is a weaver, could really use this as a mood board and for planning out new projects.
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I am really happy and excited about Freeform! For a 1.0 it is pretty good.
The way I feel is it gives me a reason to want to pick up the pencil for my iPad. This app will be a proof case for an iPad to a lot more people.
I use Sketch on the iPad to draw diagrams and plans and other stuff like that. I print them out and bring them in my workshop. For work I use a reMarkable which is an absolute game changer for me (not for everybody). It replaced that ubiquitous note/sketch pad and it keeps all of those notes in 1 place and accessible on my Mac and iPhone. I have used OmniGraffle since 1.0 for diagraming, a great tool.
I was missing a native app that I could just draw in and make sketches and diagrams on my iPad. Poof, Freeform appears! Being able to add photos, videos, links, … is a huge bonus! And it syncs across devices.
The infinite canvas is really nice and breaks free of the questions “how small should I start writing, type size, …? Where should I start my diagram? should it be landscape or portrait? …”. Just pick it up and start sketching. And, I like that it is simple and not overbuilt.
I am excited to see where it goes if Apple keeps it in active development.
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It seems to me like Freeform is a direct response to Google’s Jamboard, and I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned in the episode. Jamboard is an app that has picked up a lot of traction in education, especially during distance learning.
Google even has hardware to go with the software: big, over-priced, touch-screen TV’s (similar to what was mentioned in the episode as a future hope of having a “view-only” Apple TV app).
There’s some pretty cool stuff that I hope Apple copies from Jamboard such as multiple “pages” or boards within the same board.
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For an app like Freeform to be useful for capture, it needs to be able to capture things more quickly: it needs keyboard shortcuts. I am going to try adding them to see how that helps, but I was surprised that, given Freeform appears to be borrowing some functionality from extant apps, like Keynote and Preview, that those shortcuts did not carry over. One of the strong suits of the overall Mac experience is keyboard shortcut continuities. Muscle memory goes a long way when it comes to brainstorming.
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The point of Freeform is to be a expansive digital whiteboard where you can collaborate with others in the Apple ecosystem.
There are quite a few similar cloud based products that have been around for 10+ years. Miro and Mural (formerly Mura.ly) are the top two and have the most robust and polished feature sets. If you are working on ideation, product development, systems planning, or any type of planning with others involved not in the same room. These tools have been incredibly helpful. For years Microsoft has had a digital whiteboard similar to these which connects to a Microsoft physical whiteboard with decent digital capabilities. Google created Jamboard, which is similar to Microsoft’s product, but better functionality.
A downside of these, including Freeform, is the limitation by the size of a screen. In product development and systems planning (as two examples) a sizable room with 4 or more large whiteboards, small sticky notes, many large format sticky notes (letter size to poster) on walls and whiteboards, are great time savers, but require people to be in the same room. But, the big advantage of the physical space is seeing the different pieces, moving large parts of them around, and having the ability to see different pieces in depth, but also work through stages and lifecycles. The digital versions are limited by screen size, even running them on large panels of paired panels. But, these needs are edge cases.
But, the key issue with many of these options is privacy (important in many ideations and intellectual property circles), price, and missing decent Mac & iOS apps.
Freeform is a decent start and it still has a lot of work to do. It is free, it has privacy baked in (or seems to), and works as expected for Apple users.
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Google Jamboard was late to the game. Miro and Mural are the most advanced and complete (as far as digital whiteboards go), and were the first two about 10 years back. Microsoft pulled these capabilities into a physical whiteboard version around 8+ years back, which Jamboard mostly copied but had far better execution.
Me too! My first thought when I heard of this app during this episode was “hang on. I might be able to cancel my OmniGraffle sub”.
But then, I’m a really basic OmniGraffle user. Probably even more reason why I resent paying that subscription so much.
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Totally agree. I am a long term loyal Omnifocus guy. But I HATE subscriptions and that is why I only use Omnifocus now and no longer use outliner or omnigraffle.
I think Freeform because it is a native app and will only approve is the new way to go.
You can buy and upgrade traditional licenses for OmniGraffle and Omnioutliner. They’re not subscription-only.
This is true. Whilst Outliner is quite reasonable, the purchase price for OmniGraffle is crazy. It was about £250 when I last checked.
If you like Outlining software and avoid subscriptions, Bike is a very good alternative.
Yes, it’s pretty expensive, even if you keep up and can use upgrade pricing. They lost me when OmniGraffle 5 stopped working. No fault of the app quality; it’s just an area where competition has blossomed and there are decent value options at any price point (including free.)
I’ve found that just about any image can be dragged into FreeForm. That includes icon files taken from the resources folder of an app and screen shots.
What else are you using in place of OG?
I mainly use Muse on iPad and mermaid within other documents. I don’t really do UX prototyping anymore, so I never looked for a replacement for that.
I was hoping Freeform would allow me to stand at the smartboard in my classroom and use the pen to write in it. No pen capabilities on the Mac version. Now Freeform isn’t very useful for me. iPad is fine but sometimes I want the huge screen.
I share your pain.
I am a long time user of Omni apps, but in my opinion they are pricing themselves out of the budget of non-commercial users. I have non-subscription Omni graffle, focus, plan and outliner pro versions. They are really great apps that I have found very useful over the years. However, I simply will not be able to justify their massively increased prices to replace my current versions when they become obsolete. I will miss them, but for my limited, personal use there are alternatives.