[HN Gopher] Freeform: a new app designed for creative collaboration
___________________________________________________________________
Freeform: a new app designed for creative collaboration
Author : dsego
Score : 319 points
Date : 2022-12-21 10:37 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| itsjustmath wrote:
| Nice collection here: https://infinitecanvas.tools/
| [deleted]
| pomatic wrote:
| I hand-wrote 'hello' on the freeform canvas. I tried command-F to
| search for the scribble, it couldn't find it. On an _infinite_
| canvas. What use is that to man or beast?
| marban wrote:
| It's a great app for a 1.0 release and good enough for the
| majority of users. People laughed at Notes.app but underestimated
| the power of the default app. I haven't launched Evernote in a
| decade...
| interpol_p wrote:
| Notes is one of my favourite apps on iOS. I just realised
| recently I could drag-and-drop recordings from Voice Memos
| right inline into a note on iPad and it synced everywhere, with
| playback controls right under my text
|
| It also looks _nice_ , syncs and collaborates well. I have
| everything from my shopping lists, to scans of all my kids'
| artwork, to design documents for coding projects
|
| I have to use OneNote at work and it is abysmal. It is plain
| how little care and love appears to go into that product
| mwlp wrote:
| I can't name a single meaningful new feature that was added
| to OneNote in the past 8 years.
| pqs wrote:
| As far as I understood, they will soon add Loop components.
| That will introduce a tone of new features soon.
| smoldesu wrote:
| What's your gripe with OneNote? I used it a few years ago and
| remember enjoying it much more than Apple Notes, especially
| on desktop.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| it somehow doesn't even ink to text on my iPad
| smoldesu wrote:
| It did on my Surface, for what that's worth.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| Typing latency is measured in the tens of seconds.
| szdva wrote:
| Must be using the same GUI framework that they use for
| Office apps on Windows ;-)
| exabrial wrote:
| Requires Ventura so I'm out.
|
| I switched back to Monterey after 3 weeks of WindowServer
| crashing 3+ times a day with external monitors. Yes I tried a
| different dock and monitors, cables and what not.
|
| It's Ventura that's a problem, not my hardware.
| verisimilidude wrote:
| Most of us on HN probably observe some combination of the
| following.
|
| * Closed ecosystem. Can't share with clients on Windows. Pass.
|
| * Looks like an outdated version of FigJam. Just use FigJam.
|
| * Oh yay, back to illegible handwriting everywhere. Nope.
|
| We will continue to use FigJam or Miro or whatever. This isn't
| for us.
|
| It's for people like my Mom who will just stumble upon it on
| their iPad, and use it to plan a funeral with the family, or
| something along those lines. Non-techies wouldn't even think to
| use something like FigJam or Miro; this type of software doesn't
| otherwise exist to them. But now it does, in the form of
| Freeform.
| timeon wrote:
| It is also for people who do not need collaborative feature so
| creating account and running web-page like FigJam or Miro is
| overkill.
| colinhb wrote:
| At first glance it looks like Muse[1], built by Heroku alum,
| caught Apple's attention.
|
| [1]: https://museapp.com
| TrickyRick wrote:
| Already submitted... so many times
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33973540
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33985553
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34013038
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33980763
| xnx wrote:
| I wish collaborative outliners (Workflowy, Dynalist, etc.) were a
| fraction as popular as whiteboarding apps.
| rpdillon wrote:
| Thanks for saying this! My mind is much more "outline shaped"
| than "infinite canvas" shaped. I've noticed that the infinite
| canvas approach has started to gain popularity (we use FigJam a
| lot at work), and I find it somewhat disorienting. But others
| really like it, so I'm just trying to adapt. Maybe there will
| be an outliner craze in a few years...who knows.
| thebeardisred wrote:
| I'm surprised at the lack of comparisons to the Jamboard
| (https://workspace.google.com/products/jamboard/). Even the
| promotional images look similar.
|
| Also, while not explicitly targeting collaboration, v3 of the
| Remarkable firmware has added an endless canvas feature which has
| been nice.
| eduction wrote:
| This feels like Apple decided iPad needed a "killer app" and
| worked backwards from there to actually make the app. Notice the
| iPad is in the center of the picture at the top of the
| announcement, and Apple Pencil (iPad accessory) is called out as
| working especially well with this.
|
| My personal opinion is this is unlikely to work and that the
| reason iPad lacks a "killer app" is largely because the app
| ecosystem is too dysfunctional for one to emerge organically from
| third party ecosystems. Because the iPad is a more powerful
| platform than iPhone, and (especially) because people's "session
| times" tend to be longer on iPad vs iPhone, you need to invest
| more to make a good iPad app. On the iPhone it's enough to save
| people a little time vs the web and connect them more readily to
| a service while mobile (Uber, Instagram, Amazon, etc)
|
| iPad offers the chance to do something much deeper. But there is
| so much more risk -- will people pay higher prices (App Store
| price expectations are lower than desktop), will Apple approve
| the app, will it get noticed in the store amid all the crap. Are
| the APIs powerful enough to make what you want to make. Etc.
| nc wrote:
| Yeah it makes a great demo! But perhaps they also looked at the
| success of Miro & Figjam and realised a whiteboard is an
| essential part of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote suite?
| reaperducer wrote:
| _iPad lacks a "killer app"_
|
| It does have a killer app: The form factor.
|
| Lots of devices do lots of things that the iPad does. But they
| all have screens that are too small, or keyboards, or other
| things that make them too thick.
|
| ipadOS apps aren't as powerful as computer programs, but
| they're good enough. And when combined with the iPad's form
| factor and simplicity, there's a reason that -- according to
| Wikipedia -- Apple's sold a half-billion of them.
| chillaxtian wrote:
| That's strange, the form factor is the worst part for me.
|
| There is no comfortable position to use an iPad in. In bed
| you're craning your head over, or propping it on your raised
| thighs. The keyboard cases are flimsy or super heavy.
|
| I love the user interface on the iPad, it looks the best of
| iPhone, iPad, and Mac. But a MacBook is so much more
| ergonomic than an iPad.. :(
| chrisandchris wrote:
| Probably, yes.
|
| And they added an incredibly dumb limitation: You cannot use
| any pen tablet (e.g. a wacom tablet) on Freeform for OS X.
| Drawing with a pen is only supported on iOS.
| FeloniousHam wrote:
| I won't argue whether it this app _should_ allow drawing from
| a pen tablet, but there are exactly none of you left. (I have
| owned three pen tablets in my life).
|
| If it's free-from-Apple, the software is there to drive or
| enhance hardware sales.
| Arubis wrote:
| Yep, this has kept me from recommending Freeform. Popped it
| open when it appeared, broke out my tablet, realized it was
| useless, reopened Notability.app.
| Maursault wrote:
| > the reason iPad lacks a "killer app"
|
| You're just hugely mistaken. iPad has several killer apps, but
| the one that is probably the most important is Safari, followed
| by Mail, followed by Maps (and Google Earth), followed by a
| combination of Camera and Photos, followed by a tossup between
| Contacts and Calendar, then Books, Reminders, etc. That these
| applications are not original doesn't matter. The tablet form-
| factor and iPadOS platform makes them all earth-shattering for
| anyone who has previously been tied to a desktop or laptop with
| a conventional OS. Prior to iPhone, it was as it is today in
| that most computer users were not power users. They used web,
| email, and consumed media. iPad does all that better than
| anything that came before. It's annoying for more complicated
| tasks, but it does web, personal email and displays media
| better really than anything else available.
| thesuperbigfrog wrote:
| >> iPad has several killer apps, but the one that is probably
| the most important is Safari, followed by Mail, followed by
| Maps (and Google Earth), followed by a combination of Camera
| and Photos, followed by a tossup between Contacts and
| Calendar, then Books, Reminders, etc. That these applications
| are not original doesn't matter. The tablet form-factor and
| iPadOS platform makes them all earth-shattering for anyone
| who has previously been tied to a desktop or laptop with a
| conventional OS.
|
| None of those are killer apps.
|
| A killer app is an application that is so unique and so
| useful that it sells the hardware:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_application
|
| Web browsers, mail clients, maps / navigation, camera
| software, photo software, contacts management, calendaring,
| ebooks, and todo list / reminders software are available on
| iOS, MacOS, Android phones and tablets, Windows desktops and
| tablets, and even Linux desktop environments.
|
| Are you really saying that the iPadOS version of those
| applications is so superior to any of the other competitors
| that people buy iPads just to use the iPadOS versions?
| blowski wrote:
| Before the iPad came out - when Michael Arrington at
| TechCrunch was talking about the "CrunchPad" - the dream
| app was a browser. People were talking about laying on the
| sofa reading the news, watching videos, checking emails -
| without the bulkiness of having to interact with a
| keyboard.
| desiarnezjr wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| To me, yours is a strange ordering. I would have thought
| (i)Books would be #1.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Those are 'killer apps' compared to the phone for instance.
|
| I played a bit with an old chromebook we bought for our kid's
| school a while ago, and the browsing experience is definitely
| better than on my iPad Pro. Having actual arbitrary window
| management, tabs don't get lost between the instances, video
| can actually play in the background, extensions work. The
| list just goes on and on.
|
| I still prefer the iPad for reading long form and comics, but
| as the Kindle app is crippled, the overall experience isn't
| that far either.
| oblio wrote:
| For email, I assume you mean reading emails or using the
| external keyboard?
|
| Software keyboards suck for writing longer texts.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| > Safari, followed by Mail, followed by Maps (and Google
| Earth)
|
| MacBook does all these better and the rest of your list too
| with the exception of Camera, which the iPhone does better.
| jamesdf wrote:
| I'd suggest that for a lot of users, Procreate is the closest
| thing to a "killer app" that's iPad only and emerged
| organically from a third party.
| biztos wrote:
| For anyone who makes art, absolutely. I even use Procreate
| for brainstorming sometimes, because it's so much faster and
| more intuitive than any other app I've used.
|
| Another thing that IMO is way better on iPad/Pencil is PDF
| editing and annotation. I happily pay for a subscription to
| PDF Expert[0] and I just use it for school.
|
| [0]: https://pdfexpert.com
| Mezzie wrote:
| Yeah, I bought my iPad for grad school because I was
| reading and annotating _copious_ amounts of PDFs.
| fishtoaster wrote:
| I'd second this.
|
| I'm an hobby artist and have played with various drawing
| programs on the ipad (and gone through a few mid-level wacom
| tablets before that) and Procreate is simply amazing. It's an
| app that couldn't exist without the ipad and it massively
| increases its usefulness. Procreate is good enough that I
| don't feel the need to bring any further art supplies (even a
| sketchbook and pencils) when traveling.
| ask_b123 wrote:
| For a few users, music sheet apps are also killer apps.
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| I don't really draw so I haven't used it as much as I wanted
| to but that was one purchase that I never regretted. Also
| helps that it's not subscription type. To this day anytime
| someone gets an iPad, I make them try the app.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| Why did you buy it then? How could you not regret spending
| money on something you don't use?
| coldtea wrote:
| It's like $5. Even if you don't use it, you can tell it's
| a great app, updated often for free, etc. I've regretted
| apps I've paid $5 and $10 for and were crap, or baited me
| and turned to subscriptions etc. Procreate is not that.
| filoleg wrote:
| They said they use it, just not much.
|
| And given that it was a non-pricy one-time purchase, and
| not a subscription, why would they regret it? The cost
| per hour of usage is only going to keep decreasing over
| time for them, as long as they keep using it in some
| capacity occasionally.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| This. I was sad when FiftyThree's Paper was made
| subscription :(
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Procreate is on everyone's iPad I know. I kinda blows my mind
| how affordable that app is. People would definitely pay 2-3x
| more or a yearly sub for it.
| asciii wrote:
| I am very scared of Adobe buying it like Figma and doing
| that to it
| Mezzie wrote:
| Procreate and Goodnotes for me.
|
| Using the Apple Pencil with either app gives me the
| benefits of analogue work _and_ the benefits of digital
| work. Handwriting helps me remember things, but since the
| product is digital, it 's trivial to move/undo/etc.
|
| And Procreate + Apple Pencil is way better than any other
| art solution I've found for digital art. Granted I've never
| tried a drawing tablet with a screen, but an extremely
| cheap option is still $200. For one that works as well as
| the AP + iPad you'd probably be looking at near the same
| price point.
| 2fast4you wrote:
| For me, it's Shapr3D. It has the most intuitive CAD
| interface I've ever used and it's all based around the
| pencil. Pretty killer app, especially if you have a 3D
| printer.
| MexicanJoe wrote:
| Is this not just Good Notes? https://www.goodnotes.com/
| rickdeckard wrote:
| A free-of-charge tool... The amount of seemingly acceptable
| market-distorting behavior we've all grown into is quite baffling
| to me.
|
| I wonder if Philipp Morris could have offered free office space
| to companies in the 80s with access being restricted to smokers
| only...
| Longhanks wrote:
| This is a free app, easily removable, not invasive in any way,
| no ads, no personal data misuse, no tracking, not shoved in
| your face, not replacing any other apps, not disabling anything
| else, no strings attached.
|
| You must be very cynical to see this as "market distortion".
| rickdeckard wrote:
| It's market distortion because it competes with companies who
| charge a fee for maintaining and developing their
| application, by entering their market entirely cross-financed
| from a immensely profitable product of a completely different
| industry.
|
| If it's NOT market distortion, it means it is possible to
| create and operate a cloud-based multi-platform collaboration
| application, free of charge for corporate and private use,
| without the need of any direct revenue stream within that
| market. I'm not even talking profit, I mean no need for any
| revenue whatsoever.
| chadlavi wrote:
| It's really interesting that everyone's making infinite canvas
| apps these days.
|
| I wish they would all have the same thing standard that FigJam
| has: that if you hit cmd/ctrl-Enter while typing in a sticky note
| or object, that the software will create a new one for you to the
| right or below the one you were editing and you can just keep
| typing.
|
| If you're trying to use software like this for brainstorming or
| writing down suggestions from others live, it adds significant
| friction to have to take your hands off the keyboard and use the
| mouse to create a new sticky note.
| aussiesnack wrote:
| The freeform canvas was what made Microsoft Onenote seem so
| compelling to start with, at least potentially. They stuffed it
| up of course. But I was always surprised other apps didn't pick
| up that particular baton.
| user3939382 wrote:
| Honest, when I first glanced at the title I thought it said
| "fiefdom" and thought: yeah we all know that already. Sadly
| there's a reason my mind jumped to that, right?
| kinnth wrote:
| This is going strongly after the Miro app. Being a longer term
| Miro user, it's my primary method for recording notes and
| collaborating, however, it's expensive. I pay $15 a month and I
| tend to share my notes with 1 or 2 people per board.
|
| I pay for the freelancer version and if this version from apple
| allows me to share with non-apple users, I will switch. I hate
| paying so much for a software tool and if it's good enough it
| feels like the Microsoft Teams killing Slack outcome.
| tmalsburg2 wrote:
| How does this differ from the Notes app which has many (most?) of
| the features in the description? Is Freeform just supposed to
| make these features more discoverable?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| The big platform players all need their own spin on Mural. They
| probably think it's like Figma for business.
|
| With hybrid work a thing, everyone is trying to win vertically
| integrated online collaboration. Eventually they'll sell a wall
| mount ipad.
| Someone wrote:
| I don't see wall-mount iPad happen. They'd have to offer it
| in to many different sizes (that also is the reason I never
| understood why people thought Apple'd start making smart TVs)
|
| The UI also wouldn't be as good as that of an iPad on your
| lap, I think, and you can already use airplay to mirror your
| iPad's screen on a large screen
| (https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204289)
|
| Finally, if you have a Mac, it can run this program, too, and
| thus show this on a large screen.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Never underestimate the ability of Apple to completely miss
| an obvious corporate product.
| chid wrote:
| I'm not sure what you mean here - to be honest I'm not sure
| what the strategy is with something like this. Corporates
| typically don't have Macs (though they will have phones)
| rpastuszak wrote:
| It seems to look like an infinite canvas, which reminds me of
| the excellent Concepts app
| (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/concepts/id560586497).
|
| Handwriting support in Concepts doesn't feel as good as Notes
| or Procreate so I imagine it'll be better in Freeform.
| scrollaway wrote:
| https://excalidraw.com
|
| Infinite canvas, super simple, lightning fast, near zero
| learning curve. Powerful enough. No arbitrary lock in to the
| apple ecosystem. Free. Open source.
|
| "Let's do collaboration", says the company locking people who
| dare not be in its ecosystem out. Gross, IMO.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Nothing too substantive to contribute here, but yeah I
| really love Excalidraw.
|
| It's exemplary, and I really hope it grows.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Same, it's simple, open and snappy as f*ck
| twobitshifter wrote:
| I recently had to make some sketches of schematics. On iPad
| I tried excalidraw, ms whiteboard, notes, notability, and
| sketchbook: drawing the same thing on each. To my surprise,
| notes actually worked the best for me with the snapping
| editing and exporting. Notability was also very good, but I
| tried that only after finishing in notes.
|
| Excalidraw works with Apple Pencil which is great but
| doesn't have snapping and straightening of lines.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| I just tried to use it, as the limitations of Freeform
| bother me, and Jamboard has frustrating privacy
| implications.
|
| Unfortunately, palm rejection on Excalidraw isn't great -
| each time I rest my hand on the screen to start drawing
| with the pencil, random lines get drawn on the screen.
|
| Shame, as the potential is high. Will bookmark for future
| in the hopes it improves. Thanks!
| rpastuszak wrote:
| Check out concepts if you have time. It's super flexible
| and iirc multiplatform.
| rpastuszak wrote:
| I love Excalidraw when using it on my laptop but the
| drawing experience with a stylus is just not good enough.
|
| And that's a shame because I also use Obsidian, which has a
| decent Excalidraw integration.
| Twisell wrote:
| Note is primarily text based but can include medias and some
| limited canvas object, this new interface is canvas based and
| can include text and medias.
| tmalsburg2 wrote:
| My 4yo doesn't think that Notes is primarily text based. It
| also has an infinite canvas and you can share a note with
| others to collaborate.
| Twisell wrote:
| Unless I'm wrong it's not a vector canvas once saved you
| can edit shape individually, also you can include media
| inside this canvas.
| jasode wrote:
| _> Freeform is an all-new app available starting today, included
| in the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS._
|
| _> A Collaboration Space : Whether a user is working at a desk
| or on the go, Freeform is incredibly useful for standalone
| projects or when collaborating with others. With the ability to
| work with up to 100 collaborators in the same board, Freeform
| creates a shared space for creativity when working on group
| projects or even planning a vacation with friends. Freeform takes
| advantage of the new collaboration features in Messages, _
|
| This limits collaboration to those in the Apple ecosystem. But
| many people would want to collaborate with Android users.
|
| As analogy, Apple has wall-garden Facetime and also Group
| Facetime video chat for iOS users but I've only seen non-family
| members set up Zoom because you need to invite both Android+Apple
| to the video conference.
|
| And Apple Messages chat app can have group chats that include
| Android users because it has fallback to SMS.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| Users without an iDevice can still join a FaceTime call.
| lolsowrong wrote:
| Since iOS15, you have been able to invite Android and PC users
| to FaceTime calls.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| What if someone in the group on Android or PC wants to
| initiate the call?
| ubermonkey wrote:
| They should use something else, or switch to iOS.
|
| Facetime is a feature of the Apple ecosystem.
| lxgr wrote:
| Facetime works in the browser as well these days.
|
| I've never used it like that myself though, so no idea if it is
| actually usable.
| tomp wrote:
| Alternative viewpoint:
|
| _This enhances collaboration to the standard of the Apple
| ecosystem. Many people want to avoid "the
| Android/Windows/shitty third party app experience"._
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Reading from the page, I'm still not sure what Freeform does
| better than FigJam for instance. I also wouldn't exchange
| Meet or Zoom for Facetime in a professional setting.
|
| I'm not sure what work or collaboration app do you see from
| Apple that exceeds the popular third party ones.
| a4isms wrote:
| I can tell you what the benefits are. Whether those
| benefits make it better than FigJam or whatever is a
| tradeoff evaluation for each person to make for their use
| case, it could be that FigJam is right for Alice while
| Freeform is right for Bob, meanwhile Charlene despises them
| both.
|
| But there are Facetime users. Not you, and not me at work,
| but me at home for sure. And there are Apple ecosystem
| dwellers who use a lot of apps. And definitely Apple
| ecosystem users that store their data in iCloud.
|
| What Freeform offers those people is a collaboration app
| (not web app) with the data in iCloud. That has some value
| for people who already have everything in iCloud.
|
| One kind of person has their passwords in 1Password, their
| docs in the g-suite, their reminders in some other
| company's cloud, &c. They're happy mixing and matching apps
| and logins and cloud storage.
|
| They don't have a compelling need for Freeform.
|
| But what if your passwords and TOTP authenticators are in
| iCloud via the keychain? What if your docs are in Keynote
| and Pages and Numbers, stored in iCloud as well? What if
| you like having Mac and iOs native apps?
|
| Then you have a case for considering Freeform.
|
| I don't think Apple launched it to take over the
| collaboration market, but for folks already fully in the
| ecosystem, it offers benefits.
| sofixa wrote:
| What shitty third party app experience, _specifically_? And
| are you under the mistaken assumption that everything Apple
| releases is solid gold? Apple Music is an abomination, Pages
| screws up formats by default, etc. They are not flawless.
| nullwarp wrote:
| This is a terrible viewpoint as all it does is imply that if
| apple doesn't make it, then it's shitty?
| tomp wrote:
| I wish it wasn't! Borne out of experience.
| a4isms wrote:
| What the comment says is that the third-party app ecosystem
| on Android is shitty. Which is not the same thing as saying
| that Android itself is shitty, or that Google's apps are
| shitty.
|
| Just that for various reasons, statistically, 90% of third-
| party android apps are shitty. This is absolutely true, but
| then again, judging an ecosystem by 90% of its apps is
| probably not very helpful.
|
| 90% of everything is crud, as Phil Sturgeon remarked. App
| ecosystems have winner-take-all economics, so 90% of the
| apps are poorly funded things thrown into the world like
| notes in bottles thrown into the sea.
|
| If we lower the barriers to entry, we necessarily get more
| crud. The big question for a user is not whether 70%, 80%,
| or 90% of the apps are crud, it's whether there are enough
| good apps for each user to have a good experience, and
| whether those good apps are discoverable.
|
| The open web has created a world where 99.9999999% of all
| web pages are shit. But we don't care right now, because HN
| isn't one of them, and making it open makes it easier for
| the HNs of the world to be created.
|
| If there was a "web gatekeeper" charging "developer
| membership" subscriptions, there would have been fewer
| shitty web pages, but no HN or raganwald.com either.
|
| ---
|
| I leave it as an exercise for the reader to ask whether
| Apple's ecosystem is also 90% crud. It could be the case,
| but if you find the apps you need and they're excellent,
| how would you ever know what the other five million iOS
| fart generators and home-brew to-do list apps look like?
| sofixa wrote:
| > What the comment says is that the third-party app
| ecosystem on Android is shitty. Which is not the same
| thing as saying that Android itself is shitty, or that
| Google's apps are shitty. Just that for various
|
| A lot of Android (and iOS for that matter) first party
| apps are also shitty, so the provenance doesn't really
| matter.
|
| > It could be the case, but if you find the apps you need
| and they're excellent, how would you ever know what the
| other five million iOS fart generators and home-brew to-
| do list apps look like?
|
| How is that any different compared to Android? I have
| found the apps that I need and are excellent, and I don't
| care about the rest.
| a4isms wrote:
| I am in no way saying that the Apple ecosystem is
| superior to the Android ecosystem, or that Keynote is
| superior to Slides or PowerPoint, for that matter.
|
| Just that all reasonably open ecosystems are full of
| crud, and while pointing out that any one ecosystem is
| full of crud is true, it is also not a particularly
| helpful.
|
| The provenance of the Phil Sturgeon quote is helpful. He
| was praised for being an excellent author, and asked why
| he wrote SciFi, a genre in which 90% of the published
| works were crud.
|
| His remark that "90% of everything is crud" illuminated a
| truth that people tend to associate the quality of a
| genre they like with the good works in that genre that
| they are familiar with, while associating the quality of
| a genre they don't like with the mean or even worst works
| in that genre.
|
| It absolutely is the same between Apple, Android, and
| Microsoft. I'm an Apple person, I found the set of apps I
| need, I think they're excellent. My brother is all-in on
| Google, from Android to hardware, everything. He also has
| an excellent set of apps he needs, I have no reason to
| think he'd be happier switching to Apple.
| coldtea wrote:
| It's not a viewpoint, it's an observation :)
| rchaud wrote:
| Apple is years late to everything, so the marketing
| narrative around that is "Apple would rather do it right
| than do it early".
|
| No thanks. Happy to be 'early' to mouse, kb, pen and
| external monitor support on Android. Just got a foldable
| phone that's perfectly combined my phone + tab use cases,
| so I can do it all on one device.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| As a non-power user, I have never felt the need for those
| support, really.
| achow wrote:
| Though it says 'designed for collaboration' it is good to have
| infinite page for one's own content.
|
| Also it would interesting to see how responsive the
| collaborative whiteboard would be. Online multiuser whiteboards
| are really useful when one sees in real-time the action taken
| by other online users - text being edited, object being dragged
| by remote users, etc.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Yes, that's the point. Apple ties you into its ecosystem by
| creating apps that only work on their platform and in this case
| pressuring your friends to also buy from them. This isn't
| anything new. This app isn't trivial to create so it has to be
| funded by them somehow. If another company created an app
| similar to this then they would follow probably a different
| pattern which would be to first release on iOS, pay for it by
| some subscription model and then eventually have an option on
| Android if the company doesn't get bought out by Apple /
| Android or get Sherlocked.
| reeeeee wrote:
| What does "getting Sherlocked" mean?
| GeekyBear wrote:
| Microsoft Teams being preinstalled with the OS and set to
| automatically start when the OS boots would be an example.
|
| There were several other options to do the same thing, but
| Microsoft added their own that came with the OS.
| ofcrpls wrote:
| Long-form answer with a story from the dev who got
| Sherlocked first
|
| https://www.karelia.com/blog/the-long-story-behind-
| karel.htm...
| rubyfan wrote:
| From wikipedia...
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_(software)
|
| Advocates of Watson made by Karelia Software, LLC claim
| that Apple copied their product without permission,
| compensation, or attribution in producing Sherlock 3. Some
| disagree with this claim, stating that Sherlock 3 was the
| natural evolution of Sherlock 2, and that Watson was
| obviously meant to have some relation to Sherlock by its
| very name.
|
| The phenomenon of Apple releasing a feature that supplants
| or obviates third-party software is so well known that
| being Sherlocked has become an accepted term used within
| the Mac and iOS developer community.
| jameshart wrote:
| Usually something to do with running a tumblr full of
| Benedict Cumberbatch/Martin Freeman fanfic.
|
| But in this case, it refers to the fact that there used to
| be a Mac app called _Watson_ (made by _Karelia Software_ )
| that let you search all your personal files. Then Apple
| added an OS feature called _Sherlock_ that did the same
| thing and ripped the rug out from under the third party
| developer. ( _Sherlock_ has since been replaced by
| _Spotlight_ in more recent MacOS versions)
|
| By analogy, anyone making software in the Mac ecosystem (or
| any ecosystem really) risks being 'Sherlocked' by having
| their idea ripped off and turned into an OS feature.
| a4isms wrote:
| Calling it "sherlocked" is recency bias on our part.
| Apple learned it from Microsoft, who took a thing that
| happened from time to time and _operationalized_ it into
| a full-blown business strategy.
|
| One by one, Microsoft took aim at successful DOS and
| Windows applications, especially business applications,
| and displaced them. Lotus... WordPerfect... Everyone,
| really. Unless your app was for a niche too specialized
| to be worth the hassle, Microsoft wanted to use you for
| market research and then either buy you, buy your
| competitor, or clone you.
| kergonath wrote:
| > Calling it "sherlocked" is recency bias on our part.
|
| It has been called "sherlocking" in the Mac sphere ever
| since the Sherlock 3 incident. Any bias is not on _our_
| part, as this was more than 20 years ago. Yes, some of us
| were there (I was, so maybe _I_ share some
| responsibility), but the combination of the minuscule Mac
| market share at the time and its steady growth for the 2
| following decades means that the people who were around
| at the time are a statistically insignificant fraction of
| _us_ today.
|
| It is not unique and in retrospect we can find many
| historical examples before that, but it was a
| particularly high-profile one, it made a lot of noise,
| and the name stuck. Also, most Mac users at this point
| avoided Windows (or eve worse, dog forbid, MS-DOS) like
| the plague so this would not have been in people's minds.
| [deleted]
| suumcuique wrote:
| Basically useless for actual collaboration. Hope it's at least
| good enough to present my tablet as a whiteboard while sharing
| my laptop screen in a meeting.
| pipingdog wrote:
| > This limits collaboration to those in the Apple ecosystem.
|
| Not only that, it limits collaboration to those running only
| the newest version of iOS/MacOS.
| amelius wrote:
| Yes, it's an egocentric company, that's for sure, but most
| people here already know that.
| dgreensp wrote:
| From the marketing, it seems targeted at groups of high school
| students who all happen to have thousand-dollar Apple tablets.
|
| I've been using Macs since 1989, and I don't get this. I'll try
| it with my kids, though. We all have iPads. They use theirs for
| games at the moment, mostly. I don't use mine much anymore.
| pier25 wrote:
| This is really a way to hook people on paid iCloud accounts.
| eternalban wrote:
| Need OS X advice here: am happy with 11.5.x on M1. Any issue
| upgrading to the tip 16.x as required for this software? Same q
| for iPad as well. /tia
| fattybob wrote:
| When I moved to apple many years ago, I was a big fan of an app
| that did something very very similar to what Freeform is now
| doing - now I love the fact that someone's finally made something
| that supports this layout of all manner of things in this manner,
| but sadly I'm not sure that I can drop my use of note style
| outliner thingies now - FSNotes is now my main note taker, but
| work and project ideas, they may get sketched out in FreeForm,
| I'm certainly very happy to see it in my phone, and am hoping my
| aging MacBook will also support it.
| karaterobot wrote:
| About a third of our company uses PC or Chromebook, so I guess
| they're out of luck? Imagine trying to use this with a vendor or
| a client, and they can't get into the session, ugh.
|
| What people want in a collaboration session is low barrier to
| entry: everybody should just click a thing and be in the session
| without having to do anything else, or be signed up for anything,
| or own anything they don't already own. I don't see that this
| provides that.
|
| Figjam is far from perfect, but at least it gets that right.
| nipponese wrote:
| After telling my wife that Apple made a FigJam clone, she
| looked at Freeform and said "So it's like Jamboard?" I had no
| idea Google also made a Figjam clone.
| chadlavi wrote:
| to be fair, Google's (terrible) version of this predates
| figjam by quite a bit, and maybe even predates Miro.
| LegitShady wrote:
| >About a third of our company uses PC or Chromebook, so I guess
| they're out of luck? Imagine trying to use this with a vendor
| or a client, and they can't get into the session, ugh.
|
| but why would you try? just use multiple platform supported
| applications to begin with. no one cares if you use word or
| ipages to take notes but if you want to collaborate dont start
| with apple's euphemistic definition of it
| mythhouse wrote:
| Looks like this lets me use apple pen on my ipad. I wish i could
| do that on obsidian canvas.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| It also feeds your ideas, sketches, and notes directly to Apple.
| Don't put any secrets into this app!
|
| Buried somewhere in the EULA I suspect there is a paragraph
| giving Apple perpetual, unlimited, non-exclusive rights to
| anything that would be looked at and deemed interesting.
| ezfe wrote:
| lol
| buffington wrote:
| I haven't found a specific EULA for Freeform, but you can
| easily read various Apple EULA's at
| <https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/>.
|
| Looking at the EULA for Numbers (which I picked essentially at
| random, though you could argue that Numbers and Freeflow would
| likely have very similar EULA's).
|
| In that EULA, they say:
|
| > Title and intellectual property rights in and to any content
| displayed by or accessed through the Apple Software belong to
| the respective content owner.
|
| You are the "respective content owner" of the ideas, sketches,
| and notes created within Freeflow.
| lolive wrote:
| Just after Obsidian releases Canvas.
|
| Coincidence? I don't think so...
|
| https://obsidian.md/canvas
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34066824
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Just after Obsidian releases Canvas. Coincidence? I don 't
| think so..._
|
| Are you under the impression that Apple saw Canvas then fired
| up its own clone in a matter of days, then invented an iTime
| Machine and went back in time eight months to show demos to
| developers of the app it hasn't made yet?
| Bishonen88 wrote:
| I reckon the other way around: someone from obsidian found
| out that this is meant to launch soon and they didn't want
| apple take all the wind from their sail. Chances are low, but
| bigger than what you cynically described.
| lolive wrote:
| Ok ok. What you call cynism was supposed to be dry humour.
| Anyway...
|
| To be more serious, i really wonder what the Obsidian
| hackers will do with Canvas, in the (semi-)open
| environement of Obsidian plugins, vs what mainstream pieces
| of software from commercial companies will offer, version
| after version.
| dagmx wrote:
| Freeform was announced in June at WWDC. It most definitely was
| in development before that date as well.
|
| Even this press release you're replying to was released before
| Obsidian's canvas was announced.
| timjver wrote:
| Whether or not it is a coincidence depends on whether Obsidian
| planned this. Apple isn't going to base their release schedule
| on something like this.
| s1mon wrote:
| I've been an Apple user for 40+ years, and I really don't want to
| tally up my lifetime customer value to Apple. However, I don't
| trust them for software which is supposed to support
| collaboration. Personally focused software, great OS, and
| beautiful hardware yes, collaboration, no.
|
| I almost never work in an environment with 100% homogeneous
| hardware and OS. A large portion of my career has been working as
| a contractor or consultant. Each new client has a different stack
| of tools. Any tools for collaborative work need to be as cross-
| platform as possible. For many of my jobs the tools also need to
| work in all regions without VPN (no Google in China).
|
| Even though I have a Mac, when a prospective job applicant sends
| a resume in Pages, it's a disqualifier, because they don't
| understand that Windows users can't read that.
|
| Until Freeform works on Windows and Android, it's not
| collaborative, it's a walled garden.
| ezfe wrote:
| > when a prospective job applicant sends a resume in Pages,
| it's a disqualifier
|
| Do you indicate the format you need to receive?
| brookst wrote:
| > it's not collaborative, it's a walled garden.
|
| I'm not following the dichotomy here. "Collaborative" doesn't
| mean open and universal and free and cross platform... it means
| collaborative.
|
| I also wouldn't use Freeform (or Pages, or Reminders) in a
| professional capacity where I need to work with lots of people
| in heterogenous environments.
|
| But I love Freeform (and Reminders) at home with family. I find
| them very collaborative AND a walled garden. The two seem like
| entirely compatible attributes.
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| Does Freeform have a web app for iCloud users like Office
| 365? If not, who can you collaborate with?
| s1mon wrote:
| Within a family, that can work, but even with my partner, who
| hates Windows so much that she uses a personally supplied Mac
| despite her company not officially supporting it, we use
| Google docs to work on stuff together.
|
| It's partially familiarity, but also portability and
| functionality. I go back and forth between Microsoft and
| Google suites depending on work situations, and despite how
| much Apple has worked on Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc.,
| they're still not as complete or common as Microsoft or
| Google. Adding a third set of tools is a little like being
| fluent in 3 languages. It's too much of an overload.
|
| The only professional situation where I've seen any of these
| Apple applications commonly used is Keynote by design teams.
| The typography and alignment tools in Keynote are better than
| Google and Microsoft, but those same design teams forget that
| no one outside of current Mac user can do anything with a
| .key file. Yes, I know iCloud on the web kinda sorta works,
| but it's so not Apple's first priority. Microsoft is still
| struggling to make their suite work as universally as
| Googles, and Apple is way behind here.
|
| If I didn't know other tools and I never needed to work with
| people outside of the walled garden, I might put more time
| into using Apple's "productivity" (AKA iWork) apps.
| s1mon wrote:
| Collaborative to me means I can easily add a person to a team
| and not have to spend a lot of time or money getting them
| different hardware or OS than what they already have access
| to. Depending on the particular situation, it's possible that
| Apple tools are collaborative, but even in the Bay Area
| working in design and engineering, I've never worked anywhere
| (including Apple itself) where everyone was on MacOS 100% of
| the time.
| CharlesW wrote:
| The collaboration features of Apple's apps also work in
| their web apps, which work in any modern browser on any OS.
| kemayo wrote:
| In fairness for the discussion here, Freeform doesn't
| seem to have a web app version (yet?).
| CharlesW wrote:
| Important point, thank you!
| haswell wrote:
| To me, the bottom line is that "collaborative" and "cross-
| platform" are not synonymous, and are distinct properties.
|
| > _Collaborative to me means I can easily add a person to a
| team and not have to spend a lot of time or money getting
| them different hardware or OS_
|
| This is assigning meaning to that word that just doesn't
| exist. There are separate variables at play:
|
| - Collaboration features
|
| - Platforms supported
|
| - Cost
|
| If I take what you said at face value, the software is no
| longer collaborative when it becomes cost prohibitive, but
| that doesn't make sense either. The software can be none or
| any or all of those things. If your criteria requires all
| three, then pick software that meets all three. Your need
| for all three has no bearing on how effectively
| collaborative this is for people who only need one.
|
| In my mind, this tooling is collaborative, full stop.
|
| This tooling is not cross-platform*.
|
| If your needs require both boxes to be checked, a different
| tool like Miro is probably for you.
|
| - *Although it does have a web interface, which admittedly
| I haven't used, so I can't comment on how effective it is.
| epolanski wrote:
| I tried to read your message few times with an open spirit
| but I don't buy it.
|
| The moment I, for any reason, I cannot collaborate unless I
| get my hands back on an Apple device (and possibly Apple id
| which is even more complicated) it stops being a
| collaborative software.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I agree with brookst. The fact that most Apple first-party
| software only works on Apple devices is a given, and any
| time you call an app "collaborative" it's a given that
| we're talking only about the devices which can run the
| software.
|
| What are we supposed to call it when they add collaboration
| to one of their apps? "Adding walled garden" is
| nonsensical, because to whatever extent it's a walled
| garden, that was already the case before adding
| collaboration.
| gandalfgreybeer wrote:
| I sort of have an idea on what he meant. Everyone in my
| family and close friends have at least one Apple device and
| the "collaborative" environment in that sense is wonderful,
| especially with Reminders, notes, sharing files etc.
|
| It however fails once you go outside.
|
| Might be a stupid analogy so let's net focus on this but I
| sort of see it like this:in my country, we can speak our
| language and it works for collaboration. Once you go
| outside, it fails. But that doesn't mean it wasn't
| successful as a "collaborative" tool for that environment.
|
| I think you and op just might have different scales of
| where you think it should work well enough.
| goosedragons wrote:
| More like everyone entrenched in the ecosystem. I can't
| imagine this is a super great experience for someone who
| only has an iPhone SE but non-Apple everything else.
| Especially when the creator is used to the canvas of
| their 27" Studio Display.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Many people in their targeted market has an iPhone and
| maybe a macbook.
| last_responder wrote:
| How is getting an Apple ID complicated?
| kemayo wrote:
| That one does seem at the level of "if you have to make a
| free account to access something it's not collaborative",
| which is _quite_ the bar.
| [deleted]
| eigen wrote:
| > I cannot collaborate unless I get my hands back on ...(
| Apple id which is even more complicated) it stops being a
| collaborative software.
|
| getting an Apple id doesn't require apple hardware and most
| of the tools are available via icloud.com. if an apple id
| prevents something from being a collaborative tool then
| google docs, Microsoft 365, Slack, et al are not
| collaborative tools.
| twmiller wrote:
| Meh. The moment I, for any reason, cannot collaborate
| unless I get my hands on a computer it stops being
| collaborative.
|
| Or not. 'Collaborative' doesn't mean 'accessible by
| anyone'. Collaborative just means capable of supporting two
| or more parties working together, and freeform clearly
| meets the criteria...
| brookst wrote:
| Very interesting that people can have such different
| definitions.
|
| I suppose your view is that any tightly controlled software
| can't be collaborative? Like Epic, that likely helps your
| health care professionals and labs exchange info and
| collaborate on your care, or air traffic control systems
| where lots of people collaborate to route planes and
| control airspace.
|
| Those kinds of things aren't collaborative software because
| they run on limited platforms and access is tightly
| controlled. Is that congruent with your viewpoint?
| itishappy wrote:
| I don't understand the point of your distinction. Barriers
| will always exist. You'll always need to download an app or
| visit a website.
|
| If something can be used for collaboration, it is be
| definition collaborative, is it not?
|
| A multi-user tabletop projection system is collaborative,
| even if it requires everyone to be in the same room using
| the same device.
|
| Is Slack, Teams, or Trello not collaborative because it
| won't run on my XBox360?
| [deleted]
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > Is Slack, Teams, or Trello not collaborative because it
| won't run on my XBox360?
|
| This is not their point because your XBox360 is not
| something you use to perform your job (or, at least, it's
| not something most people use to perform their jobs). If
| I use a Windows computer for work and I can't use this
| software to collaborate on that work, then this isn't
| really "collaborative" software in the practical sense.
| epolanski wrote:
| Exactly my point. If it's OS locked it's not
| collaborative for me.
|
| Collaboration should be about lowering barriers, not
| rising them.
| [deleted]
| tosc wrote:
| You're expressing an ideology here. It's not pragmatic and
| doesn't reflect real world experience.
|
| Yes, I have friends who don't have Apple devices and I
| can't use Freeform with them, so of course there are
| limits.
|
| I recently sent my 85 year old mother an iPad so she can
| more easily watch videos and do video calls. She can use
| Freeform with me, but there is no chance she would be able
| to use a Linux or Windows collaboration tool, or even
| something web based.
|
| By your logic, there is no such thing as a collaborative
| tool, but this is obviously not what people mean.
| j16sdiz wrote:
| Pages have a web version.
| r00fus wrote:
| You sound like a non-Facebook user complaining about
| Facebook messenger not being collaborative enough. Fair
| point (can't use FB if you're not subscribed) but
| completely not representative of the greater population or
| (in this case) Apple's target market.
| browningstreet wrote:
| I've worked in design companies where every machine...
| including the bookkeeper's, was a Mac. This app Won't run
| into any issues in that environment.
|
| It's like every time somebody posts a commercial SaaS app
| people will ask if it can be self-hosted. We know what
| these things are. Seems fair to start there.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I've worked and interviewed at several _tech_ companies
| that were nearly or fully Mac-exclusive. The only two
| exceptions that come to mind was at one where the finance
| guy had a Windows laptop because he lived in Excel and at
| one where one of the backend guys ran a custom built
| Linux tower, both of whom were the oddballs in their
| respective companies with everybody else toting MacBooks.
| pxoe wrote:
| once you start using that kind of app with literally anybody,
| you start building a mass of users that's gonna end up
| dragging others into that walled garden or exclude others
| from using it. hell, even when you just start using it alone,
| you begin to accumulate stuff that's gonna weigh you down,
| and make it harder to switch, to pick something else, and
| make it more likely that you're just gonna continue using
| this thing. and then perhaps use it for collaboration. which
| is gonna work just fine at first, if you happen to have apple
| users around. but then, whoops, somebody doesn't have an
| apple device. depending on value of that content and value of
| collaboration, it could be very, very awkward, to force
| someone to use it, or to bargain with someone about using it,
| which will probably end up at 'well, you could buy a used
| apple device? or something? idk'. that's...not great.
|
| ability to let people collaborate freely and conveniently is
| one of the aspects of collaboration. if there's no way for
| someone to collaborate (such as, no app on other platforms,
| so no way to collab without owning/buying an apple device),
| there's just no collaboration. it's anti-collaboration, even.
| others are specifically prohibited from collaborating, unless
| they clear some kind of requirement.
|
| with closed stuff like this, you always open yourself up to a
| future scenario where somebody will either not be able to use
| it and get excluded, or get forced to use it. it's not even
| on the web. it's a proprietary format. it's a dead end for
| content. i'd be very interested to hear what kind of export
| this thing does, if it even can do that.
|
| honestly, these kinds of apps and walled garden things should
| get shot at much sooner, without even getting the benefit of
| 'well it's just for personal use/for apple users - it's fine'
| (no it's not. soon usage spreads to other things, and sooner
| people become entrenched in proprietary stuff and drag others
| in with them), before they end up becoming a bigger problem,
| like imessage bubbles have, or whatever interoperability
| thing has. the choice that you're making by choosing things
| like this is 'am I comfortable with selling a $429 iPhone SE
| or a $329 iPad to my friend/my colleague/my family/my
| kid/some random person, just so they would be able to get on
| a thing with me'. in walled gardens, you end up not just
| operating as a 'user/customer', but also as a salesman for
| that company.
| personjerry wrote:
| You're pretty much just complaining about the network
| effect no?
| pxoe wrote:
| yes, and? (edit: well, actually, no, you're just ignoring
| the lock-in part. but even if so,) in this case, it's a
| network that's more limited than others in terms of who's
| able to access it and what hurdles they have to overcome.
| like, network effect can be pretty bad, but this, mixed
| with ecosystem lock-in, is even worse.
| naravara wrote:
| I mean, they can they just have to convert it. Is it that
| different from sending it as a PDF because you need to have
| installed a PDF reader or Acrobat to read it?
|
| The only reason .docx files are more easily readable is because
| everyone makes a point of natively building in the ability to
| convert them because it's so ubiquitous. But it's a Microsoft
| format that Microsoft put a lot of effort into locking down as
| much as they could get away with, only backing off on it when
| they started getting into anti-trust trouble.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| >Even though I have a Mac, when a prospective job applicant
| sends a resume in Pages, it's a disqualifier, because they
| don't understand that Windows users can't read that.
|
| or maybe they do understand, and are self selecting away from
| people like you...
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| a PDF is so much better. and you know this..... man
| rchaud wrote:
| Why bother to spend any time filling out an application then?
|
| ATS systems usually won't accept a .pages file as a format
| anyway. It's RTF, TXT, DOC, DOCX and PDF from what I've seen.
| sgc wrote:
| Who would ever only want to work for a company that
| exclusively uses Apple products? That is an insane level of
| fanboyism that doesn't indicate a fully rational actor.
| turtlesdown11 wrote:
| using .pages to select away from job applicants also does
| not indicate a fully rational actor
| howinteresting wrote:
| How would I open a pages file? I use Linux.
|
| I'd have a similar reaction to .doc or .docx as well,
| though at least I can open those files. .pdf is table
| stakes.
| sbuk wrote:
| LibreOffice opens application/x-iwork-pages-sffpages
| files.
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| People who value their sanity and/or are opposed to having
| ads and tabloid headlines built into their work computer.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| Simple: Person hates Windows.
|
| Person wants to work for a company that is willing to pay
| the cost of tools, and using Apple is a good proxy for
| this.
|
| Unfortunately in hiring all we have a (frequently
| imperfect) proxies.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| > when a prospective job applicant sends a resume in Pages,
| it's a disqualifier,
|
| I mean, you could ask them if they could export it to PDF and
| not just kick them to the curb.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| I guess you don't realize Microsoft has been doing this with
| .docx and .xlsx for years. They claim it's an open standard but
| it doesn't work flawlessly in anything but their software. It's
| more subtle but the same type of walled garden trickery.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Someone's CV in .docx would be readable at least and, most of
| the time with intact formatting (especially if the author
| didn't use spaces as indentation), even if opened in some
| {libre,star,open}office or whatever, heck, on modern Windows
| you can open .docx in Wordpad, ie you don't even need MS
| Office on Windows to open .docx.
|
| But I don't even know what is the Pages[0] format, extension,
| what apps can open it on Windows.[1]
|
| [0] like really, I never in my life needed this.
|
| [1] yes, you just can open it in 7z, but the similar can be
| done with .docx too.
| bink wrote:
| I don't mean to be dis-charitable to your comments but it
| sounds like you're saying that people should use the
| currently bigger walled garden over the currently smaller
| walled garden?
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Just a few days ago I needed to edit a CSV file from a codebase
| I was working on. Opened it up in Numbers, changed a couple of
| cells, saved it. Later I realized none of my changes were in
| the CSV file. Turns out Apple saved it as some kind of other
| proprietary file. From now on I'll just open my files in
| VSCode, because that's easier than worrying about getting
| sucked into the Apple ecosystem.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You mean how it's worked in every spreadsheet app that I've
| used since 1985?
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| Excel warns you and allows you to save it as a CSV. Still
| annoying but not as bad as it apparently works in Numbers.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I've also had this experience; it's a major UX fail. I
| uninstalled Numbers/Pages after it.
| ezfe wrote:
| Excel will just silently modify everything and "save" it
| back as a CSV. I would rather that both Excel and Numbers
| only saved to CSV as an Export option.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Neither one is good, but at least Excel warns me
| formatting will be lost.
|
| I wish they'd warn you on first operation that CSV can't
| handle, and _ask_.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| It sounds like you need to export instead. CSV export isn't
| under save because it doesn't retain all the details of the
| document (such as formatting). This behaviour is standard and
| can be seen in MS Excel, LibreOffice, etc. as well.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > CSV export isn't under save because it doesn't retain all
| the details of the document (such as formatting). This
| behaviour is standard and can be seen in MS Excel,
| LibreOffice, etc. as well.
|
| Office warns me my changes will be lost and _offers_ to
| change to XLSX. Numbers just changes it silently, without
| warning.
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| And I thought the Excel UX for this was annoying.
| Silently saving another copy of the file is terrible.
| irskep wrote:
| LibreOffice will happily re-save CSV in place. That's the
| only reason I have it installed! But Excel does require the
| same workflow as Numbers.
| Technetium wrote:
| If you are concerned about retaining formatting in comma
| separated values, you have MUCH bigger prerequisite
| problems to figure out.
| [deleted]
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Opened it up in Numbers, changed a couple of cells, saved
| it. Later I realized none of my changes were in the CSV file.
| Turns out Apple saved it as some kind of other proprietary
| file._
|
| Yes, the Numbers program saved it as a Numbers document.
|
| Just like Excel saves Excel files.
|
| That's why it's called "import," not "open."
|
| When you pressed Save, a Save As dialog popped up asking for
| a name. If you had just saved it to the same file, there
| would be no Save As dialog. It wouldn't ask you for a name
| because it knew the name.
|
| This is standard across every app on every Mac going back
| decades. I don't use Windows very often, but I believe it's
| the same there, too. You aren't asked for a filename if
| you're updating the same file.
|
| It doesn't sound like an Apple problem, it sounds like you
| didn't pay attention, and when the computer did what you
| asked, you blamed the computer. There's nothing Apple or
| Microsoft or anyone else can do about that.
| GordonS wrote:
| > Just like Excel saves Excel files
|
| Not if, like the OP, you open a CSV file first, then hit
| save.
| ezfe wrote:
| You're right, Excel does save back to CSV. It discards
| half your changes because they can't be saved in a CSV,
| modifies anything that could possibly be a date, and
| rounds random numbers, THEN it saves it as a CSV.
| rchaud wrote:
| Before discarding non-compatible changes, it'll tell you,
| and offer to save as XLSX.
|
| If you're just editing some values, you can save back to
| CSV with CTRL+S no problems.
| sigmonsays wrote:
| honestly though it's a csv file... think it's time for
| numbers to support it and do what the user expects.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Yeah this was the point I was trying to make. Obviously I
| didn't pay attention, but like...if I open a CSV file, my
| intuition tells me that if I click "save", it will save
| to the original CSV file. That's how most other programs
| work. Just because Excel also does it, doesn't make it a
| good idea. It's a bad idea and it's a hallmark of legacy
| software.
| ezfe wrote:
| Numbers opens the CSV file, gives the user a screen to
| control import settings, and supports exporting as a CSV
| with custom delimeters.
|
| Excel does save back to CSV. It discards half your
| changes because they can't be saved in a CSV, modifies
| anything that could possibly be a date, and rounds random
| numbers, THEN it saves it as a CSV.
|
| Numbers makes this an explicit "Export" option because
| silently saving these types of changes is super
| dangerous.
| arkitaip wrote:
| Apple's approach to collaboration is particularly embarrassing
| when you have tools like Figma that enable teams to work
| seamlessly across devices and platforms.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| > when a prospective job applicant sends a resume in Pages,
| it's a disqualifier
|
| I'm utterly astounded that anyone sends a resume in anything
| other than PDF.
|
| Sometimes employers require .doc or .docx, and _that 's_ a
| disqualifier. For me.
| drooopy wrote:
| Amen to that. There have been multiple times in my career
| where I've stopped the process the moment when a recruiter
| asked me to fill in a shitty looking .doc or .docx file with
| the same info that is in the .PDF file that's containing my
| CV that I've already submitted.
| IOT_Apprentice wrote:
| Until Direct X games work on macos, it is not collaborative, it
| is a walled garden. Until all PS5 games work on Xbox X I can't
| collaborate in multiplayer, the reverse is true as well.
|
| Walled gardens exist throughout computing.
| howinteresting wrote:
| More and more DirectX games now work on Linux, and many games
| have crossplay. In general the trend has been to move away
| from walled gardens.
| error503 wrote:
| Many games support cross-platform play these days, so yes you
| certainly can collaborate between PS5 and Xbox X, if you
| choose the correct 'applications'.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Until Freeform works on Windows and Android, it's not
| collaborative, it's a walled garden._
|
| Perhaps the solution is for Android to make a better app, and
| better apps in general, that will draw people away from the iOS
| ecosystem.
|
| Competition is supposed to be good. So compete.
|
| All I ever hear from the Android side is a lot of "walled
| garden" pearl clutching. Seldom any innovation, and evidently
| no innovation good enough to break the magical spell of Apple.
|
| When Android does innovate, and Apple chooses to adopt a
| method, then it's all "embrace, extend, extinguish! It's
| Micro$oft all over again!" As if Android never gets sloppy
| seconds on features, or half-baked mimicry of Apple products
| and services.
|
| It's this continuous whining and moaning that makes Apple, and
| Apple users, tune out the Android dev bros. They're just
| reactionary and it's easy to not take them seriously.
|
| The bottom line is the same now as it's always been: Build a
| better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Competition is great until your competitors use their power
| to prevent third-parties from distributing software freely.
| Then it becomes a monopoly, by modern standards.
| sonotathrowaway wrote:
| I haven't tried programming with Xcode in a while, I wonder if
| it's still aggressively hostile to collaboration.
| jmull wrote:
| > Even though I have a Mac, when a prospective job applicant
| sends a resume in Pages, it's a disqualifier, because they
| don't understand that Windows users can't read that.
|
| Hiring is hard enough. You want to know something you can't
| possibly know, so you have to use very imperfect, approximate
| signals. I don't know why you'd want to kneecap yourself on
| purpose like this. You might as well just roll dice and hire
| when 7 comes up.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Honestly, I kinda get it. I'm tired of people pushing Xcode
| dotfiles and __MACOSX folders to the main branch. If you're
| not conscious of the machine you use and the formats you
| employ, how can you be expected to collaborate effectively?
| jmull wrote:
| I've been doing this for decades and I don't even know what
| an Xcode dotfile is.
|
| Maybe you mean .DS_Store files? That's probably best
| described as a Finder dotfile... For that, maybe just add
| the line ".DS_Store" to your .gitignore (or the equivalent
| for your SCM software)?
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I would take that to mean that the person in question
| doesn't know that .gitignore exists or why it's useful more
| than anything else.
| adwww wrote:
| I'm honestly mortified if I somehow manage to push a
| .DS_Store to a PR...
| projectazorian wrote:
| > Hiring is hard enough. You want to know something you can't
| possibly know, so you have to use very imperfect, approximate
| signals. I don't know why you'd want to kneecap yourself on
| purpose like this. You might as well just roll dice and hire
| when 7 comes up.
|
| In this case the signal is that the candidate would probably
| be a difficult colleague, since they couldn't be bothered to
| spend the extra 30 seconds it takes to export to PDF from
| Pages. Or they didn't know how, also a disqualifier.
| Closi wrote:
| > Hiring is hard enough. You want to know something you can't
| possibly know, so you have to use very imperfect, approximate
| signals. I don't know why you'd want to kneecap yourself on
| purpose like this. You might as well just roll dice and hire
| when 7 comes up.
|
| You have to use the signals you have.
|
| And if the signal someone has sent for certain professional
| roles is "I don't understand appropriate formats to send
| documents in" then that is the signal you got.
|
| Depends on the job of course.
| matwood wrote:
| > Even though I have a Mac, when a prospective job applicant
| sends a resume in Pages, it's a disqualifier, because they
| don't understand that Windows users can't read that.
|
| Windows users can't even read some doc versions. Resumes should
| either be text or pdf. Anything else is a gamble.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| There's also a high chance that even if the .doc file is
| readable, that it'll be displayed incorrectly, even if the
| user is opening it with Word but especially if they're using
| something else that can open Word docs (WordPad, TextEdit,
| LibreOffice, Pages, and many others).
|
| Absolutely agree that PDF is the best choice. Readable and
| correctly renderable by just about everything, and even fixes
| the problem of missing fonts.
| culopatin wrote:
| Out of the choices out there, Apple allows for the easiest
| collaboration. Airdrop for me is the biggest player, integrated
| iMessage into MacOS and every other OS. Planning a trip with
| just these two things is much easier than whatever I could've
| accomplished between two Linux or two windows computers. Unless
| I used WhatsApp or something like that, but that's WhatsApp
| allowing collaboration, not Windows
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| I have worked at lots of small start-ups in the Bay Area, all
| of these companies were 100% Mac exclusive.
|
| I could see this tool being a decent competitor to something
| like the google drive suite
| RobotToaster wrote:
| >Even though I have a Mac, when a prospective job applicant
| sends a resume in Pages, it's a disqualifier, because they
| don't understand that Windows users can't read that.
|
| Libre Office can open mac pages documents.
| s1mon wrote:
| Yes, there are solutions if everyone is onboard with the
| arrangement. However, sharing a .pages or .key file with a
| prospective employer or client is asking them to do extra
| work, and is rude at best and a deal killer at worst.
|
| As a corollary, sharing .7zip or .tar or .rar when a .zip
| would do just fine are equivalent mistakes.
| selimnairb wrote:
| For me sending anything but a PDF is a deal killer. It's just
| odd to me to send your resume in a document format that
| supports editing. Take the time to make it into a PDF.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| If you buy a subscription to Acrobat (not Reader), you can
| edit PDFs. Office is also supposed to be able to open and
| edit them.
|
| Mac Spotlight can open and edit PDFs to some extend,
| including copying and pasting pages to put different PDFs
| together.
| snarkyturtle wrote:
| Collaboration on Keynote is truly terrible.
| ezfe wrote:
| Collaboration on Keynote works much better than in
| Powerpoint...Google Slides is the only one better, but Slides
| is a dumpster fire...
| brazzledazzle wrote:
| Powerpoint is setting a real low bar. Microsoft 365 feels
| almost the same as it did when it was SharePoint Office Web
| Apps.
| User23 wrote:
| > Even though I have a Mac, when a prospective job applicant
| sends a resume in Pages, it's a disqualifier, because they
| don't understand that Windows users can't read that.
|
| As someone who can remember the 1990s, when .DOC was the
| standard file format for any kind of business and much academic
| work, I find this terribly amusing.
| drewmate wrote:
| I think the walled garden is the whole point here, and you are
| not the target for this app. It's no coincidence that the
| sample they show on their devices is for a student (high
| school?) newspaper. This is like the blue texts in iMessage.
| Get them while they're young, and they'll be hooked for life.
| Imagine the shame of being excluded from a high school group
| project because, "we're all doing it in Freeform, sorry."
| Better ask mom for an iPhone just to be safe.
|
| - Drew ( sent from my iPad)
| rchaud wrote:
| Aren't US schools blanketed with Chromebooks? That's really
| the only market where iMessage monopoly is a thing. The rest
| of the world uses cross-platform options.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Public schools are.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| No one is serious about iPad in education anymore. Way too
| expensive and easy to break.
| spideymans wrote:
| That might be true in K-12, but that's definitely not the
| case in higher education, where iPads are very well used.
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| I haven't checked recently, are there any good alternative
| tablets, running Android maybe? I personally think iPads
| are insanely powerful and without (serious) competition.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I don't see why students need a seriously powerful
| device. Students are given chromebooks because all the
| applications they need are on the cloud.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Having used an iPad for my last couple years in high
| school, the machines were a total joke. Totally useless
| for english and history classes, and barely usable for
| math and science courses. When people weren't using them
| for classwork, they became instant distractions. The
| administration tried implementing MDM but ended up
| finding that the only solution was taking away the iPads
| during instructional time. Not to mention, ushering in
| iPads actually forced our computer science classes to
| shut down, since students no longer had machines with
| Python interpreters on them.
|
| The iPad is insanely powerful and without serious
| competition, but completely useless in a classroom
| setting. Most people would prefer the laptops we had,
| teachers and students alike.
| spogbiper wrote:
| the schools I have worked with in the past few years
| might use ipads for the very youngest kids but by middle
| school its all chromebooks
| lostlogin wrote:
| > when a prospective job applicant sends a resume in Pages
|
| This just seems crazy. People don't pdf them first? A .doc CV
| is equally disgusting in my view.
| patrickmcnamara wrote:
| If it doesn't open in my web browser, I'm probably not gonna
| open it.
| Ken_At_EM wrote:
| It's a red flag to me if someone sends a resume in anything
| other than a PDF.
|
| Why would you send your source code instead of your binary?
| Hippocrates wrote:
| This is cool and welcome. A golf-pencil sized Apple Pencil for
| iPhone would be pretty awesome.
|
| I'd love to see Apple take on google docs, but pages and numbers
| seem far behind. Notes is getting insanely powerful, but
| collaboration is still buggy.
| 015a wrote:
| I'll take the opposite stance of most of the people in this
| thread and say: I love this.
|
| To me, this feels like an echo of the Apple that I miss. The Mac
| didn't just become the creative powerhouse it is today because of
| the killer hardware or great operating system; it was the suite
| of excellent first party apps. iWork, Aperture, iMovie, Garage
| Band, Final Cut.
|
| I see echoes of those apps in Freeform, and I love it and hope
| they do more. I can't remember the last time Apple announced an
| entirely new, well, App. I felt similar excitement when they
| announced Translate a while ago, but that's not quite the same.
| speedgoose wrote:
| A collaboration tool stuck to Apple 's operating systems is
| pretty useless.
| codeisawesome wrote:
| My wish list for the next version of Freeform contains only two
| items:
|
| * Snap to shape from free-hand drawings (such as a
| square/line/circle). Other note taking apps have this.
|
| * Infinite Zoom Out and Zoom In. Currently the canvas expands in
| all directions, but the zoom in is locked to 10% min and 400%
| max. I want my boards to be able to have 'depth', particularly
| useful when sketching stuff with a 'drill-down' component.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| It would be weird if they don't have snap-to-shape since notes
| has it. Are you pausing long enough for the snap to happen?
| Edit: just played with it. there is a lot missing that I would
| have expected- for example no ruler or fountain pen or a way to
| customize the toolbar. Really strange for apple to have stepped
| back from notes
| njitram wrote:
| Surprisingly enough, notes does have snap to shape the feature,
| really weird decision to NOT have it in Freeform unfortunately
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| I want folders... A directory structure feels mandatory for
| something that's supposed to keep your notes, but for some
| reason they didn't include it at the outset.
| chrisandchris wrote:
| I only want to use a pen on OS X for drawing (actuall "free
| form" drawing). Until that happens, I would need to buy a $700
| paper block called iPad and that's not in my intention.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| The latest iPad starts at $399 + 100 for a pencil, so it's
| $500.
| alwillis wrote:
| The 9th generation iPad starts at $329 and often sells for
| less [1].
|
| [1]: https://www.apple.com/ipad-10.2/
| Maursault wrote:
| > I only want to use a pen on OS X for drawing (actuall "free
| form" drawing). Until that happens,
|
| This has only been possible since the release of Mac OS X
| Public Beta, "Kodiak" in September of 2000. Hundreds of
| freehand drawing applications have been developed since, and
| nearly all the hardware available since has always been
| supported by the OS without a third-party driver being
| necessary. Wacom comes to mind as a input device developer of
| drawing tablets and pens that has been around on Macs long
| before Mac OS X was first released.
| bronson wrote:
| Apple prohibits tablets:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34080367
| james-bcn wrote:
| I want to be able to export as vector graphics. It converts all
| lines to bitmaps.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| If anyone from the Freeform MacOS team is reading this, please
| let me zoom in and out with Apple Key + Mouse scroll. Also have
| Apple Key + Mouse pointer to move across the canvas. Using the
| trackpad is not intuitive. It isn't an iPad.
| friedman23 wrote:
| I want to know why this thing was automatically added to my menu
| bar
| LunarAurora wrote:
| It is worth noting that Google [1] (since 2016), Microsoft [2]
| and Adobe [3] all have their own collaborative whiteboard app.
| Yet Miro is almost the only one everyone is talking about. Maybe
| because it is by far the first (17B valuation) of 3 unicorns in
| the space [4]. Or is it the other way around ?
|
| I like the expression "never underestimate the power of the
| default app" (already used in this thread). Well this did not
| work for Google and Microsoft. So is this gonna work for apple ?
| I can't say cause I don't have any apple product to test...
|
| [1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-
| whit...
|
| [2] https://workspace.google.com/products/jamboard/
|
| [3] https://www.figma.com/figjam/
|
| [4] The others are MURAL/invision at 2B (not including Lucid)
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Microsoft Whiteboard doesn't work for me. It is extremely slow
| on computers, which is frustrating, but the dealbreaker is that
| the iPhone version apparently isn't included with Office 365?
| Not sure why, but I couldn't get it to run.
|
| Miro is simple to get started, can be used in every browser for
| free, and is really nice for collaborative brainstorming
| sessions.
| Ruq wrote:
| I used to use Whiteboard a little bit, but it was always
| "meh".
| leokennis wrote:
| MS Whiteboard is insane. Can't scale text, slow as shit.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Not sure what you mean. As far as I know both Google's and
| Microsoft's versions are used by Workspace and O365 corporate
| customers extensively.
|
| They're not really meant to be standalone apps, but to be used
| during remote whiteboarding meetings.
|
| If you're not in that corporate environment, you're not really
| the intended consumer, although some people find it's useful
| for home/family stuff.
|
| So the idea that this hasn't worked for Google and Microsoft
| doesn't really hold water. Their apps seem to be successful as
| intended.
|
| Basically at this point, a whiteboarding app has turned into a
| necessary part of any "office suite" that contains
| videoconferencing. Hence, Apple has added it to their own
| "suite".
| LunarAurora wrote:
| > Their apps seem to be successful as intended.
|
| OK. Good to know. I wasn't really trying to give any
| definitive conclusion. It is just that I don't see them
| mentioned, that is all.
| willyt wrote:
| It allows a cleanly filling a freeform shape with a colour
| without weird aliasing effects that I get in Morpholio trace or
| messing around with tolerance in Affinity photo or having to
| think about control points in one of the more illustrator like
| apps. I wonder how they are doing that, since I've been asking
| Morpholio for that feature for a while and they don't seem'to be
| able to implement it.
| egonschiele wrote:
| No one has mentioned moleskine flow yet, I would suggest checking
| it out. Many similar features, they are very responsive to user
| requests, and the tools are beautiful and well designed. My work
| generally looks better when done on moleskine flow than any other
| software, like procreate.
| maegul wrote:
| Generally, this indicates that digital collaborative
| "whiteboards" are becoming a common thing, and I for one think
| that it's about time our UX paradigms properly allowed us to work
| outside of slides and documents.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| We'll have to see how this works. It may be a good fit for the
| team I'm working with.
|
| I'm writing a native iOS app. Everyone has iPhones (It's an
| iPhone app, basically). The Azure guy has a PC, but everyone else
| uses Macs.
|
| I can't get the team to use Slack (the Azure guy does, but
| everyone else wants to use Messages, which is a _huge_ PitA).
|
| Sometimes, we need to find the tool that everyone uses; not the
| one that fits our worldview.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > everyone else wants to use Messages
|
| Why? Messages seems horribly equipped to handle professional
| communications, especially compared to options like Slack.
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| Yeah what? I use macs a lot but Messages is abject garbage
| and isn't even a serious competitor to Teams/Slack/Discord.
| It's meant for texting but on your computer...
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| In reply to both:
|
| Yes. I agree. Messages sucks.
|
| But most of the team is nontechnical, and don't want to use
| Slack. I am not in a position to insist otherwise.
|
| Messages works OK for most quick conversations, but is no
| good for anything of technical substance.
|
| So I am keeping my options open for alternative mediums that
| the team will actually use.
| danhau wrote:
| Alternative title: Apple launches Freeform: a powerful new app
| designed to boost Apple Pencil sales
| shafyy wrote:
| I'm currently contracting for a corporate client, and my feeling
| is that "Miro + Teams" is the corporate starter pack.
|
| Freeform looks like Miro or FigJam, and I hate using these types
| of apps for collaboration. The corporate thought process is:
| "We're doing remote meetings, so what can we use to replicate the
| whiteboard in digital form?". But this is the wrong way of
| thinking. When working remotely, don't just copy and paste analog
| tools into digital.
|
| When using Miro, I find myself zooming in and out all the fucking
| time because everyone uses different font sizes. This is much
| more convenient when you stand in front of a physical whiteboard.
| It doesn't work with a digital whiteboard. Also, the missing
| structure makes it almost always an incredible mess. Impossible
| to find something.
|
| Anyways. Come January I'm done with contracting. Rant over :-)
| makeitdouble wrote:
| For us FigJam (really similar to Miro) works because we don't
| really do asynchronous editing much, most of the time someone
| prepares the core of it (a screen flow diagram for instance),
| and during a meeting we iterate through it, discuss and comment
| the blocs, rearrange as needed.
|
| The main advantage to this approach IMO is the ability to
| quickly cleanup random bits with approval from the person that
| wrote them, so you don't end up with orphans or stuff that
| clashes with everything else.
|
| In a way it's really a whiteboard, and it's "done" once the
| meeting ends, until the next iteration.
| pmontra wrote:
| Never heard about Miro but I definitely heard about Teams, and
| used it. I prefer anything else to it but it works on every OS.
| This Apple software runs only on Apple devices. I don't even
| know why they are working on it: if in a team only one person
| doesn't have a Mac the team will have to use something else, so
| everyone starts with something else by default.
| achow wrote:
| > _..I find myself zooming in and out all the fucking time
| because everyone uses different font sizes. This is much more
| convenient when you stand in front of a physical whiteboard._
|
| Interesting point. Physical whiteboard most often has uniform
| (and readable) font size because of physiology of humans and
| default stance when writing on a vertical surface.
|
| Digital whiteboard product team should reflect on that and
| build feature which mimics that.
| mc32 wrote:
| You're right often they do. But we also have people put
| stickies on the whiteboards and they're hard to read. It's
| not the fault of the whiteboard ---it's the author who needs
| to keep this in mind.
| the_other wrote:
| > Physical whiteboard most often has uniform (and readable)
| font size because of physiology of humans and default stance
| when writing on a vertical surface.
|
| Only if the cohort have roughly similar vision. My vision is
| roughly one third of the "good" average, so whiteboards have
| been inaccessible to me my entire life. I used a telescope to
| read them in school and uni, always had to sit at the
| fronf... I could do the same at work, but I'd suffer the same
| "restricted context" problems, at speed.
|
| Digital whiteboards are MUCH better for me. The pan & zoom is
| awkward, but it's better than not being able to participate.
| oblio wrote:
| Isn't this solved by glasses, most of the time?
| chrchr wrote:
| Not all vision problems can be corrected by glasses.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I think it's as simple as: a whiteboard has a frame of
| reference. An infinite canvas doesn't.
| achow wrote:
| The question is if you are in front of 2 miles wide by 100
| ft high whiteboard, would your letter size differ?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| In that case, yes, arm length defines text size. But if
| we all default to 12pt font in a canvas then that's
| essentially constrained the same way.
|
| So is the issue that everyone is picking a different
| font? It's not even about frame of reference then, maybe.
| It's just about a UI guiding behaviour. Maybe label fonts
| "title" "paragraph" "heading 1" etc. like many apps
| already seem to do.
| nc wrote:
| That's because Miro sets the text size relative to the current
| zoom level... with even a small number of people it suddenly
| starts to look like a mess.
|
| FigJam and I believe Freeform don't do this. It's insane how
| Miro scaled so effectively with base UX issues like this.
| kinnth wrote:
| This problem is solved by using Frames. They capture and keep
| everyone at a defined zoom. Always start by drawing a frame,
| then Miro!
| senko wrote:
| This is because for some use cases it is very useful to have
| font size relative to the zoom level.
|
| At my previous startup (AWW, later acquired by Miro) we
| "solved" this by allowing people to use either relative or
| absolute font sizes and pen widths, for exactly this reason.
| I don't have exact numbers, but a large portion of our
| (vocal) users really wanted either one or the other.
| dmix wrote:
| Is this one of those times where you have to make a really
| tough choice for your customers (ie, not just today's
| customers but a larger set of potential future customers)?
|
| Highly vocal users aren't always the ones you should listen
| to.
| senko wrote:
| We could definitely see both use cases as valid. It's one
| of those questions that doesn't have a definitive right
| answer.
|
| A trivial example off the top of my head, zoom-relative
| widths/sizes are super useful in mind mapping and similar
| activities where you want to "zoom in" (excuse the pun)
| to a sub-topic and "zoom-out" to see the overall picture.
| 1000x zoom is useless if your pen stroke is width of the
| screen.
|
| A counter example is from GP.
|
| We tried to listen to, but not blindly follow, what our
| (vocal) users were telling us. I'm stressing "vocal" here
| not because they were obnoxious - just cognizant of the
| fact that the silent majority is, well, silent. Hopefully
| the vocal ones are a good proxy, but that isn't always
| the case.
| baridbelmedar wrote:
| Sure, but they might be the ones paying your salary
| today. So hard to ignore the group of people who keep you
| afloat? :)
| achow wrote:
| All the silent ones are perhaps paying the salary, bonus
| and free food.
| switch007 wrote:
| Miro feels more like playing an annoying game than doing
| anything useful. It's incredibly annoying to use, I try to
| avoid it when I can
| twobitshifter wrote:
| On teams, I wonder if Apple expects Freeform to be used by
| corporate clients or if they have another target. Most orgs are
| office 365 and there's MS whiteboard and other apps with teams
| integrations. Maybe they are aiming for something else with
| this?
| matwood wrote:
| O365 'collaboration' is a joke though. That's why all these
| other alternatives exist. In all the o365 offices I've seen,
| people end up collaborating on something like Google Docs.
| nc wrote:
| Whiteboarding tools are used heavily by students in group
| projects. Students of today, are workers of tomorrow. So over
| time it will eat into Miro's userbase. But as with any Apple
| product since they won't make customisations/features for
| Enterprise it will never get that far.
| joezydeco wrote:
| Miro isn't a whiteboard, it's a vision board that gets filled
| by enthusiastic developers at the start of a project and then
| neglected the rest of the time.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| It must be fun to work somewhere where these Apple-only apps are
| actually used in a professional environment. Maybe at Apple
| itself or a small design shop or something. I can't imagine
| anywhere else where someone would rely on Apple services without
| worrying about lock-in or not have a cross-platform alternative
| already in place.
| saos wrote:
| Man I wish Apple bought out Figma instead.
| rvz wrote:
| Just for Apple to shut it down for other platforms except for
| Apple platforms just like they did for Dark Sky?
|
| No thanks and no deal.
| [deleted]
| CA0DA wrote:
| "Apple Whiteboard"
| felixthehat wrote:
| Seems very much like Figma's FigJam https://www.figma.com/figjam/
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| I just really object to a company installing software on my
| computer that is not OS related without my permission.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| Am I right to assume that this will only be accessible from the
| ecosystem only?
| whoopsie wrote:
| No dark mode. Why?
| jjcm wrote:
| I ran the dark mode stream for Figma. Previously ran
| Atlassian's dark mode stream. Did dark mode on a side project.
| Have talks online about dark mode. Dark mode is my jam.
|
| Dark mode for collaborative canvases is _incredibly_ hard. On
| the surface it seems like all content on a collaborative canvas
| is informational (I.e. text or diagram lines). In dark mode you
| can transform the bg to black and informational foreground
| content to white. The problem is that there's no clarity to
| what lines are informational and which are artistic. You
| _should_ invert a line that's an arrow from one sticky to
| another, but you _shouldn't_ invert a line that's the eyes and
| mouth on a smiley face on a yellow circle bg.
|
| There's also a ton of situations where there's actually no
| correct way to transition from light to dark. If you notice
| none of the big collaborative canvases have dark mode,
| primarily for this reason. Happy to post examples of these
| impossible scenarios if people are curious.
|
| In my eyes there's only really two ways to do dark mode for
| collaborative canvases - either you choose what mode you're in
| when you create the canvas (and it stays in that mode for
| everyone) or you use a GAN to do style transfer between the
| two. It's very tricky to get it right.
| Ruq wrote:
| Interesting, first I hear Obsidian coming out with Canvas, then
| LogSeq with Whiteboards, now this. Has any other party come to
| the bandwagon of "Infinite Canvases"?
| naltroc wrote:
| canvas zeitgeist? Yesterday there were two posts about two other
| apps featuring an infinite canvas, and today has the same thing
| but by Apple.
|
| hn is canvasing us for canvases
| chid wrote:
| I saw the obsidian one but what was the other?
| https://obsidian.md/canvas
| jonas-w wrote:
| Maybe they are talking about https://d2lang.com/tour/intro/
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