What Is Freeform and How to Use App on I Phone, I Pad, and Mac?

Freeform is a free drawing app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that lets you work together. You can draw, place forms and text boxes, and bring in other media to help you come up with ideas and plan projects. You can work with other people in real-time by letting up to 100 people see your boards.

Freeform is now an app that comes with the iPhone, iPad, and Mac from Apple. So what does this app do, why would you want it, and how do you get rid of it?

What Is the Freeform App on iPhone, iPad, and Mac?

Freeform is a free drawing app that lets you come up with ideas, make plans, and work together. That’s right, you can get this official Apple app on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It just came out with iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, and macOS 13.1 in late 2022.

There are pen and pencil tools, stamps, shapes and geometry, text boxes, and tools for putting text boxes in Freeform. There are also pictures from Files, web links, scanned documents, camera captures, and media in your Photos library that you can add.

How to Use the Freeform App

Apple calls Freeform’s canvases “boards,” and they can be scaled up or down indefinitely. The background is a grid that you can turn on and off. On an iPad or Mac, the tools are at the top of the screen. On an iPhone, they are at the bottom. You can use them to add text, images, categorized shapes, and other media.

Vector-based objects can be moved and resized without losing quality. This is different from rasterized media like pictures, which lose quality when you zoom in or out too much. Touchscreen gadgets are the only ones that have drawing tools.

To move and adjust things, tap or click and drag them. You can change things after you’ve put them down, even drawings that look like real items. To get to more controls, right-click or tap on these items and then use the “…” menu. You can move them back or forward in the stack, lock them in place, change their colors, copy them, and more.

To get other people to work on your board, click the “Share” button. Up to 100 people can work on the same project at the same time on the same board. A chat group can share a single board, and you can change who can edit, who can invite, and whether link-based invites are allowed during the request process.

Any boards you make or changes you make should show up on all of your devices because Freeform syncs over iCloud. Not able to locate the Freeform app? Make sure you have the most recent Apple software on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. This can be found in Settings > General > Software Update on your system.

Some Example Uses for Apple Freeform

You can come up with lots of different ideas and write them down on a board that should show up on all of your Apple products. You can use these to make easy mood boards, spider diagrams, and mindmaps to help you or a group come up with ideas.

If you’re creative, the drawing tools that come with the game should be enough for making sketches, rough outlines, and proofs of ideas. Some people think this works best with an iPad pen like the Apple Pencil. It’s not at all like drawing apps like Procreate.

When used with other people, Freeform has a lot of promise. You can work together in real-time once you’ve asked other people to share your boards. FaceTime is already built in; just click or tap on the “Collaboration” button and then the “Audio” or “Video” buttons to start.

You can even work together locally with this app, like when your MacBook is hooked up to a screen in a meeting. It’s possible to print the board or give it to other people who need to see it. As a backup or to share with clients or people who don’t have a suitable device, you can also save a board as a PDF.

Don’t Like Freeform? Delete It

The iPhone or iPad already has Freeform on it, but you can get rid of it if you don’t want it. If you have an iPhone or iPad, hold down the app button and then press “Remove App” and “Delete App” when asked. You can’t get rid of Freeform on macOS.