Apple offers sneak peek at Freeform collaboration tool for iPhone, iPad, Mac

AppleInsider

Mac, iPhone, and iPad will gain the "Freeform" tool for brainstorming sessions, letting multiple users collaborate simultaneously on shared documents and files.

Coming to macOS Ventura, iOS 16, and iPadOS 16 "later this year," Freeform is a brand new app that acts as a multi-user collaboration tool, like a graphical version of Google Docs.

"We have so many great ways to collaborate," said Elizabeth Reid., senior engineer, applications, "but up until now, you didn't have a space to work in a place for group sessions, project planning, home renovations or school projects."

"Now you can be on a FaceTime call," she continued, "and with a tap you're all collaborating live on a freeform board. You can add almost anything to a board. It's perfect for brainstorming sessions, jotting down notes, sharing files, or even creating diagrams with others."

"As others begin adding their thoughts you can see their live cursor showing you right where they're working," said Reid. "And if someone is in another part of Freeform, you can just tap jump straight to where they are on the board."

Freeform lets users sketch with Apple Pencil on iPad, or on any of the platforms users can add "photos, video, audio documents, PDFs [and] web links."

Apple says that Freeform is being built "right into iPadOS, macOS and iOS later this year."

Read on AppleInsider

docno42

Wow, I know Apple can be bold but talk about Sherlocking - down to the name: https://www.mural.co
If it only works half as well as Mural does already 

edited June 2022

cheesefreeze

Some sort of a “Miro-light” clone.

Anyway the bigger issue is the lack of organization support. SSO. 

With Google I can create an organization and run all Google services under the organization with granular permissions.

With Apple no such thing exists; I can share it with another freelancer but I wouldn’t be relying on Apple to collaborate with coworkers. 

Apple’s offerings would be so much better when Messages had Slack-like functionality and their apps would work in an organization context, from Files to productivity.

emoeller

I wonder if Apple is going to "go all the way" with iWork integration?

michelb76

CheeseFreeze said:

Some sort of a “Miro-light” clone.

Anyway the bigger issue is the lack of organization support. SSO. 

With Google I can create an organization and run all Google services under the organization with granular permissions.

With Apple no such thing exists; I can share it with another freelancer but I wouldn’t be relying on Apple to collaborate with coworkers. 

Apple’s offerings would be so much better when Messages had Slack-like functionality and their apps would work in an organization context, from Files to productivity.

Interesting you say that, because I laughed at the keynote when they said collaboration takes place using Messages and Facetime. That's either extremely USA-centric or just marketing. I get they don't want to show the Electron apps that people are actually using, but come on.

danox

CheeseFreeze said:

Some sort of a “Miro-light” clone.

Anyway the bigger issue is the lack of organization support. SSO. 

With Google I can create an organization and run all Google services under the organization with granular permissions.

With Apple no such thing exists; I can share it with another freelancer but I wouldn’t be relying on Apple to collaborate with coworkers. 

Apple’s offerings would be so much better when Messages had Slack-like functionality and their apps would work in an organization context, from Files to productivity.

That is because Google wants to spy on the entire organization/permissions connections to others on everything that you do, Apple doesn’t have that as their first motivation?

Google does that’s how they make their money.