free form It was directly positioned as the most “relevant” novelty in the list of features that were presented with iOS 16.2. A collaborative tool that will allow you to share all types of files, notes and content in real time, ideal for improving the productivity of your team or the performance of your students.
We teach you what Freeform is, how it works, and why this iOS and iPadOS tool can change your life. Take a look with us at all its features and how you can get the most out of it on your iPhone and iPad in the easiest and easiest way you could have imagined.
If you still don’t know about all the juicy news that iOS 16.2 brought to your iPhone and iPadOS 16.2 brought to your iPad, now is a good time to take a look at the content we’ve created before so you don’t. miss one thing. .
However, as is almost always the case, an illustrative video is the best option to learn how to use this type of tools, that’s why we have led this article with a video that will help you understand and manage all the functions of Freeform, join our YouTube channel and help us continue to provide you with the best content.
Freeform, Apple’s collaborative tool
Let’s talk about the Freeform desktop first, In this one, as in Notes or Reminders, we will find a good list of options. On the right we will see all whiteboards, while on the left we will have four categories: All whiteboards, recent, shared and favorites.
We can either opt for a view in icons or a view in list format, as it already happens in other iOS applications. Needless to say, the app supports iPadOS split-screen format, To do this, we just have to select the icon (…) located in the upper central part and move the window to where we want. Once we have the split screen we can change the size and the way we interact with it.
Real-time editing possibilities
Now we focus on the content editing tools it offers us free form, just open a new table. We start with the brushes.
We have different options to choose from between Pen, Marker, Marker, Wax, and Paint, in addition to the typical options available in apps like Notes. This brush selector has built-in buttons and we can also drag it along the screen, to place it in the area where it facilitates content creation.
By clicking on the button (…) in the brush settings, we will be able to adjust the automatic minimization, the pencil settings selector and the drawing with the finger.
The other option we have is to add notes, next to the brush selector. ANDIn these notes we can enter text easily and quickly. In addition, we will choose the size of the note with the classic gestures of enlargement or reduction present in iOS since its birth.
In another order of ideas, by pressing the notes for a long time, you can choose the color of the note from Apple’s usual palette of pastel tones,
We continue with the shape creator, specially designed for diagrams and idea trees. The pressure will show us various basic options, geometric, predetermined objects and even animals. In addition, we will have at our disposal a list of arrows that will allow us to easily compose these diagrams.
Once the figure has been selected, we will be able to modify both its size and its color, the latter through a long press on the object in question. If we want it that way, one of the most interesting options is to create an overview of the different typologies through the object or figure, which will allow us to interact more effectively with it or create typology labels for each of them.
We are not going to spend too much time on the text editor because we already know it with more or less success other native iOS applications such as Notes. This text editor will have all the fonts we can imagine, present in Apple’s usual iWork office suite. Moreover, we can change the size, color, direction and even line spacing easily and quickly.
We finally have the possibility of managing a lot of content and for this there is the option of files. In this we will be able to choose between photographs or videos, the camera, the document scanner, or we will insert it directly through a link or the files application.
Videos and links will create their own previews and we can play them without any problem.
The main thing is to share everything
To be able to share Freeform content in real time, we have the button “To share” top right. This is where the possibility of quickly inviting our colleagues from messaging applications will open up, or creating a faster and more accessible invitation link.
Whatever, we must activate the synchronization of Freeform with iCloud, In this case, being a previous first version of iOS 16.2, we found that this option was always disabled. However, and presumably, with the arrival of the official version, the automatic synchronization of Freeform with iCloud will be activated by default.
We hope you found all this content on Freeform interesting, which you already know is will interact in real time with all users invited to collaborate on the same whiteboard.