Probably not. I would say you will be able to upgrade with opencore later, but I wouldn't recommend an unofficially supported macOS for office Macs.
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iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2, and macOS Ventura 13.1 Betas Introduce Freeform App
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I just set up a Miro account and repurposed an old Wacom tablet yesterday so I could have a multi-location whiteboard for work / WFH. I will happily try this out when Apple releases it.
Looking forward to this. Surprised it didn't make it into Ventura / .2 if it's already on the latest beta.
I'll be drawing mossy caves and rocket ships for sure.
I was literally wishing I had a tool like this earlier today. Would be great for working through some designs remotely with co-workers.
What has Apple put behind a paywall other than services you always have to pay for? Music, shows, paid news articles, cloud storage. Of course you pay a subscription for that.
Exactly. I was expecting this to be another paid for service. Not something they drop in for free. This is afterall Apple.
I did. You asked what other services has Apple made people pay for. Then went ahead and listed several services Apple makes people pay for. And I replied, I expected this to be another one of those... Not really sure why this is so hard to grasp. At the end of the day, it was just my expectation. 🙃
Could be because there are far more organizations outside businesses (with already defined tools) that are in the position to potentially choose something by Apple? It’s like Keynote/Numbers/Pages, it’s free and there for anyone strapped for cash to use. Not perfect, but good enough for free. They improve the collab features for those today, too.
For those that don’t see use cases, you probably don’t work with remote teams or do any conceptual work.
Having a virtual whiteboard is incredibly useful in any setting that requires any complicated planning.
What I’m most interested is the deep integration with the OS that’s possible here. This could be a real selling point over some of the other (worthy) competitors. And this isn’t just going after virtual whiteboards. It’s a potential zoom replacement, too.
But Apple’s collaborative efforts already feel disjointed, clunky and unreliable. Think of all the different UX for sharing and communicating, whether it’s via a FaceTime or messages context, or if you’re in a document.
It would be great if there was a central place for these activities instead of on a per-app basis. Freeform might tie together some of these activities in one place. But I’m not holding my breath…
Having a virtual whiteboard is incredibly useful in any setting that requires any complicated planning.
What I’m most interested is the deep integration with the OS that’s possible here. This could be a real selling point over some of the other (worthy) competitors. And this isn’t just going after virtual whiteboards. It’s a potential zoom replacement, too.
But Apple’s collaborative efforts already feel disjointed, clunky and unreliable. Think of all the different UX for sharing and communicating, whether it’s via a FaceTime or messages context, or if you’re in a document.
It would be great if there was a central place for these activities instead of on a per-app basis. Freeform might tie together some of these activities in one place. But I’m not holding my breath…
Honestly, if Microsoft would just enable handwriting recognition for the iPad…..I would be happy. The have this for every other platform. Most of the collaboration done in the corporate world is via Microsoft365. Freeform won’t be an option. I’m sure it will be fun to play with for an hour or so….but then, no real use for it.
A lot of what Apple does is not new. They just take an old thing and do it better. Just like they did with laptop, smartphone or even smartwatch.
The difference here is, it will be free as long as you have an Apple device, so pretty sweet deal for some.
I wonder if this can be used solo? No biggie for me if not, since I run two iCloud accounts separating my work/personal lives. This will be amazing for mind mapping, project organization, and character/location research... (I am a ghostwriter/pulp fiction writer. Always looking for good, free tools to maximize my efficiency.)
20 or so years ago, I worked on a collaborative text project using SubEthaEdit with TeX users. My Internet had the bandwidth to host eight or 10 users from the US, The Netherlands, Japan, Australia and Vietnam. Collaboration worked nicely. We mostly used SubEthaEdit for nerdy fun. SubEthaEdit is now a free open source app on the Mac app store, but is limited to text. Freeform sounds cool. I see great potential for uses with clients and scattered family. FaceTime integration sounds great. Working now and then outside the Mac world really makes me appreciate Apple for its unique attention to high quality hardware and software. I am not an Apple groupie, but Apple integration totally revolutionized my publishing services business starting in 1984. Apple helped me increase the quality and delivery speed of both small and large publishing projects.
What I said is, of COURSE they're going to charge you for things that are NEVER free. Apple is not going to give you free unlimited music and cloud storage etc. This is an app. It's not a good comparison.
It appears it's totally usable solo. Here's a really rudimentary preview of the live beta released today (on iPhone)-
As an Apple user since around 1989 I’m aware of that. Just informing others in this thread who seem to think there’s nothing like Freeform already and are asking what it does. If people don’t want to wait until official release, the options I suggested would give them a good understanding of what to expect.
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I agree, and I'll take it a step farther and say Samsung only made a smart watch when everyone knew Apple was working on one (long before the apple watch came out) then everyone pointed fingers that Apple copied Samsung...