Freeform is Apple’s take on a digital whiteboard

Following on the heels of countless other tech giants and startups, Apple is developing a whiteboarding app. It’s called Freeform, and it’ll be available on iOS 16, iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura later this year.

Free Form is essentially a note-taking app with collaboration features and native FaceTime integration. Users can add their own notes, doodles (with support for the Apple Pencil on iPad) and more from within a Freeform session as well as elements like photos and links. While they’re working, they can see each person’s cursor. Changes are reflected in a corresponding group thread in Messages.

Image Credits: Apple

The whiteboarding apps trend began before the pandemic (see Microsoft’s Whiteboard, for one), but accelerated during it as workers moved to remote and hybrid setups. Startups like Figma have launched new digital whiteboarding tools in recent months, as have incumbents like Box and Zoom.

It’s unclear whether Freeform will be released as part of iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, which are scheduled to arrive in the fall. Hopefully it’ll become clearer as the week at WWDC unfolds.