Collaborative to me means I can easily add a person to a team and not have to spend a lot of time or money getting them different hardware or OS than what they already have access to. Depending on the particular situation, it's possible that Apple tools are collaborative, but even in the Bay Area working in design and engineering, I've never worked anywhere (including Apple itself) where everyone was on MacOS 100% of the time.

To me, the bottom line is that "collaborative" and "cross-platform" are not synonymous, and are distinct properties.

> Collaborative to me means I can easily add a person to a team and not have to spend a lot of time or money getting them different hardware or OS

This is assigning meaning to that word that just doesn't exist. There are separate variables at play:

- Collaboration features

- Platforms supported

- Cost

If I take what you said at face value, the software is no longer collaborative when it becomes cost prohibitive, but that doesn't make sense either. The software can be none or any or all of those things. If your criteria requires all three, then pick software that meets all three. Your need for all three has no bearing on how effectively collaborative this is for people who only need one.

In my mind, this tooling is collaborative, full stop.

This tooling is not cross-platform*.

If your needs require both boxes to be checked, a different tool like Miro is probably for you.

- *Although it does have a web interface, which admittedly I haven't used, so I can't comment on how effective it is.

The collaboration features of Apple's apps also work in their web apps, which work in any modern browser on any OS.

In fairness for the discussion here, Freeform doesn't seem to have a web app version (yet?).

Important point, thank you!

Within a family, that can work, but even with my partner, who hates Windows so much that she uses a personally supplied Mac despite her company not officially supporting it, we use Google docs to work on stuff together.

It's partially familiarity, but also portability and functionality. I go back and forth between Microsoft and Google suites depending on work situations, and despite how much Apple has worked on Pages, Numbers, Keynote, etc., they're still not as complete or common as Microsoft or Google. Adding a third set of tools is a little like being fluent in 3 languages. It's too much of an overload.

The only professional situation where I've seen any of these Apple applications commonly used is Keynote by design teams. The typography and alignment tools in Keynote are better than Google and Microsoft, but those same design teams forget that no one outside of current Mac user can do anything with a .key file. Yes, I know iCloud on the web kinda sorta works, but it's so not Apple's first priority. Microsoft is still struggling to make their suite work as universally as Googles, and Apple is way behind here.

If I didn't know other tools and I never needed to work with people outside of the walled garden, I might put more time into using Apple's "productivity" (AKA iWork) apps.

once you start using that kind of app with literally anybody, you start building a mass of users that's gonna end up dragging others into that walled garden or exclude others from using it. hell, even when you just start using it alone, you begin to accumulate stuff that's gonna weigh you down, and make it harder to switch, to pick something else, and make it more likely that you're just gonna continue using this thing. and then perhaps use it for collaboration. which is gonna work just fine at first, if you happen to have apple users around. but then, whoops, somebody doesn't have an apple device. depending on value of that content and value of collaboration, it could be very, very awkward, to force someone to use it, or to bargain with someone about using it, which will probably end up at 'well, you could buy a used apple device? or something? idk'. that's...not great.

ability to let people collaborate freely and conveniently is one of the aspects of collaboration. if there's no way for someone to collaborate (such as, no app on other platforms, so no way to collab without owning/buying an apple device), there's just no collaboration. it's anti-collaboration, even. others are specifically prohibited from collaborating, unless they clear some kind of requirement.

with closed stuff like this, you always open yourself up to a future scenario where somebody will either not be able to use it and get excluded, or get forced to use it. it's not even on the web. it's a proprietary format. it's a dead end for content. i'd be very interested to hear what kind of export this thing does, if it even can do that.

honestly, these kinds of apps and walled garden things should get shot at much sooner, without even getting the benefit of 'well it's just for personal use/for apple users - it's fine' (no it's not. soon usage spreads to other things, and sooner people become entrenched in proprietary stuff and drag others in with them), before they end up becoming a bigger problem, like imessage bubbles have, or whatever interoperability thing has. the choice that you're making by choosing things like this is 'am I comfortable with selling a $429 iPhone SE or a $329 iPad to my friend/my colleague/my family/my kid/some random person, just so they would be able to get on a thing with me'. in walled gardens, you end up not just operating as a 'user/customer', but also as a salesman for that company.

You're pretty much just complaining about the network effect no?

I'd argue if it was completely incidental then it's network effect. If it's deliberately done to achieve anticompetitive outcome it's more than that. In the case of Apple, we know they do these things for anticompetitive reasons. They are on the record in email chains discussing how they weaponised iMessage in exactly that way. So I think they don't get the benefit of a benign assumption here ... it's more than likely they are specifically doing this as a way to drive a wedge that forces people into their ecosystem against their will.

yes, and? (edit: well, actually, no, you're just ignoring the lock-in part. but even if so,) in this case, it's a network that's more limited than others in terms of who's able to access it and what hurdles they have to overcome. like, network effect can be pretty bad, but this, mixed with ecosystem lock-in, is even worse.

I tried to read your message few times with an open spirit but I don't buy it.

The moment I, for any reason, I cannot collaborate unless I get my hands back on an Apple device (and possibly Apple id which is even more complicated) it stops being a collaborative software.

I sort of have an idea on what he meant. Everyone in my family and close friends have at least one Apple device and the “collaborative” environment in that sense is wonderful, especially with Reminders, notes, sharing files etc.

It however fails once you go outside.

Might be a stupid analogy so let’s net focus on this but I sort of see it like this:in my country, we can speak our language and it works for collaboration. Once you go outside, it fails. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful as a “collaborative” tool for that environment.

I think you and op just might have different scales of where you think it should work well enough.

More like everyone entrenched in the ecosystem. I can't imagine this is a super great experience for someone who only has an iPhone SE but non-Apple everything else. Especially when the creator is used to the canvas of their 27" Studio Display.

Many people in their targeted market has an iPhone and maybe a macbook.

I don't understand the point of your distinction. Barriers will always exist. You'll always need to download an app or visit a website.

If something can be used for collaboration, it is be definition collaborative, is it not?

A multi-user tabletop projection system is collaborative, even if it requires everyone to be in the same room using the same device.

Is Slack, Teams, or Trello not collaborative because it won't run on my XBox360?

> Is Slack, Teams, or Trello not collaborative because it won't run on my XBox360?

This is not their point because your XBox360 is not something you use to perform your job (or, at least, it's not something most people use to perform their jobs). If I use a Windows computer for work and I can't use this software to collaborate on that work, then this isn't really "collaborative" software in the practical sense.

Exactly my point. If it's OS locked it's not collaborative for me.

Collaboration should be about lowering barriers, not rising them.

You’re expressing an ideology here. It’s not pragmatic and doesn’t reflect real world experience.

Yes, I have friends who don’t have Apple devices and I can’t use Freeform with them, so of course there are limits.

I recently sent my 85 year old mother an iPad so she can more easily watch videos and do video calls. She can use Freeform with me, but there is no chance she would be able to use a Linux or Windows collaboration tool, or even something web based.

By your logic, there is no such thing as a collaborative tool, but this is obviously not what people mean.

I agree with brookst. The fact that most Apple first-party software only works on Apple devices is a given, and any time you call an app “collaborative” it’s a given that we’re talking only about the devices which can run the software.

What are we supposed to call it when they add collaboration to one of their apps? “Adding walled garden” is nonsensical, because to whatever extent it’s a walled garden, that was already the case before adding collaboration.

I’ve worked in design companies where every machine… including the bookkeeper’s, was a Mac. This app Won’t run into any issues in that environment.

It’s like every time somebody posts a commercial SaaS app people will ask if it can be self-hosted. We know what these things are. Seems fair to start there.

I've worked and interviewed at several tech companies that were nearly or fully Mac-exclusive. The only two exceptions that come to mind was at one where the finance guy had a Windows laptop because he lived in Excel and at one where one of the backend guys ran a custom built Linux tower, both of whom were the oddballs in their respective companies with everybody else toting MacBooks.

> I cannot collaborate unless I get my hands back on ...( Apple id which is even more complicated) it stops being a collaborative software.

getting an Apple id doesn't require apple hardware and most of the tools are available via icloud.com. if an apple id prevents something from being a collaborative tool then google docs, Microsoft 365, Slack, et al are not collaborative tools.

You sound like a non-Facebook user complaining about Facebook messenger not being collaborative enough. Fair point (can't use FB if you're not subscribed) but completely not representative of the greater population or (in this case) Apple's target market.

Meh. The moment I, for any reason, cannot collaborate unless I get my hands on a computer it stops being collaborative.

Or not. 'Collaborative' doesn't mean 'accessible by anyone'. Collaborative just means capable of supporting two or more parties working together, and freeform clearly meets the criteria...

Very interesting that people can have such different definitions.

I suppose your view is that any tightly controlled software can’t be collaborative? Like Epic, that likely helps your health care professionals and labs exchange info and collaborate on your care, or air traffic control systems where lots of people collaborate to route planes and control airspace.

Those kinds of things aren’t collaborative software because they run on limited platforms and access is tightly controlled. Is that congruent with your viewpoint?

Pages have a web version.

How is getting an Apple ID complicated?

Ask apple why does it take them up to January 4th 2023 to contact me to recover my account since I've forgot the password. I'm locked out of my account since Nov 19th

That one does seem at the level of "if you have to make a free account to access something it's not collaborative", which is quite the bar.

Does Freeform have a web app for iCloud users like Office 365? If not, who can you collaborate with?