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Is Apple’s Freeform going to replace FigJam?

Competition does great for improving products

Olimpia U.

Published in

UX Planet

3 min readFeb 4, 2023

We already know Figma is an awesome tool for designers, but not exclusively for them. There were a lot of cases where I used Figma for presentations or I used FigJam for collaboration and I have to be honest, FigJam is pretty fun to use.

In December, last year, Apple announced that Freeform arrived and two days ago I updated my iPad and there it was, hidden in my current applications. We have to give it to Apple, the application seems easy and fun to use for Apple fans and those with 100% Apple ecosystem. But it can replace FigJam? Let’s see a comparison.

What can you do in Figma’s FigJam

According to Figma’s documentation, you can use FigJam for workshops, any kind of collaboration, ideation, braistorming, you name it and FigJam can provide the space for it.

So what elements does FigJam provide you to perform those sessions of collaboration?

text — we need it to express ourselves
stickers — always a must
forms
connector — if you want to connect one or more stickers
stamps — helpful for voting
widgets — which is the latest awesome thing Figma did and I think it’s the best feature ever for a tool
plugins
the most important thing: templates

As you can see, there isn’t anything you could wish for. I will mention, although you might know it, you can use Figma in any browser — which is another vote for them, if we keep score.

What can you do in Freeform

Here is what Apple says about their new baby:

“Freeform opens up endless possibilities for…

Nice work. There are a lot of players in this space. Miro, Meister, Figjam etc.

The harder question; are Freeform tools like this good enough to replace physical tools; the main one being a whiteboard. Answer; no.

I think there’s a big gap at…