Having worked on my own spatial hypertext tool (nodenogg.in) built from and found an education need upwards for the last 5/6 years to see another tool enter the arena from a big player in the form of Apples Freeform is yet another let down.
I’m not surprised but for a new Apple product in a long time, was iWork the last?
There is no innovation beyond other current products like Miro, Mural, FigJam, Milanote or Muse (the list goes on dare I mention $2m in VC for tldraw only a week or so ago)
Freeform is so woefully not different or new. I mean it will probably Shelock a few of these products unfortunately out there but there is way more resistance to Apple lock in now.
I for one don’t need the next big reason I can’t leave macOS or iOS to be not only are my photos locked in but also my thinking. Of course it always totally rails against principles I have defined in my research relate to thinking in a networked system and a spatial hypertext system in the tools for thought space that they and other education technology must be;
Private, local-first, free (libre) software, modular and (data) easily exportable.
Apple has so lost its way unfortunately.
