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I'd suggest that for a lot of users, Procreate is the closest thing to a "killer app" that's iPad only and emerged organically from a third party.



Procreate is on everyone's iPad I know. I kinda blows my mind how affordable that app is. People would definitely pay 2-3x more or a yearly sub for it.


Procreate and Goodnotes for me.

Using the Apple Pencil with either app gives me the benefits of analogue work and the benefits of digital work. Handwriting helps me remember things, but since the product is digital, it's trivial to move/undo/etc.

And Procreate + Apple Pencil is way better than any other art solution I've found for digital art. Granted I've never tried a drawing tablet with a screen, but an extremely cheap option is still $200. For one that works as well as the AP + iPad you'd probably be looking at near the same price point.


For me, it's Shapr3D. It has the most intuitive CAD interface I've ever used and it's all based around the pencil. Pretty killer app, especially if you have a 3D printer.


I've seen some clips of it in action, and it seems like magic. What do you use it for?


I am very scared of Adobe buying it like Figma and doing that to it


What has Adobe done to Figma?


Did they ruin Figma already?


I'd second this.

I'm an hobby artist and have played with various drawing programs on the ipad (and gone through a few mid-level wacom tablets before that) and Procreate is simply amazing. It's an app that couldn't exist without the ipad and it massively increases its usefulness. Procreate is good enough that I don't feel the need to bring any further art supplies (even a sketchbook and pencils) when traveling.


For anyone who makes art, absolutely. I even use Procreate for brainstorming sometimes, because it's so much faster and more intuitive than any other app I've used.

Another thing that IMO is way better on iPad/Pencil is PDF editing and annotation. I happily pay for a subscription to PDF Expert[0] and I just use it for school.

[0]: https://pdfexpert.com


Yeah, I bought my iPad for grad school because I was reading and annotating copious amounts of PDFs.


Also worth checking out https://www.goodnotes.com Everyone in my school(including the teachers!) uses it for assignments and textbooks


I don’t really draw so I haven’t used it as much as I wanted to but that was one purchase that I never regretted. Also helps that it’s not subscription type. To this day anytime someone gets an iPad, I make them try the app.


Why did you buy it then? How could you not regret spending money on something you don't use?


They said they use it, just not much.

And given that it was a non-pricy one-time purchase, and not a subscription, why would they regret it? The cost per hour of usage is only going to keep decreasing over time for them, as long as they keep using it in some capacity occasionally.


Because I was using it to practice making digital art which I just don’t have time for right now. I use it to make Christmas cards and doodle probably 5x in a year.

I don’t regret it because I can see that what I paid for is worth the value of the app despite not using it as much.


It's like $5. Even if you don't use it, you can tell it's a great app, updated often for free, etc. I've regretted apps I've paid $5 and $10 for and were crap, or baited me and turned to subscriptions etc. Procreate is not that.


Why do you need to regret spending money if you don't use what you spent it on?


This. I was sad when FiftyThree's Paper was made subscription :(


For a few users, music sheet apps are also killer apps.




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