Struggling with Freeforms Lag? Here's What You Need to Know! 

Thanks for watching. Have a great day.

Glad I could help!

Unfortunately there is currently no fix. AFAIK I was the first to point out to these existent problems here on RU-vid and I advised everyone to report the problems to Apple. Since I am using iOS/iPadOS 17 Beta I can report that the problems I had with lag are mostly solved. I.e. the lag with large zoom factor is way better. It is not completely gone, but tolerable, at least for me. I hope your problems will also be resolved with it.

With the Pencil/pen tool hand writing ends up grouped together unless you intervene and split it up. For example: I take notes in multiple columns on the same board for multiple meetings. In Freeform as you add more handwriting it extends the "grouping" or "layer" to include or add new handwriting to the block of adjacent handwriting. I use freeform exclusively now for ALL note taking and my boards had started to SLOW DOWN with pencil strokes lagging behind by multiple words. I realized ^ that this grouping was happening and it begins to make more sense as to why my iPad is crunching so hard to process new strokes. To see what text is grouped together de-select the apple pencil and just touch an area of text and it'll show you how large the box is around the text. To FIX this I use the Selection Tool to grab a large chunk or whole column of text and choose the separate option which will separate it from other handwriting adjacent to it. Once I do this it helps tremendously and hand writing is back to being very responsive. For some of these notes I have to separate text more than once, it would depend on how expansive your note is. Credit: u/eljabar on Reddit

I have it running on an A12X and it works pretty well, besides the problem with lag on high resolutions, which happens on all processors and is mostly fixed by software in the upcoming iPadOS 17. So, I think it should work. Why don‘t you start using it and if it isn‘t enough go for the M line.

Interesting. I have someone with an M2 iPad Pro who is not affected. May I ask, which iPadOS version you are on?

@@patrickstoeckmann 16.3.1

Interesting. Another person just told me that they have an M2 iPad Pro with 16.3.1 and they don‘t see the issue. Not sure what it is though. Hope Apple fixes it soon. Newest beta of 16.4 didn‘t resolve it.

Thank you Patrick for your commitment and let's hope for the best. See you in the next updates. 😉

@@patrickstoeckmann I have the same iPad 12.9 M2 chip 1TB. I have iOS 16.4.1. I think it may be the connection when I am out and about but when I am home it doesn’t do it as often.

Could it be that this is a font or rendering problem? I don't see it on my example using the standard font and size - checking on my Macbook and iPhone it renders identical.

@@patrickstoeckmann It's strange, I have other panels which have many stickers side by side, nothing wrong with them. I'll update you if I catch the reason. Thanks!

Mine has that also. I can write something on my iPad with the apple pencil and sometimes it just shows up as pure chicken scratch on my iPhone because it doesn't sync the data properly.

I now have these issues as well. Took a while for me, but now I have one board, which doesn't get synced at all to the other devices and one which stopped updates. There is something wrong with the sync. Could be a Beta problem, because the affected devices are on a beta version. You too? Otherwise please report to Apple.

Ok. 16.4 which came out yesterday solved the sync problem for my boards. Check out whether it also works for you.

@@patrickstoeckmann omg thanks for the update personally. Do appreciate!

Yeah looks to appear on nearly all models. Please report it to Apple, so it gets fixed.

Wow. Awesome. This solves the problem on IOS16 for my devices. To be fair, IOS 17 resolves the problem with visible grid, but until then this is the way to make Freeform work again. Thanks. I will hint at this in the video description.

@@patrickstoeckmann Yeah I’m on 16.5.1 currently and haven’t had a single performance hitch since disabling the grid view and am extremely happy with the app now that I have got this issue under control hopefully in the ios17 version they have also added improvements to the app for iPhone at least I can’t currently add colored text to a note unless I format it in another object and copy and paste it into the note with the applied styles but then to change color have to do that again hopefully annoyances like this are mostly resolved in iOS 17, but I’m begging for a dark mode or a simple “canvas color” option my eyes will thank whoever implements that greatly 💯

So far the 16.4. Betas did not resolve the issues - sigh.

With the Pencil/pen tool hand writing ends up grouped together unless you intervene and split it up. For example: I take notes in multiple columns on the same board for multiple meetings. In Freeform as you add more handwriting it extends the "grouping" or "layer" to include or add new handwriting to the block of adjacent handwriting. I use freeform exclusively now for ALL note taking and my boards had started to SLOW DOWN with pencil strokes lagging behind by multiple words. I realized ^ that this grouping was happening and it begins to make more sense as to why my iPad is crunching so hard to process new strokes. To see what text is grouped together de-select the apple pencil and just touch an area of text and it'll show you how large the box is around the text. To FIX this I use the Selection Tool to grab a large chunk or whole column of text and choose the separate option which will separate it from other handwriting adjacent to it. Once I do this it helps tremendously and hand writing is back to being very responsive. For some of these notes I have to separate text more than once, it would depend on how expansive your note is. Credit: u/eljabar on Reddit

I have no problem with this video on all my devices (Mac, iPhone, iPad). Also no one of the 2000+ viewers mentioned it. It must be something with your device. Sorry that I can‘t be of more assistance. But if it is only this video, you can skip it and go to this video, which resolves the problem I described in this video: ru-vid.com2H9xytUnQ60

Sorry, not sure how I could help you. Haven’t had these problems. I get why you are infuriated about data loss. I would be too. Are you working on multiple devices on the same board. Maybe you updated on one device before it had synced all changes from the other device and that corrupted it? Just a thought you might check. Looks like the iCloud sync went wrong and often these problems occurred because of multiple versions not integrating correctly. And other than Numbers Freeform has no good version system where you can retrieve older versions. Sorry.

If the inputs are only missing occasionally I doubt it is the iCloud sync. Could be a rendering problem. Anyway another bug, which you should report to them. Try out Numbers in the meantime. Hope this works better for you.

Not really. I don’t use handwriting that much, so I don’t have that experience. I had to create a massive board with over 100 paragraphs of handwriting (using the duplicate function) and then I had the same effect. Lag creeps in and you see that the re-rendering of those handwritings take some toll on the system. I hope Apple will improve upon this, but for now I think GoodNotes is better for this use case.

With the Pencil/pen tool hand writing ends up grouped together unless you intervene and split it up. For example: I take notes in multiple columns on the same board for multiple meetings. In Freeform as you add more handwriting it extends the "grouping" or "layer" to include or add new handwriting to the block of adjacent handwriting. I use freeform exclusively now for ALL note taking and my boards had started to SLOW DOWN with pencil strokes lagging behind by multiple words. I realized ^ that this grouping was happening and it begins to make more sense as to why my iPad is crunching so hard to process new strokes. To see what text is grouped together de-select the apple pencil and just touch an area of text and it'll show you how large the box is around the text. To FIX this I use the Selection Tool to grab a large chunk or whole column of text and choose the separate option which will separate it from other handwriting adjacent to it. Once I do this it helps tremendously and hand writing is back to being very responsive. For some of these notes I have to separate text more than once, it would depend on how expansive your note is. Credit: u/eljabar on Reddit

It seems like they have noticed. I have installed iOS and iPad OS 17 and the lag is not completely gone (especially with big boards) but way better. It is now usable at 400%. Unfortunately, they haven‘t fixed it yet in Mac Sonoma.

Hmm could it be that you have either a really big board or lots of handwriting. I found out that by adding lots of handwriting (in a test I added > 100 paragraphs of handwritten text) the lag gets intense and I assume that the CPU or GPU will be taxed by this, so maybe that is what is causing the heat. With regular shapes and only some handwriting I hadn't experienced heat even with bigger boards.

Took a while for me to get those, but now I have a board which will not sync at all and one which will not sync updates. Very bad. Could be a beta problem, since the affected devices are on beta versions. Still should be reported.

16.4 which came out today solved my sync issues. Please check whether it works better for you after you've updated all your devices.

You can't scroll indefinitely in the void canvas. But you can drag any shape or text indefinitely to either side. So, if you want to make you canvas bigger, just drag something to either side and it gets bigger.

@@patrickstoeckmann ok, I didn’t know that. Thank you very much

Sad to hear that. This is not my experience but if Notability works better for you use that.

Have you tried it with a new board and one or a couple of elements. Still problems. Question is whether it is a problem of board size or a general problem with Freeform on your device.

Sorry to hear that you have so many problems. So the reported lag is fixed with the latest OS and it is (at least for me) much more stable and has some nice improvements. But there is still enough room for growth.

@@patrickstoeckmann it got worse when I opened the same board on 2 different iPads. When a single iPad has it open it had some lag, but with the 2 it made the original lag child's play. Crazy that this is an Apple product.

Interesting. Not my experience. I opened a big board (over 50 photos and over 100 other elements) on my iPad Pro (iPadOS 17.4 beta) and mini from 2018 (iPadOS 17.3.1) and they run smooth and fast in the same board at the same time. Do you have a lot of handwriting? I found that lots of handwriting (rendering) leads to lag. I use mostly shapes, images and text and only some handwriting. Could be the difference.

@@patrickstoeckmann maybe that's it. Because it's so tiny. For non standard shapes I colored in. The game I was playing was nes Zelda. I just finished it and going to do the 2nd quest, I think I'll do an experiment. I'll just label the doors and secret passages with shapes and no other details.

Cool. Keep me posted.

Not any more with this mentioned zoom problem. That has been fixed by now. There are however still problems with lag when using lots of handwritings or drawings. Looks like the rendering of these is still taxing the system pretty hard. When it lags depends on the individual config, but I had people who switched their forms from purely handwritten to mostly shaped based and it runs much smoother.

@@patrickstoeckmann that’s very helpful. I use a lot of handwriting. Does an upgrade to M2 help?

Probably, but I can’t compare. However even with an M2 there is lag once you reach a threshold.

It should not. You should bring it to Apple or an authorized repair center.

@@patrickstoeckmann i did, they said: this is normal, you are too sensitive!!!

That is what I do, so that I don‘t have to zoom in past 200% that often. Still it is a pretty big bug. But it seems they have noticed. I have installed iOS and iPad OS 17 and the lag is not completely gone (especially with big boards) but way better. It is now usable at 400%. Unfortunately, they haven‘t fixed it yet in Mac Sonoma.

@@patrickstoeckmann Haven’t tried the beta of iPadOS 17, but it’s good to know that the performance is improving at least. Hope they are aware of that and get the patch soon

What is your IOS version? Could be that newer M2 iPads don't have the problem or that it is a version problem. My 12.9" is on iOS 16.4 Beta4 - but I also have that Problem on my iPad mini on 16.3.

@@patrickstoeckmann 16.3.1

Interesting another viewer has the same combination M2 iPad Pro with 16.3.1. and has the problem. Mmmhhhh. Curious why this sometimes happens and sometimes not.

I agree, it sucks, and I think this is a really widespread problem. But apparently there appear to be people who are not affected. Please report the bugs to Apple. The more people report, the sooner this will be fixed.

@@patrickstoeckmann I did.

@@matatoto9805 And you’re not going to apologise to Patrick for calling him a LIAR?! What an absolute DICK!!

Very sorry to hear that. Although this error hasn‘t happened to me yet, I am really disturbed that errors with data loss get reported to me at all. And that currently there seems to be no way to get back to a previous version (like with the other iWork apps). I hope Apple will redeem this soon. I think the app has a lot of potential. Features not working or lag is one thing they should be working on, but data loss is in my opinion not acceptable. I can understand your frustration.