Shadowing Practice: Apple Freeform - Apple’s Most Underrated App!? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

If you're not already using the Freeform app, you absolutely should be.

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If you're not already using the Freeform app, you absolutely should be.

It is one of Apple's best new-ish apps.

It's the perfect complement to Apple Notes

because it fills in a lot of the gaps for things that Apple Notes just doesn't do well,

especially when it comes to the Apple Pencil.

I like to think of Freeform as a digital whiteboard that I now have access to across all of my Apple devices.

So anytime I just need a blank canvas to work something out on a whiteboard,

maybe a flow chart, a vision board,

some mind mapping, Freeform is now my app of choice.

So this is what the app looks like and when you open it up it looks pretty similar to Apple Notes.

So you have your side panel on the left,

all of your boards here on the right.

You can change the view of the boards if you rather see them as tiles or as the list.

The side panel I will say I find lacking.

There's not a lot of organization options in Freeform like we're used to in Apple Notes.

I would love to be able

to create folders to organize my boards or add tags things like

that

so hopefully those are added as they continue to build out

this app there's unfortunately not even a way to pin the board would love to do

that really all you can do is favorite it

and then it puts it in a separate favorite category here

but so

when you open a board for the first time this is

what it looks like it's pretty much just an infinite blank

space for you to use however you want you can zoom out you can zoom all the way in.

You'll see the little dots if you can see that will get bigger as you zoom in.

But if you don't like the dots and you find them distracting,

you can always press this button down in the bottom right to get rid of them.

In the toolbar at the top,

your first tool is the Apple Pencil.

And this is pretty familiar,

so you can just click it and then start writing the way you're used to.

It'll auto-refine your handwriting if you have that turned on.

And all the Apple Pencil tricks will still work.

So you can do a shape,

hold it to snap to shape,

just to clean your writing up a little bit more.

And one of my favorite things is that in freeform,

there's no limitations on the Apple Pencil or what you can do with it like there are in Apple Notes.

In Notes, you can only use the pencil in certain areas.

You can't use it over type text.

It can be super frustrating.

So thankfully in freeform, you can use the Apple Pencil really however you want.

And now there's no tool up here for a ruler,

which I do find can be helpful at times if I'm sketching something out.

But as one of your Apple Pencil tools,

you do have access to the ruler here.

So you can always just use that if you're trying to draw something super precise.

It can be incredibly helpful depending on what you're trying to do here.

The next item on the toolbar is just a plain text box that you can use.

After that you have your shapes menu with lines,

icons, a whole bunch here.

You can always press browse content hub to see even more like if you wanted to see images,

backgrounds, or even generate your own image.

Now that is an Apple intelligence feature

so some of these might be behind a paywall for Apple's creator studio subscription

but any of shapes or some of the more basic options will be available for free.

So I can select any of the shapes,

I can move it around, make it bigger, smaller.

If you're using your Apple Pencil like I am to select and move things around but it's not working,

instead it's just always writing for you,

head on over to settings and just search for freeform and then your Apple Pencil,

make sure it's turned on to select and scroll.

If this is not on,

every time you use the Apple Pencil,

it'll draw a line and then

if i tap on the shape it'll open a little menu here at the top

so i can do things like change the color

or i can say no fill

and instead add a border around it make the border thicker

and then i can use the handles to make it bigger whenever you have a shape

if you double tap in the center you can actually start writing on the shape

and when you move it around that writing will stay with it.

And because this is freeform and not Apple Notes,

I can also zoom out and keep zooming out

and you'll see now the space I was working in is super small

so like a whiteboard if I wanted to leave that space alone for now and start working on something else

I could come here add a sticky note same thing

if I click on it I get the menu I can change the color

and maybe I want to leave myself a note to remember to do something

so I can double tap to type text if I wanted to

or with the Apple Pencil selected I can even write something out on top of that.

So there's no limitations in freeform like there are in Apple Notes which I really love.

Then the next option is to add a table

and at first it might look a little basic

and it kind of is but there are some cool things you can do here.

So you can use the plus buttons to of course add columns and rows.

You can use that menu that pops up to do things like fix the borders,

the color of your table if you want to change the color of the entire thing,

or what you can do is just select an individual box to change the color of that box,

or if you look for the little three dots that appears to select a column,

you can change the color of an entire column.

If select one of the boxes you can also adjust the formatting for the text

so you can change the size the alignment added as a list the color

or even change the font of the text in an individual box

so there is quite a bit of customization options

that i like here

if ever you do want to select the entire table instead

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of an individual box you can just press the little circle in the top left

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to select the entire table and then get the table menu down here.

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And again

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if we zoom out here you'll see the Apple Pencil work

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we did initially on the left with this new section and I can zoom in to even start a third.

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So if I press this paper clip this is where you can add a lot of your own media.

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So you can add a photo or video directly onto the board or take a new one,

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add your own stickers, you can upload files,

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or even add a link here.

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So if we go over to some of my boards,

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and let's go to my furniture board.

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So you'll see all these little tiles with furniture I like for the living room.

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These are all things I've linked out to.

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So if I click on it and press the little I,

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it'll bring me directly to this website.

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And so instead of having to click in here to copy this link and paste it on the board,

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what you can do is if you hit the share button,

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let me go over to ikea let's say this i hit

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the share button i'll swipe over until i see freeform

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if you don't see it go all the way to the right hit more

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and just edit this list to bring freeform up

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so in my case it's right here i'm going to select freeform i'm going to choose

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which board i want to add this to

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so i'm going to add it to furniture hit save now

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if i go back to the board I'll have to zoom out a little bit.

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It's going to add it to a random spot,

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usually on the right hand side,

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and then I can just select it and bring it over to,

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in this case, my kitchen section.

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So super easy to do.

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And this is a perfect example of what Freeform is useful for.

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So I can create these little headers from the shapes.

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All I did was go here,

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select that shape, added all of my links to different furniture for that room,

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added a post-it note to remind myself to do something,

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use the apple pencil to draw it's awesome now

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when i'm done looking at the living room

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if i want to get over to a separate room let's

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say the kitchen i can manually drag to get over

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but down here you have the option of creating different scenes

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and then i can use these arrows to just go through my different scenes

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so this is one of probably my favorite features for freeform

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because the canvas is so endless

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and large it's super handy to have quick access to different parts of the board

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if you're working on different things in different areas and

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so what you would do is just bring on your screen whatever you want the scene to be.

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So it's basically just going to take a snapshot of this entire screen.

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I can just click that button to hit add scene and then it takes it as a snapshot.

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When I click on the list I can edit it so I can tap into any to rename it.

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I can use the little handles on the right to rearrange them or of course delete a scene from the left.

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And then you can use the three dots in the top left

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if you wanted to print your scenes or export them as a PDF

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or if you only want to do that to an individual scene,

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use the three dots here to see the same options for that one individual scene.

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Freeform can also definitely be useful for certain class notes,

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not one where I would have to type a lot.

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For that I'd still use Apple Notes,

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but if I just needed like a notepad or a scratch pad to write out some formulas,

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sketch something out, this is definitely where I would do that.

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And you can also really easily make these flowcharts or mind mapping if you need to do that.

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So you just add a shape from here,

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drag it wherever you need to,

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and you'll see as I move this around there's a faint yellow line that appears.

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If you want to turn those guidelines on,

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just hit the three dots here in the top right,

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go to alignment settings and then turn on whichever one you want.

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So edge guides can be helpful.

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Snap to grid can also be helpful if you're using a lot of images.

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So you can just play with those settings here.

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And then as you go to move something,

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you'll see all of those guidelines appear.

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But so let's say I wanted this shape to go here.

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Now I can just go back to the shape,

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grab a line and add it to connect the two.

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But instead, if I turn on this button down here,

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the connectors on button

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and then I want to connect it let's say to this one I can just use this arrow

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that appears to drag it to this new shape I can click

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and add another arrow this way

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and then it'll actually prompt me to select a new shape

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and you can just really quickly keep going and connecting everything

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that way you turn it off

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and then you no longer see those little arrows to add a connection

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but you can resize the shape however you need to

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so this connectors on button can be really helpful if you are building out a flow chart like this.

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And as you move the shape,

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the lines will move with it.

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And then same as how you can change the color or the borders of the shapes,

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you can click on the lines and do the same.

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So I can use this menu to make it a dotted line.

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I can make it thicker,

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change the color of the line.

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You can also click to change how the line ends.

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And this third option here is the connection style.

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So you can even make it a curve line

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and use the little green button in the middle if you just need to drag to move that around.

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So there definitely is a lot of customization you can do even to these flowcharts that make it super useful.

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And if you go to the three dots,

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you can turn on math results.

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So I leave it on suggest results instead of insert.

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So now if I were to go and write out an equation and use the equal sign,

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it'll give me an option to solve and input the answer like that.

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Now, if you are in a class where you have to type out a lot of your notes and you do that,

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let's say in Apple Notes,

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you can add them to this same board so that you can reference your notes as you're sketching something out or

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creating whatever you're doing.

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So what you would do is go into Apple Notes,

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find the note you want to add,

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hit that share button and just look for freeform.

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Pick the right board, hit save,

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and then when you go into freeform,

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it's going to add it as text.

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So it'll just be the text of your note basically that you're adding here.

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But you can click in to edit your notes if you still need to do that.

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It'll just work like as if you've added a text box to the board.

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The other option, if you want to have it as a text box is to add a PDF

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or even a pages document,

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some sort of file, to this board.

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So whether it's maybe reading for the class or additional materials,

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anything you do want handy,

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you can add that as a file here to the board.

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Now sometimes your class notes are multiple pages in Apple Notes

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and you rather add it this way you would first just have to export the note.

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So you would just save it to files and then you can import it into this board here.

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And to view it, you would just click,

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use the little eye icon to open it up to see all of your pages of notes here.

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And you can also do the reverse.

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So if you're using freeform as let's say scratch paper for your one of your courses,

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you can add this freeform board to your Apple notes.

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So again, you would just go to the share button.

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In this case, you would switch it from collaborate to send copy and then just find Apple Notes,

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add it to the note,

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or even add it to Apple Reminders.

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If you wanted to set a deadline to remember to keep working on the board or something like that,

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you can just select Reminders from here.

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Another useful way to use Freeform is for travel.

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So this road trip, I just added a map of Costa Rica

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and then I was able to use my Apple Pencil to kind of write out our route

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and then on the left here add some type text

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so this can be another use case

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that is not as easy to do in apple notes now

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another thing i want to point out are the great collaboration features for these freeform boards

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because oftentimes you do need someone else's input

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when you're working on a few of these things so any boards

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that you have shared with someone you'll see in the menu there'll be a little message bubble

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and it'll say who it is shared with so

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if i go in here i've made like a digital scrapbook

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which i I actually think is another great use case for Freeform if that's something you're into.

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So I've added a map,

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a whole bunch of photos from the trip.

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Another great thing is through this paperclip icon is I could scan documents.

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So if I did want to add any receipts or anything like that,

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I could quickly do it that way.

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And so you'll see at the top here the icon for anyone you've shared this board with

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and you would share it just through the share button like you normally would.

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Make sure it's on collaborate and then you could message,

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airdrop, email the person, a link to the board.

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Then on my other device here

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if I were to go into Freeform I have this same board and you'll see it says that I've joined this board.

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So if I were to click in on my phone

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and move anything around you'll see I'll be able to see on my iPad

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that this person is moving this around live in real time right now.

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I happen to be sharing it with myself on a different account but if it were someone else

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you'll be able to see everything they are doing.

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But then if I click on their icon,

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there's some other great options here.

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So there's quick options to message them or even start a video call

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if I want to be able to see them to discuss what we're working on together.

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If you click on the three dots here,

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you can actually choose to follow along.

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So if I select follow along,

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when the person is working,

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if they move the board,

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go to a different scene,

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zoom in, it's going to do the exact same thing on my board.

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I'll be able to follow along to exactly what they're doing.

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I can click stop if I no longer want to do that.

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Or the other option here was jump to location.

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So if this is a massive board you're all working on,

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you're responsible for one section,

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but you want to jump to the section that they're working on,

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you can just click jump to location to bring you over to that side of the board.

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And if ever you wanted to export an entire board,

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you can just click on the little arrow here,

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export it as a pdf,

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print it, and this is also where you can rename the individual board.

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So if you're not already using Freeform,

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I highly recommend you give it a try even if it's only

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because you're frustrated by some of the limitations in Apple Notes.

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If you are using it,

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let me know what you use it for most and that's it,

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so have a great day.

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Bye!

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Shadowing Practice: Apple Freeform - Apple’s Most Underrated App!? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing Practice: Apple Freeform - Apple’s Most Underrated App!? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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About This Lesson

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

Practice Tips

What is the Shadowing Technique?