iDraw Review

Graphic artists and designers looking for a vector-based drawing solution for their iPads might want to take a look at iDraw from Indeeo. It's a solid vector-based drawing app that lets anyone create good-looking designs.

The art in iDraw is totally vector-based, which is either a pro or a con depending upon your needs. There's a delay in drawing a line, for example, as the program plots points along the line. This is not an app for artists, who will find its limitations too severe and would do better with an app like Brushes or SketchBook Pro. Instead, iDraw will probably be a useful tool to graphics designers who want a quick, effective tool for mocking up logos or charts on the go, and of course anyone working in vector-based images.

Drawing in iDraw is straightforward, with most of the tools you'd expect in a vector drawing app: pencil, brush, line tool, shapes tools, etc. It has a nice grid feature, including a snap-to grid, and plenty of tools for ordering objects both within layers and between them. There's also the ability to group and ungroup objects, and complete point-by-point editing controls. It even has tools for inserting text,

and then rasterizing the text to manipulate it -- something noticably missing from most every other drawing app on iOS. It was fairly easy for even a relative amateur like me to create something in iDraw, once I got used to the controls.

As I created with iDraw, I did find a few limitations. For one thing, it is *only* vector-based. There's nothing wrong with that, but for anyone used to more robust art programs like Photoshop, the inability to move into and out of vector drawing mode can be a bit frustrating. Also, there are a couple of tools missing. For example, I could not find a color-picker for matching colors used previously (although you can go back to that image and save that color to your palette, which works but is more cumbersome). In general, I was able to find a tool for most everything I wanted to do in the app, even if it wasn't always the tool I wanted.

All in all, iDraw offers up a robust and user-friendly tool for creating designs, mock-ups, and illustrations. It also appears to be well-supported, as a variety of important features have been upgraded or included in recent updates. Professionals should find it to be a handy tool for on-the-go design, and amateur artists, too, might find some value in the ease with which iDraw lets them create vector-based images.