iOS 16.2 Freeform App - iPad Air - Heat/Lag

Regarding laggy interaction with a board. If your use is similar to my situation this could help.

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.

The funny thing is it's the same on a MacBook Pro. Laggy, unresponsive, overheats the machine.

But we keep coming back for more, paying top dollar as someone said, and the answers are all the same

"Have you tried turning your device off and on again?"

🤣

Free form runs IDENTICAL to that on my (oct) 2022 iPad Pro 11” A2-256. I have tweaked all settings, reviewed the app, updated my review of the app, and found that Microsoft whiteboard is all that I will use until they fix this BATTERY KILLING problem that causes heat death to our rather expensive devices.

I consider it somewhat pejorative that they continue to ignore these problems. We pay top dollar, we get lacking apps. I’d like to simply do my schoolwork, if they wouldn’t mind fixing this abject ignominy.

Same issue on new iPad Air with 2nd gen pencil . Starts overheating as soon as I open Freeform app and pencil is laggy. My battery crashes in under an hour. Considering I only bought this for my art and I’m doing the most basic minimalist operations seems like I wasted money on this and it’s just a bigger version of my 14pro max.

I think this exactly what’s going on. Doing this prevents a board from becoming useless when it grows into real world use-case size. It’s should have been tested properly before release considering the point of the app is to be an unlimited note taking area. Apple should figure out a way to automatically separate areas more aggressively to mitigate this, or figure out a deeper solution to why large layers are slow in the first place. Third party apps (Procreate etc) aren’t allowed the luxury of this kind of bug.

Hi Zatx,

Thanks for using Apple Support Communities. We understand you're experiencing an issue with Freeform on your iPad. We're happy to help. When there's unexpected behavior that is isolate to one specific app, the steps below can help resolve this.

1. Close and reopen the app

Force the app to close. Then open the app to see if it works as expected.

2. Restart your device

Restart your iPhone or restart your iPad. Then open the app to see if it works as expected.

3. Check for updates

To see if updates are available for the app, open the App Store, tap your profile icon, then scroll down to see if updates are available. If updates aren't available for the app, update the software on your iPhone or iPad.

4. Delete the app, then redownload it

Delete the app. When you do this, you might lose data that was stored in the app. Then redownload the app. Then check to see if the problem with the app is fixed.

See more about those steps here: If an app on your iPhone or iPad stops responding, closes unexpectedly or won't open.

Thanks.

Mine is 100% having the exact same issues. I use the app to write study guides and draw images to use as a study tool for grad school. I have the newest iPad Pro with the newest Apple Pencil and the app works at barely half the speed of my pencil. It’s soooo slow and my iPad overheats and refuses to charge because of how hot my iPad gets. I’ve done all of the above to try to troubleshoot it. Apple needs to fix this asap or no one will be able to use it with any success.

I gave up on freedom it crashes and overheats any time I use it and I know some use it for notes (I prefer notepad) but I used it for art. I gave in and switched to Procreate which yes is a paid app but it’s fair and works beautifully I haven’t crashed or overheated since.

I have M1 IPad Pro which have the same problems. I tried everything and still, this app is lagging like crazy and still heat the device so bad that I can start frying an egg. Apple need to fix this problems

I had to give up Freeform and move to procreate. It’s not a endless white board but at least has more artistic options. I don’t see apple fixing any of these issues soon. They have been quietly furloughing people for months .

I've done this a million times and the problem is persistent. I paid the premium for a glorified note taking device (iPad Pro for the bigger screen), that's all I use it for and it's still crap. A very expensive and surprisingly poor performing app. Bad bad Apple. Booo

I am a little late to updating my iPad, and I was excited for the new freeform app. I have a 7th gen iPad, which I keep pretty much empty (no pictures or heavy docs etc). However, I was using the Freeform app and I had the same issue where the app was lagging and causing my device to crash altogether. I have reset my device rI hope Apple sends out an update soon. I have restarted my ipad and reset the app but these issues still persist.

That is crazy because I have this exact same problem. I have an iPad Air 5 in pink and use the 2nd generation Apple Pencil as well. I will complete the steps given by the community specialist and update you all. My iPad and the freeform app are both up to date so I doubt these recommendations will produce any noticeable differences.

I’m running iPad OS 17.4.1 on my 2022 ipad air and these exact same problems still persist. Empty freeform documents work fine, but after some amount of data (notes written by apple pencil) the app just uses unreasonable amount of battery, the display is overheating (not the back cover) and there is a lag between each pencil stroke and the stroke being written down.