over 7 years ago from Daniel Winter, Designer & Developer
Seriously, bohemian did a great job at developing this app, and as it is written in objective c I could imagine that porting sketch to iOS is possible. Since the iPad pro is now ready for launch I think this would be the perfect moment to develop sketch for the iPads. So please bohemian, do that!
I think we need Sketch for Windows lol
this.
I don't think that this would work out as Sketch heavily relies on the CoreGraphics modules. So they would have to rewrite everything, and in the end it would be such a mess like adobes software, which still ain't visible within the Expose for example.
The iPad uses CoreGraphics as well and provides most of the functions.
And for the hardcore windows users and devs there is still zeplin for a better workflow.
If they just wrote it in Java, then it would run smoothly on any OS.
Edit: I'm obviously kidding. god.
Java and Smoothly in the same sentence is something you don't hear often.
https://github.com/Microsoft/WinObjC/
This is mainly for iOS but can be a great starting point.
i suggested this a year ago and got flamed to all hell for it. good to see things changing.
We don't have plans for an iPad pro version at the moment. Yes, it has a beautiful screen, but there's more to consider, such as how to adapt the UI for touch without compromising the experience.
But the biggest problem is the platform. Apps on iOS sell for unsustainably low prices due to the lack of trials. We cannot port Sketch to the iPad if we have no reasonable expectation of earning back on our investment. Maintaining an application on two different platforms and provide one of them for a 10th of it's value won't work, and iPad volumes are low enough to disqualify the "make it up in volume" argument.
In the meantime, we focus on what we do best; a great, modern app on OS X for design professionals.
Thanks a lot for your honest reply.
Sooo Apple Watch?!
It could determine the width of the stroke based on your heart rate.
By making it for OSX, you have covered 10% of designers, cool.. Now bring this to windows and cover the entire awesome designers.
Please don't think, USA is the only world and Everyone has Mac / iPhone :P
~Surjith
any facts that only 10% of the designers use OSX? ;) imho designers are the biggest target group for imacs and macbooks, therefore their userbase is extremly big and thanks to the app store willing to pay quite easily.
Actually only less than 10% uses a MAC. if you found 5 designers on 10 Mac users, how much will you find in 80 Windows users?
I don't have a reference for stats, but I can say, If you take all designers in my country (India) there's only 2-5% uses a Mac. This is same for all developing countries.
You will come to know, when they released the Windows version, they'll got some download stats.
The world is bigger than you think, dear :)
Of course honey, this may be true for india, but I'm sure that a huge part of Europe and USA designers use macs. In my students class we had 58 macs and 2 windows laptops, for comparison. This makes up for a lot of windows users.
Yup. Only on USA, UK & Australia. There are 100+ other countries..
Search for OS Stats on Google. will give you some insights :)
I never doubted that OSX's market share overall ain't big. In fact its about 16% in the USA, 9.5% within Europe and under 1% in India (http://gs.statcounter.com/#desktop-os-IN-monthly-201408-201508). But as you mentioned some of these are developing countries where you might not even be able to charge the full price. And it would only be possible if you would rewrite the app from scratch. OSX provides lots of drawing functions that sketch uses, if they had to redo all the code I'm sure many functions and speed would suffer from a rewrite, especially if they do it in Adobes way for example.
OSX still is the better OS for designers, I mentioned many apps that are OSX exclusive and have no windows counterpart in another comment. I don't think the market share of OSX outside of Europe and USA is a huge factor for app devs of the western world to be honest, meaning no offense.
I don't think the market share of OSX outside of Europe and USA is a huge factor for app devs of the western world
Yes. That's true.. only for western world.. may be...
I'm not in love with Sketch yet. because I've never tried that.
While I started an iPhone recently for Testing. Now I'm sure how Mac would be. As a Windows user, I might break it in to two pieces :P (which I'm doing with the iPhone :P )
The reason is Windows and Mac works in different way. You'll feel the same when you use a WIndows..
Its time to sleep now... Its almost midnight here.
Thanks for sharing your views.
~Surjith
Check out Corel's suite of design apps for an alternative to Adobe: http://www.coreldraw.com
Sketch for anything but OS X just isn't going to happen because it relies on technologies built in to OS X. It would require a complete rewrite of the entire rendering engine, every algorithm behind every tool, the plugin API, and every other bit of the app you can see and can't see, and constant testing to ensure it looks and works the same on every OS. Even massive Adobe has trouble managing that.
I can ensure that pretty much every designer in the US, EU, AUS and Japan is on OSX.
Get over it, you don't run a business by selling high(er) priced software in 3rd world countries where income is low and piracy rates in the 90%'s.
Sweethearts, found some data: A recent survey of over 4,000 designers from 196 countries found that the Sketch was the most popular interface design tool edging out Photoshop. http://tools.subtraction.com/interface-design.html
Insights into what? Business advice for tiny Mac software companies?
Bohemian is a developer-heavy studio, so a Windows version realistically means doubling (or more) the size of their company, and targeting a platform they have little experience with. The only business reason to do this is if they have an expectation of future earnings is greater than the cost of doing so.
I've been watching OS stats, and for small Mac software companies, the economics are just not there. Mac users tend to pay more for software, so per-user lifetime revenue is higher. Mac users tend to upgrade their OS a lot more quickly, so there are fewer OS versions to target and maintain.
You're asking them to write software because you want it, not because it makes any sense for them to write it. You'd have a better chance of finding some Windows software shop to write a clone of it, because at least then they'd have the relevant experience.
Fun fact is among those 98% Windows users probably only 2~5% uses a genuine Windows or Adobe Photoshop. So, even if Sketch releases a Windows version, 98% of those 98% will wait for a crack.
And just how many of the designers in India and other developing countries would pay $100 for a copy of Sketch?
The same reason they're not buying Macs is the same reason they wouldn't buy Sketch.
India is full of very talented developers. If there is such a high demand for Sketch on Windows in India, I'm surprised none of them has already developed an even better alternative for Windows users.
Or perhaps demand for such an application on Windows isn't as high as you might think?
A windows version never was and hardly will be in our plans, sorry.
I understand why you decided to not make a Windows version, but it's the reason why Sketch will never be the industry standard.
maybe they don't want it to be standard. being a standard means having responsibility. And the underdog factor is pretty important as well.
I'm pretty happy where I am with Sketch. My clients are happy. My developer self is happy.
but a good exporter to PSD, Ai files? a convertor? or maybe a extension to import Sketch files to Illustrator/Photoshop
Don't tell me about "save like a PDF and after that you can open in Illustrator" - this operation is a total mess
What? Is this a serious response? I agree that Sketch Mirror needs to released on Android. I also agree that Sketch needs to release a Windows version. But 90% of the UI/IxD industry being on PC/Linux is most certainly false.
Well the Android version shouldn't be much of a problem imho as sketch mirror would just have to send a png to the phone and display it 1:1. Or maybe even SVG. Therefore I agree that an android version might be good. But then again, what stops you from previewing your android design on an iphone? You have to calculate with 1000+ Resolutions anyways :)
I firmly believe that you could charge more for Sketch since it's an established application for OS X. And the lack of trials is inconsequential since you could easily do a trial within the app that would provide access to all tools for a period of time. The tool could then be unlocked after the trial with an in-app purchase.
And the lack of trials is inconsequential since you could easily do a trial within the app that would provide access to all tools for a period of time.
This is forbidden in the App Store Review Guidelines
2.9 Apps that are "demo", "trial", or "test" versions will be rejected. Beta Apps may only be submitted through TestFlight and must follow the TestFlight guidelines.
11.9 Apps containing content or services that expire after a limited time will be rejected, except for specific approved content (e.g. films, television programs, music, books)
Well they could launch the app free and do an in-app purchase to upgrade. I think this guideline is here to ensure that there are not 1.000 free and pro versions of an app, but if sketch would just be called sketch and would require an inapp purchase after 25hours that would be ok in terms of apples guidelines. I'm not sure however if it would increase the conversion.
Sketches does the demo / trial functionality fairly well if you want to see an example.
Really though if anyone wants a powerful layout / vector tool for the iPad a few already exist:
Thanks Emanuel for clarifying. Do what you do best.
Sketch has transformed the way I design sites and interfaces and saved me so much time. Thank you guys for the great work.
BTW. Just an idea. Make a Sketch Pro with some advanced symbol functionality and no bugs and charge 499.-
Thanks for making the right decision. Just keep making Sketch better.
Gutted :(
iPad Pro seems like a great bit of hardware, and it seems like it would be better than any Wacom for most of the work I do (portability, retina display, low-lag, no fucking around setting the thing up). Without decent professional apps though, it's just another device.
For what it's worth I would totally pay full price for Sketch iOS. It's happening slowly, but I think the tide is turning on how much people are prepared to pay for a good iOS app.
I am trying to figure out if one could use an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil to act as an alternative to a wacom cintiq? Are there apps that would let me use an iPad pro as a second monitor? iPad Pro looks so much better than wacom products, with touch that works, retina and minimal lag. Sounds like a dream, or am I just dreaming?
Yea :)
Our app Astropad: http://astropad.com It's built for designers, illustrators, photographers and other creative pros.
Man, thank you for Astropad! Astropad is beyond great!
How about an app for reviewing designs? open .sketch files from iCloud, view artboards, and export some of them to share, or mark annotations? that will be very useful for design meetings
or, for developers, they may want an app for inspecting elements? (for color code, dimension, placement spec)
Anyway a sketch campanion app would be very nice, I think production work is much much better on desktops
Hi Emanuel.
My name is Florian, and I am the head of Growth and Marketing at Teambition.
Sketch has made my life easier versus having to use Photoshop to get the simplest design stuff done.
However, I have just read about your decision not to bring Sketch to iOS. A couple of days ago, I also tweeted to one of your team members about potential support for Windows 10. Response was: nein. Keine Windows 10.
So let's summarize all this: I now have to renew my hardware. Seeing the Apple conference, the only new stuff that I could buy and be proud of buying is the iPad Pro. Which you will not be supporting.
Only equivalent that makes sense right now - and that I personally would love - would be the Surface Pro 3. Windows 10 rocks, the Surface rocks as well, and with the Surface Pro 4 arriving soon I would have JUMPED literally on it. No questions asked, I would have bought it. Which you will not be supporting.
In fact, out of all the apps I use, you are the ONLY ONE not supported on either, but that my company relies on for design. Which means, we are basically all forced to now buy a Macbook Air or Macbook, that not only don't have this tablet/pen stuff, but that are also heavy, outdated, and underperforming because they haven't been receiving any hardware update from Apple.
So, that first thing, as you can see, does not work at all.
Now, here is the second part.
The fact that Mac hardware hasn't been upgraded means something: it means Mac OS X will eventually die. And maybe faster than we anticipated. Which is the platform you currently support.
Next point: doing design on a Mac is a thing that only Europeans and Americans have "historically" chose to do. But that's what I would call it: history. The stereotype of designers only doing their work on a Mac will probably change, with different devices and OSes showing up. I also personally know people who do design on Windows, and they are very fine with it.
So, it feels like you are making a big time strategic design for your company based on whatever "feeling" you have users are using as an OS/hardware.
Same when it comes to some countries, like India or China, a lot of people rely on Windows. With such a growth as the one for Windows 10, and a new set of APIs and development tools to create Windows 10 apps, you are still choosing to completely ignore it.
And those choices are bringing something very bad for you guys: you're pissing users off. People like me. Who decided we would trust your company to provide the best solution, and right now we are let down. Literally. Why can't you just raise money to hire a couple of .NET developers and build a Windows 10 app? I see no reason. Adobe has a nice business model and makes money, you could probably make money as well. There isn't any real debate here.
So, here, I said it. What I think about what you're doing right now, and expressing my frustration as a user right now. To your management now to tell us what's "really" going to happen instead of trying to justify why you won't invest in any of the platforms of the future.
Yours trully,
Florian.
I hear your frustration, but you're vastly under-estimating software development and how much Sketch gets for free from OS X's APIs. If you want cross-platform, go to Adobe.
In what way would I under-estimate software development? Did I say it was going to be "easy" or "quick"?
Dude, whatever you are smoking. Stop it. Seriously.
I'll smoke whatever I want .
You can try alternative of Sketch for iPad, it's called ProtoSketch - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/protosketch-vector-graphic/id913091834?ls=1&mt=8
What if I don't use iPad, but Windows... I just bought myself a Surface Pro 4.
I would be willing to pay a premium price for a fully functioning sketch app on ipad! I'm thinking many others would as well. Kickstarter to gauge interest?
Thanks for your reply. Love what you guys do.
This is an impressive stance. I’m sure it’s compelling to pursue many different OSs/devices. That said, your choice to focus on one platform, one audience, and one key use case results in a better product. Thank you!
I would pay the same price for sketch on the iPad pro as mac without hesitation.
Hello, I see this post has 3 years old and see your point, but now, I'm sure if sketch is ported to iPad, you'll have a huge revenue now :)
Despite being obvious as to what the problems are, your comment is quite anti-visionary with a pinch of arrogance. I hope this has changed since it has been posted 4y ago as the industry has started to adopt iPad pro as a potential alternative for doing "work". One can argue it isn't there yet, but it's well underway and I believe Microsoft has set the way with their surface tablet.
So the one comment I have for you Mr. Sa, look at the signals all around you and keep an open mind. Many platform shifts are happening. How are you going to lead your team to adapt?
It doesn't take much to be disrupted in the world we live in and you don't seem to want to open to that option from the top of your mountain.
No one is undisruptable, not even Sketch.
It might just be me, but pixel pushing on an iPad does not sound fun.
Unless you're firing up a copy of Painter, using that newfangled Pencil. That sounds like a lot of fun to me.
Maybe if we had an iPad with a keyboard, and a mouse
Maybe something that can sit on your lap?
Maybe it should open, similar to a book
Lap...book?
See you on Kickstarter ...
With all that screen real estate, you could have a little pixel-pusher palette that lets you do what the arrow keys do (along with modifier keys). You could also have a mini app for the phone that allows for additional tools and shortcuts. Hell, I'd like to see that anyway.
I agree that we aren't there yet, but almost!
Only because something might be possible doesn't mean it's a very good idea. On-screen arrows or even modifier keys sound like a UX nightmare to me.
Why? Tap on the shape, and a palette appears next to it. Seems fine to me.
I'd prefer them to keep development on the computer, sketch's focus has always been a great asset.
Definitely need to prioritize addressing the major bugs on the desktop over chasing after new platforms.
Yeah let's stretch limited resources even more finely on a product that you probably wont be able to sell a single copy if you price your software above $10.
What could possibly go wrong.
I'm pretty sure that panic also make some good money with coda for ipad, and it is also priced at 10$.
it could work well on an Air as well as the pro, and the hardware is well suited for the job, especially with iOS 9 and it's awesome drawing methods on the dev side.
I guess bohemian should have some money in spare since v3 of sketch got hyped like hell. And as you can clearly see Apple is heading towards the iPad as a notebook replacement sooner or later. The iPad Pro + Keyboard + Pen is still way cheaper than the Macbook 12, and has a way better display, is lighter etc.
So they would make one step ahead of the competitors, and they have the potential of making an awesome combination with the desktop app.
Panic posted sales & revenue figures at the beginning of the year and had this to say:
This is the biggest problem we’ve been grappling with all year: we simply don’t make enough money from our iOS apps. We’re building apps that are, if I may say so, world-class and desktop-quality. They are packed with features, they look stunning, we offer excellent support for them, and development is constant. I’m deeply proud of our iOS apps. But… they’re hard to justify working on.
Plenty of sales, very little revenue.
Whats your practical reason for using sketch on a ipad? It sounds gimmicky to me.
Plus porting something even if it's written in objective c is not that easy as you make it out to be.
Add Affinity tools to this wishlist :)
No, we most certainly do not need Sketch for the iPad Pro. Or iPad Air. Or iPhone.
Sketch is the most useful tool ever made available to the public for UI design. But Sketch is also riddled with bugs. The absolute last thing we need from Bohemian, is to have them supporting some dumb iOS app that was created just so .09% of the UI industry can use a stylus. I wouldn't touch an iOS version of Sketch with a 10' pole. I want to see the OSX version be free of bugs, and then have them release a Windows version.
This!
Hell yeah! especially for creating some basic wireframing, and then move over to your mac for the smaller details
Yea, a Sketch Lite could be cool.
@apple just put the damn osx on an ipad and everyone would go bonkers.
I don't think that rewriting OSX for ARM architectures is the way they want to go. The user interface ain't compatible either.
Who knows if they don't have an ARM version of OS X already, as research — just like with the PowerPC to Intel switch.
No we don't.
How about a simple .sketch file viewer for iOS? This would allow me to not carry around my MacBook Pro all the time. I could review and annotate .sketch files right from my iPad (iPhone?). I would pay good money for an app like this. I had one for PSDs a while back but it became useless when Sketch replaced 95% of our UI and UX workflow. Am I the only one with that use case?
This! I need to review a sketch document to estimate a feature addition and all I have at the moment is my IPad Pro. I do not need to edit the document, just preview each section. IOW, having a single preview image for the document wouldn't allow me to review it in its entirety.
Are you kidding? That company can barely make the Mirror app work...and the actual Sketch app bug-free.... I love sketch... but come on! Their app needs to be fixed... Fix that first... before anything. Mirroring is essential!
No we don't
Serif has a Affinity Designer prototype that they teased 8 months ago. (See the video here). During the beta they shared with the early testers that the actual Designer canvas was built to run on an iPad.
Kickstarter it! Like Next Keyboard :)
I would prefer something that doesn't crash as often. Affinity Designer for example.
Definitely compelling, but would you really push very specific pixels around on an iPad? Seems like Adobe Comp CC is a good target for an iPad - low-fidelity wireframing and ideating.
We need Mac OS X for iPad Pro and not an OS made for WhatsApp and Candy Crush!
OSX is not made for touch devices, and if you think that iOS only consists of whatsapp and candycrush you haven't seen any of the very potent apps out there.
You no likey that Adobe thingy they demoed?
To be honest that looked nice, especially this... indesign prototyping tool. But it doesn't support .sketch files ;)
That prototyping tool is available on regular iPads too and it's kind of great - one of the best things Adobe has done in a while.
The biggest drawbacks are probably text input and screen real-estate. Though, many of the functions we traditionally use a keyboard for, don't necessarily need a keyboard. With an adapted UI, some of these functions might even become easier on a handheld device.
There are also some powerful features on iOS that design tools could leverage to make design faster, simpler and more rounded -- touch, voice input, Apple Pencil etc.
In the near future, I think we will see things move in that direction to some significant degree, at least.
with about 13 inch there is a hell lot of space. especially if you use the keyboard, then you have more space than on a 13"MBPr or 13"Air (Just thinking of the 1024points height)
I think it would work. pretty good even.
... and then you work with your arms stretched over the keyboard, tapping and dragging on a screen with your fingers, where you actually need (pixel) precision? Cannot imagine doing this longer than 30 seconds.
Login to Comment
You'll need to log in before you can leave a comment.
LoginRegister Today
New accounts can leave comments immediately, and gain full permissions after one week.
Register now