Pixelboard Pro

Whiteboards for virtual meetings. FREE TRIAL, $14.99 | GETPIXELBOARDAPP.COM

Virtual meetings can be useful, but they often lack a crucial component: a virtual whiteboard where you can sketch ideas or highlight things. That’s something Black Pixel encountered, and so it created a virtual whiteboard app for iOS. Pixelboard Pro enables you to share up to three boards with nine other people simultaneously. The free app is fully featured for two weeks, and if you don’t then unlock it (for a reasonable $14.99), the app is reduced to one board without collaboration or gesture support. By then, you’ll know if it’s right for you.

The interface is very simple and straightforward, so nobody’s wasting time trying to make it work when you’re supposed to be working together. It works just like a real whiteboard, with the useful addition of disappearing ink that remains on the board for only a short time. The gesture tools make it easy to highlight or point to elements of the current board, and you can save screenshots to refer to them later.

It’s not perfect, though. You can save images but not import them, and if you don’t have a stylus, your scribbles (like ours) will look rather childish — even on an iPad Pro. Also, the app requires iOS 11, so older iPads aren’t invited to the party. However, if you have dainty fingers and up-to-date iPads to work with, then it’s a useful and wellpriced collaboration tool. It may be too simple for some, but Pixelboard Pro is clever and useful, and not to expensive.