> Inspire Pro

$19.99 From snowCanoe, snowcanoe.com

6Inspire Pro is billed explicitly as a painting app, making it unique among the apps on test. It’s also the only one that doesn’t use layers, so you’re working more like a real painter. There is undo, but not the ability to tweak things layer by layer. The interface is a little more basic, though performance is good and the graphics engine is able to render two brush textures at the same time for more realistic textures like chalks and pastels.

You get 150 configurable brushes split into 15 sets, with the vast majority focused on traditional styles. A quick preview and edit system lets you change brush size and rotation, and the Stroke menu does the same for stroke behavior. There’s good Apple pencil support, especially for the second– generation model, and a clever hotspots system that can be activated to provide quick access to changing parameters based on how you like to work. Inspire Pro is perhaps less slick but still a solid app for painting tasks.

Great for traditional painting

Good Pencil support

Interface could be slicker

Workflow takes some learning