Let us design on tablets/mobile (Fully featured Figma for iOS and Android)

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
January 26, 2021
88 replies
26887 views

Describe the problem you’re experiencing and how your idea helps solve this

I like to work on my iPad Air with Apple Pencil. It’s great in Miro app. Lets me deal with comments or make small adjustments while away from the big screen.

Now Figma is not very useful on mobile browsers. Most tools are disabled.
One workaround is Figurative app but that is only marginally better and not developed for the last few months.

Add as much context as possible (screenshots, Figma files, mockups, etc.)
Ask questions to bring the community into the conversation
(e.g. Does anyone else experience this? Is anyone using a plugin or workaround to help solve this?, etc.

Anyone tried this on Android tablets? Some funky workarounds like connecting keyboards or hacking browser settings?

I guess it’s okay on Windows based tablets and convertibles, at least non ARM based ones.

What about phones?

And what about proper companion app, like Miro has?

Thanks!

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Show previous replies

Edyta Cempa

New Member

Hi Guys! Do you have any updates? Is Figma planning to make an iPad app or even try to make something like a font helper for iPads in the future? Figma online does not connect to my local fonts, even though I found the option to add some

Milton2

New Member

I just wanted to share my experience with Figma on the iPad!

I’ve made some topics before (from my agency’s e-mail account) about what i would love to see for an iPad version. These posts where made before I actually got an iPad, and now after using an iPad for some time, I have some new insights on the experience. For some context, I use an 11 inch iPad Pro m4 pared with a bluetooth keyboard.

So unfortunately I got the iPad around the time when Figurative canceled the project, which made me turn to the Safari version. The first thing I got annoyed with, was the safari search bar and UI. But by a coincidence I got it to work just like an iPad app, by saving the Figma dashboard as a link on my iPads Home Screen. What this opened up to was first that I now have a dedicated Figma button on my Home Screen just like the other iPad apps. And the second benefit was that this version excludes the safari search bar and only includes the most necessary UI (ex the forward and backward buttons).

I still thought that the UI was too big so i switched the iPads rendering size to be the setting ”more space” which definitely helped with the usable area.

Using Figma through the Safari browser without a mouse and only by touch is actually pretty nice. You navigate just like you would do with a touchpad, with the only difference that a singe finger is automatically as if you would press and drag on the trackpad. To zoom in and out you just pinch with two fingers, and to navigate around the page you swipe/drag around with two fingers. The only problem is that the app sometimes don’t recognize that I use two fingers and that leads to accidental edits that I have to undo. To right click you just press and hold the space you want to right click and then when you release the finger the right click window pops up. I’ve tried using the pencil as well, but that is just annoying and inconvenient unfortunately.

One thing that is a must if you want to use Figma on iPad is to use a keyboard. This opens up the possibility to use commands like undo, redo, group and so on. Without this it would be almost impossible to do any type of edits. But when you get the hang och dragging around with one hand on the iPads screen and one on the keyboard to do commands, then it is a really nice experience actually.

My conclusion is that it does work pretty good. It still needs to get some performance updates to run smoother, and for the future it would be really nice to get an actual app with touch gestures to do the most important commands without a keyboard (like the double tap feature to undo). I also miss the pencil support that Figurative had, and that would be amazing to get in a future app, and the ability to be able to right click with the new squeeze feature on the pencil pro would be nice! I would also love to be able to open up multiple widows, but that could be a limitation of me using the version that I saved to my home screen

Anthony_Johnson

New Member

Supper disappointed that we can’t use figma on iPad/tablets, it make so much since!

Stefan_Ilijev

New Member

I just wanted to share my experience with Figma on the iPad!

I’ve made some topics before (from my agency’s e-mail account) about what i would love to see for an iPad version. These posts where made before I actually got an iPad, and now after using an iPad for some time, I have some new insights on the experience. For some context, I use an 11 inch iPad Pro m4 pared with a bluetooth keyboard.

So unfortunately I got the iPad around the time when Figurative canceled the project, which made me turn to the Safari version. The first thing I got annoyed with, was the safari search bar and UI. But by a coincidence I got it to work just like an iPad app, by saving the Figma dashboard as a link on my iPads Home Screen. What this opened up to was first that I now have a dedicated Figma button on my Home Screen just like the other iPad apps. And the second benefit was that this version excludes the safari search bar and only includes the most necessary UI (ex the forward and backward buttons).

I still thought that the UI was too big so i switched the iPads rendering size to be the setting ”more space” which definitely helped with the usable area.

Using Figma through the Safari browser without a mouse and only by touch is actually pretty nice. You navigate just like you would do with a touchpad, with the only difference that a singe finger is automatically as if you would press and drag on the trackpad. To zoom in and out you just pinch with two fingers, and to navigate around the page you swipe/drag around with two fingers. The only problem is that the app sometimes don’t recognize that I use two fingers and that leads to accidental edits that I have to undo. To right click you just press and hold the space you want to right click and then when you release the finger the right click window pops up. I’ve tried using the pencil as well, but that is just annoying and inconvenient unfortunately.

One thing that is a must if you want to use Figma on iPad is to use a keyboard. This opens up the possibility to use commands like undo, redo, group and so on. Without this it would be almost impossible to do any type of edits. But when you get the hang och dragging around with one hand on the iPads screen and one on the keyboard to do commands, then it is a really nice experience actually.

My conclusion is that it does work pretty good. It still needs to get some performance updates to run smoother, and for the future it would be really nice to get an actual app with touch gestures to do the most important commands without a keyboard (like the double tap feature to undo). I also miss the pencil support that Figurative had, and that would be amazing to get in a future app, and the ability to be able to right click with the new squeeze feature on the pencil pro would be nice! I would also love to be able to open up multiple widows, but that could be a limitation of me using the version that I saved to my home screen

I have the M4 and tried this approach, the magic keyboard is working fine but the “pinch to zoom” is not working and the overall experience is very bad. Let’s hope that we will have proper functionality someday.

Anthony_Johnson

New Member

“Since” I can’t delete my comment with bad grammar, here’s another one.

I’m super disappointed that we can’t use figma on our iPads it makes a lot of sense to have a iPad app that allows us to create on our iPads. I just purchased a M4 iPad Pro after not having one for a few years so that I can travel lighter and just bring my iPad and I was hoping to be able to use my iPad to start really using Figma since I can’t design a site on it. I didn’t even think that it wasn’t possible, I thought it was a no-brainer. I really hope that a iPad app with full capabilities.

Filipp

New Participant

Very disappointing that we cannot work properly with Figma on our iPads

LennartHergel

New Member

Especially with the new drawing tools in Figma Draw, it would be highly useful to be able to use those tools on ipads using the apple pencil - drawing works okayish on the browser on the ipad, but there are a lot of drawbacks of that method (e.g. no support to use a eraser)

Filipp

New Participant

Having a functional and adapted experience for tablet is clearly something that would totally add values to a myriad of users … and make a deep difference with competition (sketch).

I can’t help but to think to all these meetings where touch devices would really bring significant possibilities.

It is even more on spot if you consider how Figma aim at collaboration.

Figma team, you don’t have to tackle this issue, YOU WANT TO GO THERE.

And you know it 😉

Does Sketch work on an iPad?

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