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Android App Review: Infinite Design
Mon, 26th Aug 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

The first thing that Infinite Design presents you with when it opens is a quick run-down of how it works.

This is great, because I love it when the apps I review does my job for me.

Infinite Design is a vector-based illustration program - you can draw pictures with it, basically. Anyone familiar with Photoshop, Manga Studio, PaintTool SAI, Illustrator or any of the other digital drawing programs out there will find Infinite Design pretty straight-forward.

You can draw freehand with your finger, or you can make geometric shapes. You can choose your colours, your brushstrokes, you can erase, all the usual stuff a drawing program should have.

I’m trying the ‘free’ version of Infinite Design, which actually seems pretty complete. It’s not immediately apparent what the difference between the free and pay versions is, but a bit of investigating seemed to suggest that the paid-for version offers you more file-type options to save your work as.

As with so many apps, this one falls down on a phone because of the limited screen size. On a tablet you’d have enough space that you could actually work with some precision – even more so if you were using a stylus. But on a phone screen the best you can really hope for is some casual unproductive fun drawing Batman or penises or whatever takes your fancy.

The other thing that makes me consider Infinite Design more of a toy rather than a tool is that it’s unreliable. It can lag when you’re drawing, and at least once I had to restart my phone before I could get it to open. Other people have commented online about crashes and lost files, although I’ve yet to experience that myself.

Still, on a tablet this would be as close as I’ve found (so far) to a workable drawing program that isn’t just a mobile version of existing big-league software (Photoshop, etc).

The unreliability is a large drawback, but if you’re into digital drawing and want to do it out and about, then it might be worth at least trying out the free version.

Like a lot of things though, if you’re happy doing this at home then you’ll find it easier on an actual computer.

As someone who does a lot a lot of digital illustration I’ve come to rely heavily on keyboard shortcuts, and the lack of these in the Infinite Design app really slowed me down.

If that’s the trade-off for mobility though, then some people may decide it’s worth it.