This review originally appeared within iLounge’s iOS Gems series within the compilation article, iPhone Gems: Every Drawing Application, Reviewed. Additional details may be found in the original article.
Paint ($1; listed as iPaint on the Home screen) is a single-screen drawing application that offers users a wide variety of ways to manipulate and create drawings and images. Paint’s single view presents users with a side-scrolling button bar of brush sizes, open and filled geometric shapes, pre-defined, clip-art like images, and buttons for adding an image from the photo library as a background, changing the background color, and saving the drawing to the photo library.
A non-scrolling button bar at the bottom lets users undo, select from seven pre-set colors, or tap a color selection button to set a custom color using RGB sliders, along with a tint control.
The sheer number of options in Paint is impressive, although they aren’t presented in the best way possible, and some buttons — such as the computer monitor icon for changing the background color — are less than immediately obvious in utility. When loading a picture from the photo library for use as a background, the selection menu does not extend to the status bar, stopping slightly above the bottom of the top button bar, leaving an ugly gap. In addition, the loaded picture doesn’t cover the entire drawing surface, leaving a several-pixels-wide vertical border on the right side which lets the underlying background show through.
Also, when drawing shapes, the actual shape appears only after the user has drawn an invisible line to represent the size of the shape, giving the user no indication of how the shape will look. Apart from these issues, the app performs as expected, letting users draw on the screen by accurately following the movement of their fingers. Shaking the device clears the screen.
While it does have its issues, Paint is the most full-featured drawing app available at its price point.
