The moment I, for any reason, I cannot collaborate unless I get my hands back on an Apple device (and possibly Apple id which is even more complicated) it stops being a collaborative software.
It however fails once you go outside.
Might be a stupid analogy so let’s net focus on this but I sort of see it like this:in my country, we can speak our language and it works for collaboration. Once you go outside, it fails. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t successful as a “collaborative” tool for that environment.
I think you and op just might have different scales of where you think it should work well enough.
If something can be used for collaboration, it is be definition collaborative, is it not?
A multi-user tabletop projection system is collaborative, even if it requires everyone to be in the same room using the same device.
Is Slack, Teams, or Trello not collaborative because it won't run on my XBox360?
This is not their point because your XBox360 is not something you use to perform your job (or, at least, it's not something most people use to perform their jobs). If I use a Windows computer for work and I can't use this software to collaborate on that work, then this isn't really "collaborative" software in the practical sense.
Collaboration should be about lowering barriers, not rising them.
Yes, I have friends who don’t have Apple devices and I can’t use Freeform with them, so of course there are limits.
I recently sent my 85 year old mother an iPad so she can more easily watch videos and do video calls. She can use Freeform with me, but there is no chance she would be able to use a Linux or Windows collaboration tool, or even something web based.
By your logic, there is no such thing as a collaborative tool, but this is obviously not what people mean.
What are we supposed to call it when they add collaboration to one of their apps? “Adding walled garden” is nonsensical, because to whatever extent it’s a walled garden, that was already the case before adding collaboration.
It’s like every time somebody posts a commercial SaaS app people will ask if it can be self-hosted. We know what these things are. Seems fair to start there.
getting an Apple id doesn't require apple hardware and most of the tools are available via icloud.com. if an apple id prevents something from being a collaborative tool then google docs, Microsoft 365, Slack, et al are not collaborative tools.
Or not. 'Collaborative' doesn't mean 'accessible by anyone'. Collaborative just means capable of supporting two or more parties working together, and freeform clearly meets the criteria...
I suppose your view is that any tightly controlled software can’t be collaborative? Like Epic, that likely helps your health care professionals and labs exchange info and collaborate on your care, or air traffic control systems where lots of people collaborate to route planes and control airspace.
Those kinds of things aren’t collaborative software because they run on limited platforms and access is tightly controlled. Is that congruent with your viewpoint?