Comment by LunarAurora | Hacker News Reader

Comment by LunarAurora | Hacker News Reader

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It is worth noting that Google [1] (since 2016), Microsoft [2] and Adobe [3] all have their own collaborative whiteboard app. Yet Miro is almost the only one everyone is talking about. Maybe because it is by far the first (17B valuation) of 3 unicorns in the space [4]. Or is it the other way around ?

I like the expression "never underestimate the power of the default app" (already used in this thread). Well this did not work for Google and Microsoft. So is this gonna work for apple ? I can't say cause I don't have any apple product to test...

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-whit...

[2] https://workspace.google.com/products/jamboard/

[3] https://www.figma.com/figjam/

[4] The others are MURAL/invision at 2B (not including Lucid)

Not sure what you mean. As far as I know both Google's and Microsoft's versions are used by Workspace and O365 corporate customers extensively.

They're not really meant to be standalone apps, but to be used during remote whiteboarding meetings.

If you're not in that corporate environment, you're not really the intended consumer, although some people find it's useful for home/family stuff.

So the idea that this hasn't worked for Google and Microsoft doesn't really hold water. Their apps seem to be successful as intended.

Basically at this point, a whiteboarding app has turned into a necessary part of any "office suite" that contains videoconferencing. Hence, Apple has added it to their own "suite".

> Their apps seem to be successful as intended.

OK. Good to know. I wasn’t really trying to give any definitive conclusion. It is just that I don't see them mentioned, that is all.

Microsoft Whiteboard doesn't work for me. It is extremely slow on computers, which is frustrating, but the dealbreaker is that the iPhone version apparently isn't included with Office 365? Not sure why, but I couldn't get it to run.

Miro is simple to get started, can be used in every browser for free, and is really nice for collaborative brainstorming sessions.

I used to use Whiteboard a little bit, but it was always "meh".

MS Whiteboard is insane. Can’t scale text, slow as shit.

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