Instaviz

Think with your fingers: your quick doodle turns flows into flowcharts, concepts into concept maps. The pocket whiteboard for your brainstorms, mind maps and diagrams — instantly visualize all of it!

Category	Price	Seller	Device
Productivity	$7.99	Pixelglow Software	iPhone, iPad, iPod

“This is the best simple visual thinking, simple diagramming or back-of-the-napkin thinking app available for the iPhone and iPad. And, unlike the napkin you draw on at lunch, diagrams from the program can look good enough to use in books and professional journals without further enhancements.” — George Huba, hubaisms.

SKETCH IT

Just sketch some rough shapes, type in some text, then link them together. Instaviz neatens the shapes and arranges them elegantly as you work — out pops a beautiful, tidy diagram. No fussing about with precise appearance or absolute placement, or getting stuck in popups, gadgets, modes or menus.

“Instaviz’s impressive strength is the way that it intelligently rearranges your flowchart for an optimal layout on the fly. Watching boxes and lines reorganize when you’ve got your flowchart into a jumble, by not planning ahead sufficiently, is quite cathartic.” — 4.5/5 Stephen Northcott, Touch Reviews.

REFINE IT

Next, refine your ideas with font, color, shape and style. Focus in on one of the 25 different settings. Then pick from 300+ fonts, 280 label sizes, 36 colors, 18 alternate shapes, 18 arrow heads, 10 graph styles, 8 border/line styles and 3 label positions. We carefully marshalled this army of options so that your every order is carried out quickly and exactly.

“Here’s what I like about it, I don’t have to worry about picking tools to draw the various shapes — I have a tool right here: it’s my finger!” — 5/5 Terry White, Adobe Worldwide Creative Suite Design Evangelist, BestAppSite.

SHARE IT

It’s now time to share your work with others. Let Instaviz pick the best format, or choose one from Instaviz, Graphviz DOT, Visio VDX, PDF, SVG or PNG. Then show it to the world through email, message, print, AirDrop, DropBox, Facebook, Flickr, Google+, Pinterest, Twitter, WhatsApp or any available share extensions on iOS 8.

“We love Instaviz. Imagine a white board, and then imagine all that creative power, in your pocket. You don’t need to bring anything with you. Simply you, your ideas, your thought-process, and your finger.” — 4/5 Aaron Hirst, 148Apps.

Reviews

So happy it’s back
almostbrucelee

For my first iPad, Instaviz was the most important app I used. I could get thoughts out so quickly and the auto-arrangement meant it looked clean and clear. I would spend an hour with any topic and run dry on thoughts that I wanted to capture, then could provide the output to colleagues as a useful reference for productive conversation, and better designers than I could render the outlined thought into more appealing formats. I gave up hoping that Instaviz was going to be available to me again some years ago but I finally got a new iPad and tada! That it is! I have never understood why mind mapping top lists don’t include this product, so many tools have features but it is hard to get your thoughts out. Instaviz/Graphviz actually helps form the thoughts. Once you know the shape of the thoughts, you can worry about layout, and if it isn’t for public consumption I wager that the clean basic approach Instaviz gives us is a better use if time than trying to make something that looks sharper.

Amazing, unique (yes, nothing like it) app!
Amitai B

This app is like a feature-lite flowchart app, which allows it to maximize and overload touch gestures and minimize menu-use. The creativity just flows! I use this for work, and for planning Sunday activities with my 7 and 9 year old, it’s that easy and intuitive! That said, there’s room to improve. I would love more convenience features, like renaming an open graph by tapping or pressing the title bar, composing “macros” of chained actions, create templates of graphs and objects (e.g., a graph that already has a dark background I like, an arrow that is already green and has the text “foo” attached to it). Is that forthcoming? Ty!

Seems Abandoned, Incomplete
hoorigan512

This is a nice concept, and I wish it was still under active development. Not happy I paid so much for abandoned code. I should have taken other reviews more seriously. * Missing features available in graphviz. * Developer web resources are broken/outdated. * Some UI design seems counterintuitive or incomplete.

Very buggy and outdated. Could be great.
Chad Johnson

I want to love this app, but every time I use it, it never saves my work, and I lose all my work. This app is useless in this state. It seems the developer has outright abandoned this project. What a shame as Graphviz is a great tool, and this appears to be the only app in the whole App Stire which uses Graphviz. Super disappointing. If the saving bug was fixed, I would absolutely give this app 4 or even 5 stars. But Every. Single. Time. I use this app I lose work, and I end up deleting the app in frustration.

Import across devices
jimmyc.too

Overall the app works to the basic abilities of graphviz itself. Same constraints but with less control of deeper attributes. Figured out how to email a graph from one device to the other and then import it into the app on another device. Would be nice to sync through iCloud using graphviz format so could edit on any device.

The developer doesn’t respond to questions or requests
Ramón Manuel

I work with undirected graphs. Instaviz is set to use directed edges. When I make a drawing I must go and one by one change each arrow. The app should have settings for the default edges and/or a setting to remember the last type of edge selected. The author won’t answer my questions or requests.

Fast Flowcharts
MatthewisMathis

Are use the software when I need to send a diagram to my installers that they know how to hook up systems. I’ve tried other software’s, but it always takes a while to make them easy to understand and arrange them. The automatic system of arranging the flow chart saves a ton of time and I can knock out something that is legible for my guys in less than five minutes. Do I wish I could do more? Sometimes, yes, but this does what it does very well and it is a useful tool. Maybe in the future they can add a few more features that I mightWant, but this is good for now and there’s no other tool that can replace it.

Good Application - One Moderate Flaw
Seattle Rex

Creating a graph with the iPad Pro with iPad keyboard (a rather common task I would imagine), I could not for the life of me figure out how to name my graph. After 15 minutes, finally went to their website where I learned that you can only name the graph in portrait mode. lolwhut? Yes, portrait mode. I kid you not. I had to flip the pad on its side and peck out the title, then flip it back into the keyboard to title it. Why? No idea. Couldn't even hazard a guess. It is, without a doubt, the most un-intuitive application design choice I have ever in my life seen, with no close second. I mean, it's literally IMPOSSIBLE to title your document in landscape mode. It can't be done. There is no way to do it. It's borderline hilarious. It's also a good way to prank a friend. "Hey, throw a title on your graph real quick and let me see it.", then watch them go insane. The rest of the app is good, though.

Too slick to be useful to me
Ramón Manuel

The programmer has won prices for his slick work on Mac OS X and graphviz. The problem is that in trying to replicate that he has gone further and not allowed to configure the program. In my case I am a pure mathematician whose speciality are undirected graphs. The ones I draw are very complex and having to go edge by edge to make them undirected is a colosal bore. Added to doing the same for every vertex that is not a circle adds to the frustration. I can't use it when I'm teaching to draw graphs on the fly as I have to go and tweak every edge. I wish there was at least a setting for the default type of edge.