Good but... – AutoCAD Review

First let me say that I've been using full AutoCad for most of my professional career before retiring. In looking for a CAD program to use for an iPad this is the best in the App Store but your expectations need to be realistic. One cannot expect to have a full CAD program to operate on a tablet. I've been using AutoCad 360 for over a year to do simple 2D drawings and it does this fairly well. The free version of the current program allows viewing, measuring, turning layers on/off, emailing files and printing. Editing or creating new drawings requires the paid version. My low rating is for the paid version which I used for over a year when it was free. If I pay for an app I expect it to work properly for the functions it offers. If it doesn't offer enough features to warrant paying for it, then I don't buy it. This is where AutoCad 360 falls short of my expectations. I used AutoCad 360 to modify plans for toys that I make to give needy kids at Christmas. These are very simple plans. Most of my complaints center around dimensioning. In multiple places on multiple drawings the actual dimensions are one thing but the dimensions displayed are something else. For example the drawn and measured dimension could be 3-1/8" but the displayed result would be 3-1/4". This occurred many times and no matter how much I redraw it the end result is the same. This is not a " Snap" error. The Measure command confirms the distance is what I want but the Dimension command displays a different value. AutoCad 360 also lacks the Dimscale command. All dimensions are scaled according to the window view when you add the dimension. If you zoom in to select a specific snap point to dimension from, the physical size of the displayed dimension text and arrowheads are changed. Zooming out to add dimensions will also result in a different dimscale. This results in multiple sizes of dimension text and arrowheads throughout the drawing. As for other issues, the most recent changes in editing abilities require you to tap "Select" before tapping the object you wish to edit, then to tap the specific edit function you desire. The previous version allowed you to simply tap the object on screen and it would automatically assume you wished to "Select" it. This was a faster more intuitive method than what is now required. Overall AutoCad 360 is best suited as a tool use to mark up and make simple edits to drawings. For those who need more drawing capabilities,they need to look elsewhere but this is the best available in the App Store and for iPads. For those who need to make a few simple drawings for five or six projects and afterwards just reuse those same drawings, it's hard to justify the $99 annual fee. I suppose you could just pay $4.99 for one month and then wait until you have more projects then pay for another month but this approach seems petty. I'd prefer to pay for new features and upgrades as they are added. This would reward the developer for the upgrades and give the user reasons to upgrade.
Review by Gus2259 on AutoCAD.