Long before our grandparents' days, Macs boasted easy-to-use image editing tools (apps) like MacPaint and SuperPaint. However, it seems that these apps have disappeared, replaced by professional apps for artists. Recently, I've found myself wanting to slightly enhance interesting images created using generative AI, but I've been struggling to find a convenient tool. That's why we developed "mioPaint." It's a "rest of us" painting tool that allows even those without artistic talent to easily edit images, including drawing, pen-based retouching, cropping, resizing, text insertion, compositing, cropping, and collages with emojis and generative AI images. It's compatible with iPad and Apple Pencil, iPhone, and Mac. Its built-in widgets allow for quick access to drawings, and keyboard shortcuts increase workflow efficiency.
The app features a drawing management function with icons similar to those on the iPad home screen, allowing you to easily manage your work and completed projects. The painting features not only recreate familiar MacPaint-like tools like patterns, fills, and lasso, but also include many new tools like filters, halftone dots, and image and text stamps. Vector data drawing functions for shapes and text are integrated (like MacDraw), allowing unlimited undos while working. Images can be imported from photos, image files, emojis, Genmoji, SF Symbols, AI images generated by Image Playground, videos, and cameras. Finished works can be easily shared with other users via AirDrop. Output files are not only HEIC and JPEG, but also GIF and APNG can be created from multiple images for animation. Other interesting features include image splitting and video recording of the drawing process.
While I want even young children who don't remember the old days to use this app and experience the joy of "creating something" on an iPad or iPhone, there's another purpose to developing this app. As longtime Mac programmers, we've continued to develop our products using great apps like MacPaint and SuperPaint as models. When I use recent apps, I worry that the long-standing tradition of Mac development skills and experience may be lost. While AI now allows us to instantly access information about specific features, finding the answer to such vague questions as "What do I need to pay attention to in order to develop an app that works equally well on iPhone, iPad, and Mac?" is no easy task. "mioPaint" was developed by me alone using the Apple Framework, SwiftUI, and UIKit. Using this app as a reference, I plan to explain the key considerations for developing apps for Apple devices, publishing the source code on my website. If you've tried "mioPaint" and are interested in its development process and features, please feel free to refer to project website.
