Explain Everything Whiteboard Reviews

by NathanReading

It happened twice.

I’m trying out a lot of online whiteboards for mathematics research, collaboration, and teaching. Explain Everything has some nice features (like an infinite workspace), but also a lot of problems. The biggest problem in the interface is that you can’t easily select things and move/delete them. Instead, things are unaccountably “grouped” together with random other things (yes, even with the “auto-group” setting turned off).

But the kicker was losing hours of work. The first time it happened, I didn’t lose much, and I thought I had done something wrong. The second time, I had worked for a long time on a calculation, and then closed the folio cover and moved to a different desk. When I opened it again, I was asked if I want to upgrade (still trying it out), and when I said “no”, I progressed to a screen where I could choose which project I wanted to open. But my project was blank. Apparently, I was supposed to have pressed a “save” button.

For you younger kids: Back in the 80’s and 90’s, you used to have to ask your computer to save your work, because otherwise you would lose it the next time the computer or the program crashed, which was usually very soon. Those of us who lived through that don’t want to go back, and I’m very disappointed the Explain Everything is still living in those days.

I’ve learned what I need to know from my free trial.

by Jhatzis99

I wanted to like ExplainEverythingWhiteboard. I watched all the online tutorials. Soooo many problems with ExplainEverythingWhiteboard. I am using on an IPad Pro 2020 - plenty of power to handle ExplainEverythingWhiteboard. For starters, the recording function was so wonky. The recording timeline scrubbers showed several seconds for one or two pen strokes on annotated slides. Second, ExplainEverythingWhiteboard freezes very often. I load it and tap the screen, and nothing. I have uninstalled and reinstalled. It’s the same. Moving projects locally does not solve any problems. Third and this is so freaking annoying, when attempting to insert some Giphys or static images, you can’t search for an image. When I attempt to search, then the insert dialogue box disappears and I am back to the canvas. This happens every single time. I am uninstalling and reverting to using Microsoft’s whiteboard for now. Truly disappointing. BTW- I am using the latest version of iOS 13

by HunnerC6

I was tasked with using ExplainEverythingWhiteboard for a class project where I would make a video of me explaining tips of another app. I whipped out Explain everything and I realized right away this would be a difficult project. Not because of the task given to me, but because of ExplainEverythingWhiteboard I had to use. While it’s a great idea, Explain Everything is not what I was hoping for. It was slow, and it had very basic features. I had to record audio for the slides and it was almost guaranteed that it would cut off either the beginning of what I was saying or the end. Sometimes both. It also doesn’t seem to allow you to move audio around if I wanted to add something, or to try to fix what it had cut off. I am also disappointed that there is no way for me to watch the whole project at once instead of clicking on each individual clip and clicking play. ExplainEverythingWhiteboard did not live up to my expectations and I was really hoping to add ExplainEverythingWhiteboard to my list of daily project creation apps. As of today, though, it will not be used further. I am open to retry it in the future. As I said, it’s a great idea. ExplainEverythingWhiteboard just isn’t ready yet.

by Draka717

ExplainEverythingWhiteboard has been pretty helpful I will say, but if you have an assignment that is bigger that two pages it is nearly impossible to get what you need to get finished done. It would be really helpful if there was a scroll option for your pages. Also it would be really amazing if you could lock any edits you’ve made onto the document you are working on and still be able to move the document with the edits right were you put them on the document. These changes would be very appreciated, thank you.

by Sufficingpit

I been using ExplainEverythingWhiteboard for years mostly for school, though have made things for myself outside of school due to powerful software like this usually being pretty expensive while this is relatively cheap. I recently had gotten my iPad broken so upon getting a new iPad and redownloading this, I noticed you have to subscribe to a thing JUST TO HAVE MORE THEN ONE SLIDE. I don’t know how long it has been like that since I don’t frequently check updates... but to be honest I am very disappointed... I may still use this from time to time but having a single slide while that plus button taunts me is really an off putting... Aswell as having a limited number of projects you can have. I say thanks to the people who developed this as it has done a lot of cool things for me and I am sad to see features are now locked due to needing a better “plan” while before having unlimited ability to do anything...

by CAKersch

Before the latest update I would have given ExplainEverythingWhiteboard 10 stars. I can’t tell you how many hours I have used explain everything to create videos for my flipped classroom and to record examples from my math class for students who were gone. Yesterday when I went to add a new slide I received a message that I needed to subscribe to get more slides. I payed for ExplainEverythingWhiteboard (one time, several years ago). Over my Christmas break I’ll have to try to find a new app to replace this one. I’ve tried to find the version I’d been using...

The description of ExplainEverythingWhiteboard needs to be modified to let teachers know it now requires a subscription to use ExplainEverythingWhiteboard.

by Anonymous PhD Student

I am a college professor who suddenly has to teach online, and thought that ExplainEverythingWhiteboard would be great for recording lectures. It has lots of nice features, but two very irritating ones:

1. I write onto handouts that I import, and too often, things I write do not group together and/or with the imported documents. That means that only some of the content will move when I try to scroll on my iPad screen. There appears to be no simple way to fix this, so I’m often forced to erase what I have already written in order to scroll down to the next part of my handout.

2. The videos take *way* too long to export from the iPad. Every time so far, it has taken longer than the actual length of the video. Also, it cannot export while running in the background. This means that in order to export a 50 minute lecture video, I cannot do anything else on my iPad for the next hour or more.

One more smaller thing: it should be possible to resize an imported document while easily keeping it upright. Every time I rescale an imported PDF, I can’t help but to tilt it a bit. It’s not that hard to fix, but a bit annoying.

by Kb375627

I have tried a few programs for making content videos for my class, and this program is by far the easiest to use. You can edit your videos as you go without any need for additional video editing software. There are sometimes bugs that cause the program to close unexpectedly, and when this happens I sometimes loose all of my recorded content since the last save. It is very frustrating when it happens, through it doesn’t happen too often and I’ve adapted by saving more frequently.

by SChoudhary

I would rate this 3.5-4⭐️s.

➡️TL;DR: its a really good app with really decent functionality however as it is it really isn’t/can’t be the only app I use for my note/screen casting needs.

(Sorry for a billion emojis- added for readability)
As a student and tutor I use these for review and teaching. It’s been great for mind mapping and breaking down complex concepts as I move to grad level concepts. Despite the learning curve it’s been very functional for me but it is missing some features I’d love to see.

✅Pros:
- customization - colors/papers/background
- endless paper
- good apple pencil functionality
- great sharing/recording abilities
- personal templates
- good features for math adaptability
- shape tool

❎Cons/Missing items (❗️To indicate importance):
❗️❗️❗️❗️- a way that zoom doesn’t change pen size. I just want to side scroll w/o effectively changing pen size, etc maybe add more pen sizes or custom sizes that don’t change despite zoom level. At this point I have to use stealth so I can note zoom % and maintain it after I scroll
❗️❗️❗️- better pen style selection tool for easier movement and grouping
❗️❗️❗️- hand gesture for easier undo (preferably double tapping)
❗️❗️ - auto straighten for lines (maybe after holding for a sec?) ruler is too time consumptive
❗️- recoloring drawn elements

by Alxoqlxntbeicnamwlfi

I’ve been using this to create tutorials and it works great. The record and timeline features to go back and redub is nice, if a little clunky. What keeps me from giving a 4 star review are:

- Projects shared for collaboration can’t be taken private again. Not a big deal but I want to turn off public access entirely when done with customer sessions.

- The web interface is very very slow. After complaints doing a session I signed in from my laptop to watch and the lag of drawing on the iPad and it appearing on the website was nearly unusable at the pace of discussion we have. Im not collaborating with others using ExplainEverythingWhiteboard so web is the only answer for me.

- The time it takes to generate a shared link and it to be available can take 5 minutes or more for larger whiteboards, making it unusable for quickly starting a collaboration ad-hoc with customers.

by Math-wizard

I’ve been a licensed user for 2 years, and the “go to” app user on my campus. Love being able to create videos for my students to move self-paced through lessons, but the tools are not intuitive and difficult to master. Time is a valuable commodity for teachers. Learning curve for instructional tools needs to be fast. Attempting to create more professional presentations by combining slides, documents, blank templates, and teacher clips (live view for demos) in the same video is a technology challenge, yet to be achieved. File naming and editing recordings is tricky, as I’ve lost much work due to auto-naming and tool issues. Importing multi-page files in a desired layout escapes me.
If there is an online training, I’d love to take advantage before the new school year begins on Aug 5.

by Kenndri12

ExplainEverythingWhiteboard is extremely useful for creating engaging lessons and getting students to collaborate. Virtual learning is here and this is for sure ExplainEverythingWhiteboard that I would choose to conduct such a feat. However, one thing that I struggle with is that ExplainEverythingWhiteboard itself and the web version vary in a few ways. As a teacher that already has content created, I don’t want to recreate absolutely everything that I have already done. ExplainEverythingWhiteboard version lets you upload powerpoints into the project, but the web version does not. As of now, that is the only complaint that I have. Keep updating! 😁😁

by B A R T H O L O M E W

It’s fun and easy to use. The color selection is great but limited, keeping things satisfyingly simple. I wouldn’t mind more colors though. I love how it allows me to work off my original writings by being an infinite black board of space. I’m looking forward to trying the screen grab and voice recording feature. It’s a great way to get all my thoughts out on a single page. File storage and organization is great too. It includes other basic tools like an eraser, you can drag and drop the things you draw, and probably some other stuff I haven’t tried yet. It’s important to mention that I use this with the Apple Pencil. The response works beautifully. I think that’s all for now. I would recommend this for teachers, creatives, business owners, and anyone who needs some place to keep all their thoughts and ideas in one place.

by Tom Smolka

The interface is mildly annoying at times but this product makes great videos for my students. One issue I have is the lack of tech support. I have reached out a few times about issues I was having and did not hear back. I am also perplexed by the lack of animated gif support within ExplainEverythingWhiteboard . Why can’t I use an animated gif if the native iOS can do that right in the preview window when adding the file? I have been screen recording the animations and then cropping them to insert. So many steps! Please fix this issue.

by Endtimemaiden

I bought ExplainEverythingWhiteboard thinking that it will be a great tool for creating videos on whiteboard but when I’m done it does not download. On the computer it downloads as a blank pdf that won’t open, on the iPad it gives me the options to export as video and others but it does not export, it is useless on the phone. I have no idea what is going on. Any help I’d appreciate or another app that actually upload as a videos

by Mister Sandhu

I don’t know where I would be without ExplainEverythingWhiteboard. I use Explain Everything on my iPad Pro during every class. With an Apple TV I’m able to project the notes as I take them in class, then I simply save the notes as a PDF and post them online. Also making videos is SUPER easy. Whenever I know I will be out, I just record a video of the notes and post the link on Google Classroom, the students never miss a beat. I highly recommend ExplainEverythingWhiteboard to all teachers, I originally read about it on a teacher blog and I’m extremely satisfied!

by JAWager

Explain everything is the best video creation app for teachers, or anyone who needs to create explanation or video tutorial videos. I use explain everything to make all of my explanation parts, and I save them to my photo library, and then use iMovie to put it all together for the final. It is so easy to use, and yet so complex, that as you want things, there is always a way to figure it out. School districts, and people are always showing you apps that work, They should stop at ExplainEverythingWhiteboard. It does it all.

by Jerjiggy

I am a wrestling coach and also a chemistry teacher. This time of the year is extremely busy for the wrestling team which means tons of traveling. ExplainEverythingWhiteboard not only allows me to provide lectures on the go but also assist with my students if they have problems. I love that I can also record lectures for absent students. I have tried boring PowerPoint presentation and even relied on the old school white board. This is the best of both worlds. My only complaint is that I wish I could use ExplainEverythingWhiteboard without the tools showing via chrome cast. Right now this feature is only available if I use the Apple TV. Other than that it is perfect!

by HeathCamSn

I looooooove ExplainEverythingWhiteboard!!!! As an elementary school teacher, works for every subject I teach. A thousand times better than Screencastify, which is good, and a million times better than trying to record anything via a document camera or webcam. I can take photos of workbook pages and mark in them. I can point to word in a book and record myself reading to teach fluency. I can video myself building a rectangular prism from dice to teach cubic volume. It is so easy to edit, insert, delete, add photos from the internet, add sound clips of music...I could go I and on.

Yes, it takes a bit of playing with to learn. But if I can do it, anyone can!

When or if we get back to the classroom, I may choose this over my document camera to teach lessons. How cool would it be to record my math lesson while I teach it, quickly pause when there's a disruption (or easily edit it out), upload to the internets, and give my kids access again when they go homework? Big fan here.

Good customer service too. If you are a teacher, give this a go!

by Cequalspid

There is a bit of a learning curve but when you get there you find a very flexible app. They continue to develop it which is great.
All in all, I’m on board.

**But one major annoyance is that it will randomly select the Eraser even though I never selected it. Yes, this happens purely with the Apple Pencil and no part of my hand, or anything else touching my iPad Pro screen. It interrupts the workflow, especially if you’re recording a video lesson.

Yes, the export to video takes too much time, hoping that improves.

**As the developer pointed out, it is the double tap feature, thank you.

Other thoughts:

Picking a pencil color doesn’t change the color options for other tools.

Being able to select a view that shows hidden objects without the need of the inspector tool which would be incredibly useful while recording. I’ve had to pause and figure out where I hid objects to be revealed during recording.

If using a microphone, automatically have it record in stereo. I’ve had to import the video to GarageBand and convert the mono to stereo.

Holding down an object doesn’t change it to Inspector view. Trying to move things around this happens and you have to go back to the selection tool.

Overall, a wonderful app!

by Miss.Jenn.86

ExplainEverythingWhiteboard is not intuitive and was such a pain when I was trying to do math collaboratively. The writing changes thickness when you zoom in or out, which is really annoying. Sometimes the eraser erases, sometimes not. Despite all that, ExplainEverythingWhiteboard is expensive!!! If you are trying to do work in real time, like tutor someone not close to you in math, don’t use ExplainEverythingWhiteboard. Just use Google Jamboard. It updates in real time, has a web application, and is free.

by Jsjsisndjdnd

App itself is great. You have many options to edit and customize your notes etc etc... I would recommend it in a heartbeat if they had a reasonable pricing option, like a onetime payment much lower than their 60$ a year. There are way too many apps on the market with the same, if not better functionality, that are MUCH lower in price and that are based on a more reasonable ONE TIME PAYMENT plan. Again, app is great, but something like Goodnotes gives you the same if not better functionality for a one time payment of 10$. You decide whats best for you.

by Milipida

The biggest problem with ExplainEverythingWhiteboard is that sometimes it doesn't save the projects. Imagine, I work on a project, spend 3-4 hours on it and forget to save- and in general it is necessary because it saves automatically. Next day- no project. I called for support and they didn’t help at all, just gave me general information. Sometimes information disappears even when you log out for a minute....

by Wafflez_gxng

Honestly, I think it’s good, but I have a problem. I work on chrome books at school and I can’t figure out how to edit a text. I have to put things in later on, so it’s hard when I don’t know how. It’s probably user error, but it’s easier on my phone. But my phone is really small compared to the computer so it’s hard

by PortareAF

I’ve used ExplainEverythingWhiteboard for years, and open and use it daily in my classroom. It has been a game changer for me and my students. However the latest update, while I do enjoy some of the visual updates find ExplainEverythingWhiteboard more cumbersome to use. Instead having direct access to my folders on my home screen I now have to tap over to library. Is that a big deal, no. But having to do that extra step several times a day becomes annoying. The new font and layout also shrink the titles of my projects so I can no longer can tell what I’m looking at without opening each one. I think these things can be fixed with a smaller font type and direct access to folders back on my home screen. But as I’ve learned with ExplainEverythingWhiteboard user feedback isn’t a top priority.

by Arte0

I’ve been using ExplainEverythingWhiteboard for a couple of months now and it’s been going very smoothly until the latest update or maybe it is an iOS 11 compatibility issue I have no clue , the thing is writing using the Apple pen has been delaying and letters coming out in a very not this fluid way as it used to be it’s like when you write a bit fast you can notice letters missing and not showing all out “like writing with a pen running out of ink” and thank you for a great tool fellas and hope you fix this out

by Parsa H.M

hi It’s a good writing app and I like it so much but unfortunately I have a problem with this and I appreciate you if you help me please . The problem is that I have your app on my Ipad Air 2 and I also have Adonit Pixel Stylus. I connect it to ExplainEverythingWhiteboard and everything’s good until when my hand touches the screen while i’m writing then words suddenly move. please help me to fix this.
🙏🏻❤️

by Bridges2tech

I love ExplainEverythingWhiteboard , it is essential for faculty who want to record and annotate their presentations. While the ever changing interface is job security for me as an instructional designer, it is supreme frustration for time crunched faculty. Keep the download to the device button in the same place so all of the late adopters can keep up.

by Student From Kazakhstan

Thank you guys, it’s a great app! Just downloaded it and feel pretty happy! One thing could be improved: the font-size changing +/- buttons(web-version), it’s not fun to click it many times, can it be more responsive when you hold it like the Zoom +/- buttons? Thanks.