The best tool for AI is Apple Pencil

As AI gets better at executing ideas, I am spending more time deliberating 'what?', 'how?', and 'why?' something should get built.

I have found myself investing more time in the earlier stages of the design process. Carefully organising my thoughts before I pass on my ideas to Claude/GPT/{insert your favourite model here}.

The tool stack I have found useful for this is:

iPad Pro + Apple Pencil + Freeform.

I can quickly sketch out my ideas, jotting down key concepts or concerns. You can purposefully focus on the speed of iteration, rapidly striking out any old ideas.

This process has brought back flow state to creating in the age of AI.

My high-level process:

1. Start with a blank canvas, or import existing screenshots, etc.
2. Scribble down ideas, thoughts, and wireframes.
3. Export the canvas as a PDF back to my MacBook.
4. Attach the PDF to my coding harness, referencing the parts to execute.

Of course, there are canvas tools that have MCP integrations (even Freeform has an unofficial MCP integration) which can allow you to skip step 3 above. I find the trade-off in time versus reliability acceptable here. I can quickly AirDrop the PDF to my Mac, and I prefer this as a manually enforced quality assurance check as I glance over the PDF one more time before using it as a reference.

Before this workflow, I genuinely only saw my iPad as a better YouTube consumption device (and excellent travel accessory). But with this sketch-to-idea workflow, I am beginning to rely more on the tool as a crucial step in my design process.

As AI continues to get better at execution, being able to step back and apply human creativity to real user problems is becoming more valuable. This is just one small way I am trying to do just that.