# Animation Desk® Ultimate — user reviews

> 160 indexed App Store user reviews of Animation Desk® Ultimate by Kdan Mobile Software LTD, rated 4.00/5 from 299 ratings.

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/animation-desk-ultimate/id1152147166/reviews
- App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/animation-desk-ultimate/id1152147166.md
- Rating breakdown: 5★ 170 · 4★ 52 · 3★ 27 · 2★ 14 · 1★ 36

## What do users think of Animation Desk® Ultimate?

Overall sentiment: neutral

**Pros**

- 👍 Good for beginners/amateurs
- 🎨 Decent set of brushes and tools
- 💯 Excellent for frame-by-frame animation
- 🎥 Useful for creating storyboards and rough animations

**Cons**

- 🐛 Frequent crashes and bugs
- 🔍 Laggy and unresponsive at times
- 🎨 Drawing tools lack precision and smoothness
- 🔀 Issues with layer management and frame duplication
- 💰 Expensive for the current feature set

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Frames randomly disappearing or getting corrupted
- Layers merging unexpectedly or not behaving as expected
- Crashes when trying to import certain media files
- Onion skin and playback issues causing problems

**Most requested features**

- Add more brush customization options
- Improve the timeline and layer management tools
- Implement a better undo/redo system
- Allow importing and syncing of audio for lip-syncing
- Provide more export options beyond just video

## Newest reviews (16 of 160)

### 3/5 — It’s alright, but with serious issues

*2024-09-06*

Personally this is the second animation app I’ve used and I’m quite underwhelmed. Many of the tools I use don’t function in a way that I can quite get comfortable with. The pencil tool is fine, but the pen no matter what I do always fluctuates and is only smooth for a few seconds. 
Also all my work got deleted and replaced with one empty frame so I’m quite annoyed by that
Extra things:
I cannot understand the settings for the different brushes, like seriously it’s all gibberish to me

### 3/5 — Sigue con el error

*2024-08-20, version 4.4.3*

Sigue el error donde se duplica el dibujo al cambiar de capas o de cuadro, no puedo trabajar con la app

### 3/5 — Buggy

*2024-01-27, version 4.4.1*

Getting a weird reflection. The frames are superimposed with a flipped image of one of the frames. Impossible to use.

### 3/5 — Animation Desk is glitchy

*2022-11-18, version 4.3.0*

After 400+ frames, my animation started to corrupt its later frames. At first, I thought it was only affecting newer frames, but not only is Animation Desk not letting me progress past Frame 447 without deleting the later frames, one of my other earlier frames had its Layer 1 replaced by Frame 447’s Layer 1.

Be careful of your animations

### 4/5 — Exelente app para los que les gusta animar

*2022-06-09, version 4.1.8*

Exelente para los que les gusta hacer animaciones a mano

### 4/5 — Monthly subscription charge

*2022-05-20*

I don't do subscriptions

**Developer response:** Hi Steve, there are some error in the price table display. We have fixed it in v9.1.7. Thank you for reporting this issue.

### 3/5 — Eh

*2022-04-15, version 4.1.4*

It’s a pretty good tool, but it fully deletes some of the frames sometimes, or replaces some frames with other frames from a completely different part.  You can not get the back after that happens and I am very traumatized.

### 3/5 — Laggy and buggy

*2022-01-21*

It’s a slog to use and feels clunky. You’ll be drawing a line and have it take a split second for it to register. Flipping between panels isn’t all that great either, It keeps getting stuck between the first and second panel when trying to click on panel 1. A prompt keeps popping up to tell me something about my apple pencil and then disappears before I can even read whatever non-issue I have. It’s a serviceable animation application, honestly it’s probably the best one on IPad, but it is in serious need of patches and work before it would even be remotely worth $20.

**Developer response:** Hello there, thanks for your feedback. We're sorry for any difficulties you experienced with the app. It would be appreciated if you could help us to understand more about your situation. Would you mind providing us with screenshots/screen-recording videos of the process and your files? Feel free to send us the information at helpdesk@kdanmobile.com for further assistance.

### 2/5 — Good idea, bad execution. Not recommended.

*2021-12-27, version 4.1.3*

I see the good intentions behind the app, we have layers, onion skin, a flippantly timeline. Lots of potential. 

The disappointment happens when we start animating. 

- copy/paste system is super bureaucratic, it is very easy to lose your selection. One extra button to “stamp” a selection is a bad idea. Please make it more like the industry standard (photoshop, Toonboom, procreate).

- the timeline flipping slides too much, it is too hard to flip quickly between drawings and stop at one specific frame. The moment I touch the pen on a drawing it should lock on that frame. 

- flipping between frames is laggy, it should be real time (iPad Pro 2019)

- the brush has no stabilizer, lines often get super jaggy

- palm detection doesn’t work, my hands are constantly drawing little lines on the corners of the frame. That doesn’t happen on procreate.

- playback often stops working and only plays half of the animation

- frames randomly disappear, this is a very irritating glitch. The autosaving system makes everything worse. 

- it is impossible to copy one frame from one project to another project. 

- when I try to alternate between the selection tool and the brush tool it keeps opening the brushes menu

- onion skin colour scheme is the opposite of every other software in the industry. Green should be next frame, red previous frame. Subverting that was an awful idea. At least let the user change the colour scheme.

- please add an option to temporarily move and overlap the drawings using the light table pins on the interface. It is an essential move for inbetweening. 

- the ‘undo’ system is not reliable. Please let me undo steps like deleting an entire layer. 

- I couldn’t find a way to delete multiple frames with one command. 

- when I start drawing a line outside the canvas to the center of the screen the software doesn’t register it.

### 1/5 — Garbage

*2021-11-22, version 4.1.1*

If I could give 0 stars I would and I payed 20 dollars but the lines don’t even follow my Apple Pencil

### 1/5 — Newest update is a mess, cannot open the app.

*2021-11-01, version 4.1.0*

iPad app is not completely unusable. It crashes, freezes. It cannot do anything.Support is not responding to my emails. I have 16gb worth of animation that I cannot access

### 1/5 — This App could end me

*2021-10-01*

You never really know if the project you were working on will be there. I frequently lose hours of progress on projects as frames just randomly disappear. This app is actually dangerous for my mental health because I have high stress projects that just suddenly disappear and that level of stress is something I can’t bare anymore. I guess I’ll have to get rid of this app and find something I can actually rely on before I get an aneurysm.

### 1/5 — Crash Crash Crash

*2021-09-11, version 4.0.9*

I paid 14 dollars and have had nothing but difficulty.  The app freezes and crashes more than it works.  I would like a refund but don’t know if that’s even an option

### 2/5 — Bugs ohne Ende

*2021-08-22*

Probleme mit der Darstellung der Layer. 
Layer ausgeblendet, trotzdem laufen sie beim abspielen mit.
Layer nicht bearbeitbar, weiße Fläche statt Bild.
App wirkt überfordert mit 8 Layer bei einem iPad Pro 2021.
Audiofunktion ist schwach.
Zoom ist begrenzt.
App hängt sich oft auf.
Und noch einiges mehr.
Leider nichts besseres im Appstore gefunden.

### 1/5 — I can’t figure out how to use it

*2021-05-15*

None of the controls are labeled, there are no tutorial about how to creat a new animation, I apparently cannot create a new story board at all. I feel like I wasted my money because I can’t figure out how to use the app. I tried to google instructions but the demos are not the controls that I see within the app and I don’t know how to get to those controls. What a complete waste of money. It took me like 20 minutes to figure out how to use onion skin to guide the next frame but then the color got darker over the previous drawing. I’m just extremely frustrated at this point

### 1/5 — Poor design

*2021-04-13, version 4.0.5*

Ive used a fair number of drawing, illustration and animation apps over many years ... this app is just confusing, tools don’t work the way you would think, selections, copying and pasting is just strangely designed.  Very little works the way one would expect.

## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated)

### 1/5 — 私にとって作業効率化できないアプリ

*2025-06-08*

固まると、ドローイングが消える。選択範囲を囲っている時にアプリが落ちると、ドローイングが消える。
このようなことは、少なくとも私は、他の真っ当なイラストのアプリでは体験したことがないです。
はっきり言って3000円もするクオリティではないように思います。修正してほしいです。

### 1/5 — It’s too glitchy to use

*2023-11-23, version 4.4.1*

More often than not I get a weird glitch where whatever layer I select mirrors itself. It makes animating impossible and the app unusable. What a shame, I was really looking forward to using it. I want a refund.

### 1/5 — So disapointed and angry

*2023-07-03*

i bought the pro version, sorry people but it's not finished.it basically can alone remove drawing, then alone decides to copy/paste OVER the previous frame, sometimes replace it, it flips them and all that listen carefully: with NO UNDO POSSIBLE. I precise I make no bad move, Im a pro and used to animate. I try many projects over this app and coudlln't go further than 2 frames it can in ONE MOVE completely screw ure project. I had many frames replaced by further ones, with I repeat: NO UNDO POSSIBLE. a false move over the timeline by left-right sliding with your hand, and ure drawing is duplicate and flipped, with NO UNDO POSSIBLE! ure layer is unusable, u have to redraw everything. sometimes color in blue some lines, not all, when it decides ...I just want to storyboard though... cant imagine animate complex scenes with it. EWWW

**Developer response:** Hello there. Sorry for the inconvenience. We'd like to understand more about your situation. Would you mind providing us with screenshots/screen-recording videos of the process and your ad.package file? Feel free to send us the information at helpdesk@kdanmobile.com for further assistance. Additionally, you can submit your issues to us by clicking on 'Send Bug Report' from the settings in app. Thank you!

### 1/5 — 閃退

*2023-03-17, version 4.3.4*

哀鳳11 ，前面沒問題後面要傳影片去用會一直閃退

### 1/5 — Crashs all the time

*2023-01-07*

It Crashs all the time

**Developer response:** Hello, there are several reasons that may cause the issue. To understand more about your situation, could you please provide your app version, device name/version, OS system, the screenshots of the issue you mentioned and contact us at helpdesk@kdanmobile.com? We'd be happy to assist you. Thank you.

### 1/5 — Really bad

*2022-06-24, version 4.2.0*

Do yourself a favor and just use Flipaclip. It’s software is actually competent and the premium upgrade for it costs half as much as this bad app.

### 1/5 — Sehr schlecht…

*2022-05-18*

Das ist das Schlechteste Animation App die ich gesehen habe…und noch so teuer..

### 1/5 — Wonderful design, corrupts animations after creation.

*2022-04-03, version 4.1.4*

No matter how nice the software is to use, it seems to randomly corrupt layered animations.  Frames just seem to get swapped or go missing or even deleted without any warning.

No idea if it’s a data or interface issue, but it’s fatal for anything more than a toy.

### 1/5 — Don’t get ripped

*2022-04-02, version 4.1.4*

I wanted their best apps to review and compare against the field…didn’t notice the ultimaate till inside the already purchased apps…I sucked it up and went for the ultimate bundle and accident.y chose a 3pack instead of the 4…so another overpay and hours wasting time with an uncaring or poorly programmed support bot. Get adobe cc and any of a million apps free that will serve you better than this obvious plan to gradually trim your pockets sans added value of commensurate worth.

### 1/5 — Premium No Longer - HARD PASS

*2022-03-15*

This was previously a premium app that you could buy. Now, though, it’s chock full of in-app purchases and subscriptions. Literally zero difference from the free, standard version. Disgusting and shameful. 

There are tons of better premium animation apps available on the App Store - Folioscope, Animation Creator (the premium version), Flipaklip, etc.

I see no reason at all to rent this app and waste money every month on it,  when there are so many better options available for one single price each. To each their own but I refuse to rent my applications. Especially ones with so little changing and new content. Shameful.

**Developer response:** Hello, Thanks for your comment. We are sorry for your unsatisfactory experience. Could you please let us know which part you did not enjoy, or is not user-friendly? With your suggestions, we may be able to optimize and improve our service to provide a better user experience. Thank you.

## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated)

### 5/5 — Good but I got bored

*2025-10-24, version 4.4.7*

It’s not that it’s bad but I don’t use it much because I’m horrible at drawing on my phone

### 5/5 — It is good.

*2023-12-01*

Five stars

**Developer response:** Thank you for your support! We're glad you like Animation Desk. Enjoy your day :)

### 5/5 — Game is sooo fun

*2021-02-22, version 4.0.5*

First of all you get to make so cute and fun animations and plus there are stuff to teach you and it can make super cute animations that’s why I think others should get this game

### 5/5 — 我的动画桌app无法启动了

*2021-02-18*

我的是2017款的iPad pro ，不知道为什么我的动画桌app无法启动。启动就是空白画面，然后就会退出

### 5/5 — Sehr schön

*2020-08-14*

Ich hatte mit der app schon viel spaß und konnte innerhalb von 3 tagen ungefähr 10 Animationen erstellen. Die animierten Storyboards sind häufig nützlich ( damit erstelle ich die größeren Projekte ). Die Pinsel sind sehr angenehm da sie genau das anzeigen was ich gezeichnet habe. Deswegen ( und noch vielen anderen Faktoren ) bekommt diese super schöne Animations - App 5 Sterne von mir.

**Developer response:** Hello, thank you for your good review, we really appreciate it.

### 5/5 — 很长时间没用了，使用了一下改进很大。

*2020-03-06*

向开发者反馈一个问题。为什么所有图层里面不能把背景去掉呢？想做gif的表情包，背景是透明的，就没法实现。这么功能强大的一款软件，怎么没有开放这种功能呢？能做透明背景的gif图，应该是很多人的需求吧。

**Developer response:** 亲爱的用户您好：因为考虑多段动画合并的情况（动态分镜表），我们需要多一些时间研究GIF背景透明的执行方式，谢谢您的反馈，我们会再重新评估这项功能。

### 5/5 — Amazing! 5 stars

*2020-01-08, version 3.9.5*

Helps me to get vids done or vid sketches. I a amazing app

### 5/5 — Very nice app, but audio can be tricky.

*2020-01-06*

This app is very nice and easy to use. I love to animate on it because of all the brushes you can use and the good animating options available, but I personally would like to have easier audio settings and tools. Lip-syncing in animations or making animated music videos can be very difficult to do since you have to import the audio from files, and you cant change it after you’ve imported it. I feel like in order for this app to be fully “ultimate”, it should have an option to add and edit audio/voiceovers WHILE making animations. For instance, you can have an audio timeline that goes along with an animation timeline so you can hear your audio while you’re animating. So yeah. Developers, please work on this :/

also plz make the two fingers for undo and three fingers for redo shortcut a thing. It’s very helpful.

### 5/5 — 如果可以有荧光笔或喷笔

*2019-05-31*

如果可以有荧光笔或喷笔，就是可以画霓虹灯效果的笔就更好了。能多加一些笔吗？

### 5/5 — Super

*2019-05-04, version 3.3*

Awesome app, color and tools of quality.
I would add an option to select the projects like on a story board instead of flipping them because it is long to flip from the first to the last - and search by key words also... and on the french version it is 650$ month or 74$ per year... it is very funny mistake 🤪

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-25.*