# Embroidery Design Doodler — user reviews > 40 indexed App Store user reviews of Embroidery Design Doodler by Dress Crest Embroidery Company Limited, rated 2.92/5 from 36 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/embroidery-design-doodler/id1532920648/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/embroidery-design-doodler/id1532920648.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 14 · 4★ 2 · 3★ 1 · 2★ 5 · 1★ 14 ## Newest reviews (14 of 40) ### 3/5 — Here’s the changes that I would love to see that would transform the usefulness & uniqueness *2026-05-09, version 1.2.6* The number one thing I noticed right away is the application wasn’t designed with the iPad in mind even thought it’s designed for use on the tablet. You spend $1000 on a tablet with amazing capabilities like the three touch gesture to undo or erase and the zoom in and out feature with the fingers. I can’t do this in my app I can’t even zoom out. Currently the only zoom out feature in the app is 1x1 but it won’t let me zoom out past that and it’s hard for bigger picture thinkers or when adjusting background image size and placement. The next super big dissatisfaction was everytime I save my project or have a project loaded and leave it in my iPad it will erase my background image used and doesn’t save. This was so incredibly frustrating that I spent my entire lunch break adjusting the photo I use for my background because it wasn’t aligning perfectly with my stitches and I couldn’t zoom out I had to use the hand move tool and try each side of the image to resize but with no luck…. And then of course if I spend my entire lunch adding my background photo I will have to do it again next time I open the app or project, so there’s currently no way to store my background images connected to my projects… I would also have liked to see the use of Apple Pencil Pro being used in the app. I would MUCH RATHER squeeze my pen to populate my brushes rather than take up a huge portion of real estate. The pencil can quickly bring up that menu of brushes so I don’t know why the app wasn’t programmed with Apple Pencil features…. Last but not least I can’t make the icons smaller. On desktop they’re big too but at least I can use cntrl + shft and scroll with the mouse to make smaller, however I have to live with the giant icons on the iPad because there is no way to make the layout change or smaller. ### 2/5 — License key lost *2025-07-23, version 1.2.6* I pretty much can’t use this app because I can’t find my license key ### 3/5 — $400 for an iPad app is crazy *2024-10-20* While I understand it’s not $400 just for this app, the only reason I would need the full software is to export files to PES. I’m not sure why it’s not possible to fully export from the iPad. This software, while cheap compared to other digitizing options, is priced too high for your growing niche, which won’t pay this absurd amount. Your regular niche doesn’t typically use iPads or a stylus. They’re still digitizing with a mouse. You have to address these two issues because the iPad app is targeting a completely different audience. Also, they keep announcing new software with a different company, without mentioning how long they’ll support this app. I don’t want to spend $400 on something that may not be around in a few months. The design doodler looks like a fantastic idea, but from a business perspective, it feels like the company is stuck in 1998. ### 2/5 — Need lot more work *2024-09-06, version 1.2.6* Crashes too much and not user friendly for app based. But have potential I’ll wait to see the future updates it’s just not ready yet, serious users, it really more for hobbyists. ### 2/5 — Stability issues *2024-05-26, version 1.2.4* I've been using this app now for a couple weeks on a iPad with the latest software and my PC. I have had constant freeze up and shut down problems with this app. It started with just using the reshaping tool so I stopped using it and now it does it using the tapering tool. It’s very frustrating to spend time on a project just to have all of it lost because it freezes up, there definitely needs to be a change in the software. I have been troubleshooting with the representative and neither of us can figure out what is happening. I have uninstalled and reinstalled it several times. It just seems to make it worse. As much as I love the potential for this app, I am at the point of hanging it up. I’m giving it two stars for the potential that it has and in the effort given to try and help figure things out but unless you save repeatedly after a couple of changes to your design, which is unrealistic, you lose everything the minute it shuts down on you. ### 2/5 — Great But When is the next app update. *2024-05-18* I would love them to incorporate: pinch and zoom Palm rejection If you double click on what stitches you just made, have the stitch settings pop up I’d love a color picker for the thread Different hoops Export to embroidery format (I digitize on the go and would love to export it in the file my machine takes or save it without needing a computer) then I can use my usb from my iPad to my embroidery machine. Auto saver would be nice too. I was really hoping the updates would have this stuff but he’s focused on just the PC version and forgotten about the app. Hatch is what everyone already uses for the PC. I paid for it just because of the app 400 dollars mind you a couple of years ago hoping he would actually update it but it seems like it was just a money grab. I was so excited but yeah. ### 1/5 — Marche pas *2024-02-25, version 1.2.3* Ne fonctionne pas l’application ne s’ouvre même pas ### 1/5 — Total überteuert *2024-02-22, version 1.2.3* Wenn du dein Design exportieren willst du muss 400€ Lizenz kaufen… ### 1/5 — Won’t stop crashing *2024-02-05, version 1.2.3* Every time I try to load anything into this for John Deer’s tutorials, the app force closes. Can’t do the trial or play with the app at all. Guess I won’t be buying anytime soon if I can’t try it first! ### 4/5 — Easy to use *2024-01-05* I use iPad Design Doodler most of the time and love it. The lessons are great. Being new, the one thing that would be so helpful is if the widget showed stitch and density sizes when you click on them. ### 2/5 — There’s nothing about this app that is worth $400…yet *2023-12-14, version 1.2.2* This is not a great program, but it’s not the worst thing ever. It just needs a lot of polishing to be considered a decent app. Buckle up because this is a long review. I’ve used both the desktop and app versions, and I would recommend just saving your money for a program like Hatch where you can do everything this app offers, plus tons more (and way better), at least until they give this version the work it needs. For this review, I’ll only discuss the iPad app from here on. I’ll start with the pros so my review isn’t entirely negative. Yes, the recent updates seemed to have fixed multiple crashing issues on iPad. The app was basically unusable for the longest time, so it’s nice that those have been fixed. The concept is also great, as I’m surprised we’ve gone this long without an embroidery/digitizing software (I know Deer doesn’t like to refer to it as a digitizing program, but that’s what you’re doing when using the app - converting an image into an embroidery file). I appreciate that there’s a variety of stitch types that work well with tablets, such as pressure sensitive and tapered. Finally, drawing in this app does feel really nice, especially with the Apple Pencil. With that said, time for the cons. To start, this app’s interface is ugly and outdated, despite being very new. It does not seem to be an app that was actually designed for tablets, but simply ported over without any thought on how design and drawing programs work. There are no swipe functions, which are literally the foundations of iPad apps. You can’t pinch to zoom in or pull to zoom out. You can’t use two fingers to pan around the board. Everything in this app, including zooming and panning, is put in a toolbar that goes around the screen, or in a menu. To zoom in, you can either use the “ratio zooms”, which are on the right side, then use the “pan” option (on the bottom toolbar) to pan around, or you can click the zoom option (bottom toolbar) and tap the screen, but if you want to zoom out after, you’ll have to go into a menu (right toolbar) and use a slider to zoom out again. To change the properties of anything (your embroidery, the photo you’re digitizing, aforementioned zoom, etc) you have to make sure everything is deselected, select the thing you want to change, click the “properties” menu, and change it there. So you’re constantly clicking around the toolbar or in menus trying to get the most basic actions done. There’s constant issues with the color palettes. I’m not sure if they simply haven’t added all the thread colors in, but for a lot of brands, the palette doesn’t work, or doesn’t “register” that you’ve changed a color. A quality check, to make sure everything in the app is working as it should every single time, would be very beneficial. Overall, there are free apps that are better designed that this, and that’s extremely disappointing because this app does have a lot of potential, and it’s very disappointing that you have to spend $400 to see that. Deer, I know you’re the one of the oldest embroidery companies and have set the standards for embroidery and digitizing for decades, but your technological side is extremely lacking. I think if you were to work with experienced iPad app developers, especially with drawing and design experience, to make this a real embroidery design app, it could very easily be worth $400, or even more. But it’s just not there yet. Look at an app like Affinity Designer (a cheaper, but still high quality program that is similar to Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop), which has a desktop version AND an iPad version that are exactly alike, but work to each device’s strengths for an example of how to translate a desktop program to an iPad app. ### 4/5 — Version 1.2.2 Solid Running *2023-12-08* The newest update has conquered several bugs including what seemed to be frozen screens due to rendering and redrawing on the iPad. I have smooth drawing even with the use of a 3rd party (cheap) Apple Pencil wanna-be. It’s only drawback is the background art is not retained with the stitch info file but this is due to the limitations of the iPad since the PC program does not have this limitation. Easily sidestepped by taking a screenshot of your art properties at the resized value you decide upon when beginning. ### 4/5 — Has great potential *2023-11-24, version 1.2.2* I feel that in time this will be a spectacular tool. Has a learning curve, but watched the video and I understand where this is going. Patience as long as there are updates available often for IPad. The ability to try and view tutorials is valuable. Will amend when I get a hang of this and actually buy the program ### 1/5 — Not worth $300! *2023-11-15, version 1.2.2* Sadly, this program was over sold on hype. Needs a lot of work but has potential. Maybe it will improve but until then, it’s an uninstall and maybe later. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Can’t launch *2026-06-24, version 1.2.6* App won’t even open…. Great first impression lol Yes,the iPad software up to date. ### 1/5 — Unusable *2025-10-23, version 1.2.6* So glitchy i can’t even use it. I can zoom in, and can’t zoom out. The controls don’t really make sense. Resizing sucks because i can’t do precise measurements. ### 1/5 — Crashes too much *2024-12-05, version 1.2.6* I am new to this and thought this was a great app but it crashes far too much especially when it comes to the end ### 1/5 — Gelöscht *2024-07-04, version 1.2.4* 400 okken sagen die hier in den Kommentaren ### 1/5 — KOSTET GELD *2024-06-18, version 1.2.4* Viel zu teuer. 400€ ### 1/5 — Inutile *2024-05-30, version 1.2.4* L’application ne fonctionne même pas ### 1/5 — Bummed *2024-05-07, version 1.2.4* Was really looking forward to using this but the app will not load. ### 1/5 — Crashing *2024-05-03, version 1.2.4* App will not load, it was a total waste of money. It crashes before you can even get it to load even with the update. ### 1/5 — won’t even open *2024-05-03, version 1.2.4* it isn’t obviously stated in the App Store that this app doesn’t actually work… I tried loading it/opening it multiple times and it will not work on my iPad Pro… useless. ### 1/5 — Waste of time *2024-03-22, version 1.2.4* Need a license number in order to save files from my iPad. It's a shame because I already own a digitizing software on my PC (PE Design Plus 2). ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Love it! *2024-02-03, version 1.2.3* It is so much fun! ### 5/5 — Fun and easy *2024-01-05, version 1.2.3* I love this app! It is so easy to draw or trace and then watch your artwork sew out on your embroidery machine. Trace your child’s or grandchild’s artwork and sew it on something they can wear. They will be so proud to show their own work or, better yet, let them draw on the IPad and watch you sew it out for them. I recommend this app just for fun. ### 5/5 — I love this program! *2024-01-05, version 1.2.3* You can start off by making simple outlined designs or with a bit more work you can make appliqué designs or fill your designs in with stitches. I have yet to reach its limitations with my creations! I love how easy it is for my grandkids to use. They like to outline pics that I download to my computer for them, stitch them out on my embroidery machine, color them with inktense pencils, blend the colors with water or a medium, and then give to me to iron in order to make their colors permanent. The sky it the limit! They can make so many things out of their creations….pillows, birthday cards, coasters, book covers,…..and the list goes on! We are having so much fun creating our masterpieces in Design Doodler! ### 5/5 — Design Doodler *2024-01-05, version 1.2.3* I have had so much fun with this app. I never thought I’d really want to digitize anything on my own. With this app I’m discovering that it is easy and fun. The support and lessons have been fantastic! Everyone is very helpful and encouraging. They answer questions in a timely manner and will also direct you to where you can locate the answers in the user’s guide or the information found on the facebook page. My only drawback is that I got tired of borrowing my husband’s PC to transfer my “doodles” from my iPad to my machine format that I also bought myself a PC. Now I have a PC, an IPad and a MacBook. ### 5/5 — Stability and Ease of Use *2024-01-05, version 1.2.3* It’s been 14 months since this program/app has been released and there have been several updates over the past 6-8 months which have greatly enhanced the experience of using the iPad to create embroidery designs with the artistic flair that is hard to achieve elsewhere. By simply choosing your stitch style, fill style, underlay, etc. and using the pencil or even your finger on the screen, you can easily sketch as simple or complex a design. With the new auto-save feature, a whole new stitch engine, and almost limitless choice of stitch and motif stitches including a fully personalized option for creating Appliqué types, you’ll be designing and stitching in no time at all. This Free App is a nice companion to the full featured Windows PC Program allowing you to sit and design anywhere, send your designed file to your PC and convert it to the file type your Embroidery machine or even Long-Arm Quilting machine. Yes, it converts to almost all long arm formats! Within this short amount of time, and with all of the feedback, the developers have been able to get the updates synchronized between both the PC Version as well as the iPad app so that the tools and features stay the same across both platforms. Keep in mind, this is a Companion App for the full Windows Program which is required to be able to actually convert your designs into stitch files for your machine. You cannot just create a machine file with only the iPad app. ### 5/5 — Love it! *2023-11-10, version 1.2.2* There was a little bit of a learning curve, but I have to say I love using this it’s more like drawing or painting. I like the fact that everything I have created with it is not overly dense and I can import these into hatch. ### 5/5 — Best Doodling Tool for Embroidery Projects *2023-07-30, version 1.1.1* Very impressive software, loads of useful features to create embroidery designs on the go. Worth every dollar! ### 5/5 — Fantastic Embroidery Tool *2023-06-20* Both my Granddaughter and I are throughly enjoying the Design Doodler! Instead of jotting ideas on a note pad, I can simply open the Design Doodler App and sketch away! Thank you for all the hard work you put into making this possible. And especially for lessons provided, I find them all very encouraging! ### 5/5 — I can finally create machine embroidery designs on my iPad! *2023-05-29, version 1.1.1* I love this app. Yes, I also needed to buy the Windows App for roughly $400, but is worth every penny! This app gives me the flexibility to create my own designs from my iPad or my laptop. It is easy to use and tons of fun. There is also a great Facebook group that provides a resource for help, how to guides, and inspiration. I struggled to learn how to digitize embroidery designs because my time to sit at my laptop is limited. This app, whether for iPad or Windows, takes the guesswork out of digitizing. I get to enjoy the creative process and fantastic stitched results, without having to worry about the details behind a digitized design. If you are serious about creating your own designs, consider this app. ### 5/5 — Design doodler *2023-01-16* I love this program ,I have the other software and I’ve spent hours drawing and then stitching stuff out on my machine. Lots to learn so more fun to com --- *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 2026-07-25.*