# Explain Everything Basics — user reviews > 51 indexed App Store user reviews of Explain Everything Basics by Promethean Ltd., rated 4.65/5 from 5,990 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/explain-everything-basics/id431493086/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/explain-everything-basics/id431493086.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 4,881 · 4★ 659 · 3★ 161 · 2★ 67 · 1★ 222 ## What do users think of Explain Everything Basics? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🚀 Works well for remote/online teaching - 👍 Useful for creating instructional videos - 👍 Great whiteboard and presentation tool - 👍 Allows for easy recording and sharing of lessons **Cons** - 🐛 Recent updates have caused issues and crashes - 🐛 Recording and playback features can be buggy - 🔧 Layout and formatting changes have made it worse - 🔧 Mute button placement can cause accidental muting **Commonly reported bugs** - Files freezing or crashing on opening - Scrolling through search results causes crashes - Recording stops when adding new pages - Text input issues with letters disappearing **Most requested features** - Improve shape recognition and drawing tools - Add support for math equation recognition - Provide more customization options for the interface - Improve integration with cloud storage platforms ## Newest reviews (16 of 51) ### 4/5 — Works well, but updates make it worse *2023-04-07* This was a game changer during the pandemic! I used this program every day for 4 chemistry classes in a row. Each lecture was live and recorded, then uploaded as a video and pdf for my students. I loved it!!! Then, changes in the layout and object formatting tools made it so much worse! I wish I could reverse the changes and just go back to what worked well, without the updates. **Developer response:** We are sorry to hear that! Could you please contact support@explaineverything.com and share your experience with us? We'd like to understand how we can improve our app and we would also be more than happy to help to solve any problem you are experiencing! ### 4/5 — Great stuff, one problem *2021-04-14, version 6.4.4* I teach Elementary. I love whiteboard apps and this one is pretty awesome. Requires some basic editing skills. However I haven’t figured out how to keep a recording of me going when I add a new page. Other apps allow you to keep recording when you add a slide or scroll over. This one seems to stop recording. I want to keep recording video but be able to clean the background without physically erasing every equation. Is there something I am missing? I’m using the offline version if that makes a difference **Developer response:** Hi! For us to better understand the problem, could you please contact support@explaineverything.com and provide us with more information? ### 5/5 — Best APP for distance learning *2020-11-14, version 6.2.7* I have been using this APP for several years to provide math instruction for my students. During remote instruction, this APP has become invaluable! It allows me to quickly upload pictures of my students work, and provide written and verbal feedback. My students love it! They say the verbal feedback really helps them understand their mistakes or their thinking, and lets them now how they can improve. **Developer response:** Hi - thank you for sharing this with us! We are so glad to hear that you and your students enjoy Explain Everything! ### 5/5 — Loved it before, love it now *2020-10-01, version 6.2.4* I teach at the graduate level, and long before the pandemic, I tried every app I could find for use as a virtual whiteboard. I can’t judge its more advanced capabilities compared to other apps, because I just use it exactly like I would use a physical whiteboard: I write, draw, erase, and write again. This app does those things in a very straightforward manner and gives me the same choices that markers do - I pick the color, I pick the thickness, and that’s about all the fancy my brain can handle in the middle of class. I prefer live whiteboards over “presentation slides” because students seem to learn more from words that I write in front of them in real-time than they do from pre-prepared presentation slides. When education went online for the pandemic, I stuck with what already worked. It still works. **Developer response:** Hi - thank you for sharing your opinion! We really appreciate it and we are happy to hear that Explain Everything helps you in this difficult time! ### 5/5 — Videos for students *2020-08-23, version 6.2* This is the best app to make videos for students in education. Record only for each slide, use whiteboard demos, cut in videos you recorded else where, or even simple animation! ### 3/5 — Video can take forever to process on Google Drive *2020-04-03, version 5.5.15* I have come to accept an hour as the typical amount of time to process a 10 minutes video, but 2 days was too much. This extra long processing time is only some time, but not having consistency is not a good thing also. When the app works, it is great. ### 5/5 — Now more than ever *2020-03-24, version 5.5.14* With schools moving to a flexible learning format because of COVID-19 I am very grateful for this app. The ability to load the videos I create directly to Schoology is incredibly helpful. I still have trouble impeding videos, but overall it is much smoother than other programs I have used. I purchased this several years ago and use it now more than ever. **Developer response:** Thank you so much for taking out the time to share your feedback! We are happy to know that you found our app useful. If there’s anything we can do to make learning with Explain Everything even greater experience for you, please let us know. ### 5/5 — Remote education essential *2020-03-22, version 5.5.13* Suddenly covid 19 has moved explain everything from a nice presentation tool to my primary tool for instruction. I've used explain everything for years to record lectures from my math class for students who are absent. I'm now thankful for the practice! I am now continuing to use the presentation that is available from the publisher we use. Students are used to me writing the solutions onto the prepared problems. **Developer response:** Thank you so much for taking out the time to share your feedback! We truly love hearing that Explain Everything is being actively used in your school. If there’s anything we can do to make learning with Explain Everything even greater experience for you, please let us know! ### 5/5 — Love it but *2020-03-12, version 5.5.12* Originally I gave only 4 stars because of a problem I had with the placement of the mute button. The developer wrote to tell me the very easy fix for this issue. I’m super happy and also more inclined to check the setting available to customize the app to my needs. ### 4/5 — Mute button placement *2020-03-08, version 5.5.12* I love this app; it’s so convenient to make tutorial videos for my students! However, I wish there were options to either lock the microphone settings to either “always on” or “always mute.” Or even provide a way to move or hide the button. The placement of the mute button has caused me to, on several occasions, record about 10-20 minutes of video without me noticing my palm hitting the microphone mute on accident. That’s my only complaint! My students love it! **Developer response:** Thank you for leaving a review! If you're experiencing issues with the Recording bar at the bottom of your screen, I recommend moving it to the top. You can do this by going to the Main Menu '...' in the top right corner - Settings - General - Control Bar alignment - Top. We hope this helps! ### 4/5 — Lovely app *2019-11-19, version 5.5.2* This app can do such a wide variety of things very well. It only gets a ding because I wish there was a way to hide the record button until it’s needed. My students (especially those in grades below 4) often hit it and then struggle to delete the junk they accidentally recorded in order to record what they want. ### 5/5 — Explain Everything has been a lifesaver *2019-10-27, version 5.5* Explain Everything has allowed me to make videos for my class without having to schedule studio time. I am able to work on my time from home or the office. great App ### 5/5 — WOW!!! *2019-10-08, version 5.4.7* What an absolutely wonderful app/program! This developer did an amazing job developing a program that answers all the needs of professionals, teachers, and students! TAKE THE TIME TO WATCH THE VIDEOS that the developer has created to teach you how to use the app. Like any great tool, you must put the time into learning how to use that tool. I’m still watching videos and every time I use this app, I’m learning new gems hidden inside!!! To the Developer: Thank you for your creation! It has allowed me to improve the productivity and revenue of my business drastically. I’m looking forward to all your new updates and new products that you may create in the future! **Developer response:** Thank you so much for sharing your feedback! We're very happy to hear that our app has helped your productivity and revenue. We are working on adding more tools - so stay tuned ;) ### 5/5 — Excellent app you can use this in so many ways *2019-08-19, version 5.4.6* This app was the best interactive whiteboard ever. I bought the paid version. Suddenly it became an unpaid version and asked me for monthly subscriptions!!!!! Greedy sods% BOYCOTTED FOR CHARGING A ONE TIME PAYMENT THEN REMOVING OWNERSHIP AND GOING FOR THE TRENDING GREEDY MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION CON. MAY THIS COMPANY FALL INTO OBLIVION FOR THEIR GREED quote the company “Explain EDU is the original Explain Everything app, created back in 2011 for iOS systems only. It is available as a one-time purchase and features the whiteboarding tools you know and love. After the one-time payment, you do not need to subscribe to keep using it. However, please note that it does not have all the features of Explain Everything Whiteboard.“ One time payment? LIARS!!!!! **Developer response:** Hi, we are very sorry to hear that you've experienced such a problem! Please rest assured that no subscription is required to access the features of Explain EDU. You should not receive any pop-ups saying that you need to subscribe in order to use the app. Please contact us at support@explaineverything.com and help us to fix this issue. ### 5/5 — Great *2019-04-10, version 5.3.9* This is great! I am enjoying it a lot. I have been using it for a while now. Initially I had trouble with cutting and pasting. But you guys seem to be constantly improving it, and now I don’t have that problem. Now the app seems to have all the flexibility I need. One little problem: sometimes it has trouble saving it. If you close the app before saving it properly, it seems like you can never recover from that. It seems to keep a version that cannot be deleted. I am sure there is a way, but I haven’t figured out yet. Another little problem: when you cut and paste, and then erase part of it, the edges seem to show up on the pdf transcript. Other than these, I like it! **Developer response:** Thank you for sharing your feedback! Would you mind contacting us at support@explaineverything.com with more details about the problem with saving your projects? We're also happy to let you know that we are working on getting rid of the visible edges! The fix should appear in our next update. ### 5/5 — Great App for Teaching *2019-03-13, version 5.3.7* This app has changed the way I teach and I love it! I use Apple TV and am able to project what I need and then work from my iPad while walking around the room. It is perfect for my teaching needs. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Horrible. I hate this app *2021-09-11, version 6.5.5* If I could get my money back I would. It doesn’t accept typing. I’m sitting here typing letters and they vaporize in front of my eyes. The text moves on the screen and zooms for no apparent reason. I now hold the stylus vertically with my hand writing in the most awkward non-natural way ever. This makes my hand-writing horrible. Use Educreations instead. It’s with ten times the price of this crap. ### 1/5 — Recent Updates Destroyed Files *2019-01-29, version 5.3* I used the app for a long while without problems. The last several updates have been gradually destroying my files. I’ve tried to be patient in hopes they could perfect this app since it is generally quite useful when it functions. The most recent update causes the app to crash when I attempt to open specific files and folders. Reinstall and restore did not help. At this point, the latest app version caused the loss of ~30+ files in one swoop. Given the trend, I’m losing confidence in this developer. When scrolling through search function results, app crashes. Still no response from “support” regarding any of these issues but plenty of “updates” that seem to be more like “downgrades” in usability. Good opportunity for a more qualified, customer focused, competitor. ### 1/5 — Newest update *2018-12-03, version 5.2.6* Why change the order of the toolbar? I keep clicking the add an image button when trying to resize my drawings. All these changes hurt the users experience😡😡😡😡. Last update brought the changes to the add new slide feature. I still wish you would undo this change as well. I don't want to select which type of slide each time I want a new blank slide. Looking for a better app if anyone knows of one. ### 1/5 — They’ve ruined this app *2018-09-17, version 5.1.1* This used to be one of the most useful apps for recording lectures, but this last update destroyed everything 5at was good about it. The toolbars obscure way too much, the videos take too long to convert, they don’t make it easy to export anything to a computer to edit, you can add blank white pages wi5out screwing up the flow of a lecture. I’ve wasted more time with this than it’s worth. I’ll be looking for a new lecture tool since this is practically useless. ### 1/5 — App Changes Name, Icon, and adds subscriptions every update. *2018-03-11, version 5.0.3* I have never seen an app change its name and icon so many times, it seems like every update it's a new icon, new name, new subscription added, etc. it was a paid app. Not our fault you screwed up with your business model off the grip. We paid for it with a single payment. If you want to get greedy charge the new people who buy it now. It's not our fault you didn't have the forethought when you first made the app. Don't blame us for your stupid business decisions. ### 1/5 — Writing not responding *2017-10-11, version 4.2.2* I loved this app until the last update. Now writing/drawing doesn’t register fast enough, so even when working excessively slower words and drawings do not turn out as intended. Only the end of the touch is registered, so only the bottom half of a number will appear when writing a simple number. Writing one word takes multiple tries for it to appear normal and it can only be done very slowly. It is impossible to now make videos if you need to write or draw anything while recording. ### 1/5 — Confusing interface *2017-10-05, version 4.2.2* We tried to use this app and it has a very confusing interface- we were constantly trying to figure out how to do very basic drawing and fill functions, and many tools are “hidden”. It would help if there was a VERY basic tutorial on the primary tools, how to find them and how to use them. Most tutorials that exist now assume we know the basics and that is a big problem as to why we do not use this app very much. Lots of potential (would live to see this and Apple Keynote or Pages combine functionality), but this has been hard to use. ### 2/5 — Recording is difficult *2020-08-17, version 6.1.2* I used this app for a while and the recordings were great but now for some reason when I hit record it puts a frame on my screen that limits what my students can see while I’m writing and it makes it harder for them to follow along with the notes. This is a bummer because I have enjoyed using this app but now I need to find some thing new. ### 2/5 — Broken Drive integration, learning to use is a big time investment *2019-04-28, version 5.3.9* I have been trying to get it together to use this app to make a presentation for ages because it has great reviews. Maybe I just don’t get it, but it seems like each step to illustrate takes me forever to figure out and I’ve had it wipe out work I’ve done several times. The worst offense, though, is that now that I’ve got to the point where I want to insert educational drawings saved in my Google Drive, the integration with Drive is broken. I go to insert a File and it just spins endlessly. I’ve wasted hours in this app trying to learn how to use it and now can’t finish my lesson anyway. **Developer response:** We're very sorry to hear that, Molly! Would you mind contacting support@explaineverything.com about the problem you've experienced while connecting to GDrive? We'd be happy to help you find the workflow that best suits your needs! ### 3/5 — I’m a math teacher and please improve... *2020-08-29, version 6.2.1* 1) shape recognition (when we press and hold) that one needs to much improvement and I need it to much, you can check ‘notability’ 2) select drawing ( not by only rectangular) 3) browser flash player must be supported and offline 4) math equation recognition by hand writing (same as Nebo app) Thanks for now ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Super useful way to quickly relay complex ideas. *2022-04-26, version 6.7.7* Love this app. Pen and object usage on the timeline take a minute to get used to but what a great tool for presenting ideas. ### 5/5 — life Safer *2022-02-19, version 6.7.2* Explain allows me to lecture on my pdfs like other programs. Hi ever, Explain Everything is better. Infinite page size and easy to send videos to tiyrube for students to see later ### 5/5 — Fantastic *2022-01-30, version 6.7.0* Use the app often to create instructional video for my online courses. Highly recommended. ### 5/5 — I hope my review help someone *2021-11-24, version 6.6.5* I’m medical teacher I spent months making endless files I love this app In the last updates some of or most of files freezes of opening ie the app crashes when I open the files I tried to make file as template and then open template and go with it sometime it’s good way Other way that worked with me is to … Open the files that working and close them then open the zombie files that freezes on opening ❤️ ### 5/5 — This is what I need *2021-06-23, version 6.4.9* I have been looking for an app that I can draw, take notes, record, and good camera angle on the screen. And this app is a game changer for me and my works. Now, I can use it to teach and record my teaching. Thank you for you and the amazing app! ### 5/5 — Navigation button won’t stay out of the way *2021-04-12, version 6.4.3* My only complaint was taken care of with a reply from the developer. EE has saved me over the last year of teaching during COVID. I have made nearly 400 videos instructing my students. ### 5/5 — Account *2021-03-21, version 6.4.1* It’ll be better if we can add a cloud of any platform or create a account to save our notes with that email or cloud ### 5/5 — Best thing for the money! *2021-03-15, version 6.4* If you’re a teacher paying for this out of your own pocket, this is your product. It does everything you want without the bells and whistles ### 5/5 — One problem in recording please fix *2021-03-05, version 6.3.3* We can’t record undo redu process please fix it I can’t make tiny animation ### 5/5 — Great App, I have some suggestions *2020-12-13, version 5.4.7* First of all this app is the best app for making thumbnails for my yt channel and editing pictures! Idk if you have this in the app or not but you should add a thing where you see a color and u use the color for somewhere else that will really help for parts I erase but are in the middle of the picture and I need to color it again **Developer response:** Hi - thank you for your feedback! I am happy to let you know that it is possible to grab a color from any object visible on the canvas - simply just choose the Pen tool -> choose one of the default pen colors -> choose the + icon to open the custom color tab -> tap the pipette color picker and then tap on the color you want to grab! --- *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 2026-06-10.*