# Inspire — Paint it.  Blend it.  Love it.

> Powerful and realistic painting and drawing app for iPhone with advanced features. (iPhone/iPad app by snowCanoe.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/inspire/id315556628 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [snowCanoe](https://appshunter.io/developer/315556631)
- Category: Graphics & Design
- Price: $9.99
- Rating: 4.50/5 from 58 App Store ratings · 323 written reviews indexed
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 13.6 · 317 MB
- Languages: British English, French (France), German (Germany), Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, European Portuguese, Russian, Chinese (Simplified, China) and 3 more
- Released: 2009-05-14
- Data updated: 2026-09-01
- Monetization: paid
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/inspire/id315556628/reviews.md

## What is Inspire?

Available exclusively on the App Store, meticulously designed to be beautifully powerful, and painstakingly engineered for iPhone — Inspire delivers an incredibly fast and realistic painting, drawing, and sketching experience that you can take with you wherever you go and use whenever inspiration strikes.

Our proprietary painting engine Sorcery™ takes full advantage of the GPU to render brush strokes with brilliant 64-bit color, laser-sharp sub-pixel precision, and insanely fast speed. While the strokes of a wet oil paint brush look beautiful on their own, the breathtaking blending effects of a dry brush will absolutely stun you. Graze the canvas with just a bit of pressure to add a subtle blur to your artwork or use stronger pressure to actually mix existing colors on the canvas together to create new ones.

Whether you are a budding artist, seasoned professional, or somewhere in-between, you will enjoy the simplicity and power of the most intuitive and compelling illustration app for iPhone, Inspire.

Amazing Brushes
• 150 high-quality brushes to choose from, divided into 15 sets: Oil Paint, Airbrushes, Spray Paint, Paint Splatter, Graphite Pencils, Wax Crayons, Markers, Chalk, Charcoal, Pastels & Conté, Basic Shapes, Complex Shapes, Shape Outlines, Patterns, and Textures
• All brushes can be used as a Wet Brush, Dry Brush (Blending), or Eraser
• Over 20 different settings are available to customize brush strokes with powerful versatility and variation

The Best Painting App for iPhone
• Sorcery™, the fastest 64-bit painting engine on the App Store
• Create a canvas of any size up to 16K (64MP)
• Dual-texture brushes
• 64-bit color
• All device orientations are supported all the time — switch from portrait to landscape painting with ease
• 1000 levels of undo and redo are available
• Touch and slide hotspots can be used to quickly change brush size, opacity, and pressure without opening a menu
• The eyedropper tool can be used with a touch and hold gesture to select paint colors from the canvas
• The canvas can be moved around, rotated, and zoomed in and out up to 6400%

Canvas Playback Video Recording
• Brush strokes are automatically recorded as you paint without any delay
• You can play the video of your artwork being created stroke-by-stroke directly in the gallery
• Export high-quality videos of your artwork to your Photos 

Full-Featured Color Picker
• Choose any paint color you can dream of with the intuitive color picker
• HSB and RGB sliders accompany a large color circle, color square, and opacity slider
• Your latest colors are saved to a palette automatically while you paint
• You can also save your favorite colors to a palette with drag and drop

Visit snowCanoe.com to check out more screenshots, videos, and artwork.

With no subscription fees or in-app purchases, you own Inspire and all future updates forever, with just one purchase!

## Key features

- Proprietary Sorcery™ painting engine
- 150 high-quality, customizable brushes
- Wet Brush, Dry Brush (Blending), and Eraser modes
- Up to 16K canvas size
- Automatic canvas playback video recording
- Full-featured color picker with saved palettes
- Touch and slide hotspots for quick adjustments

## Chart rankings

- #62 in Top Paid · Graphics & Design (US App Store)

## What do users think of Inspire?

Overall sentiment: positive

**Pros**

- 🎨 Excellent painting and blending capabilities
- 👍 Intuitive and easy-to-use interface
- 🎨 Realistic oil painting simulation
- 🎨 Diverse brush options and customization
- 🎨 Impressive color mixing and blending
- 🎨 Smooth and responsive brushstrokes
- 🎨 Ability to create professional-looking artwork
- 🎨 Fun and engaging creative experience

**Cons**

- 🐛 Occasional crashes and stability issues
- 🔍 Lack of layers and advanced editing tools
- 📱 Limited functionality on smaller screens
- 🔍 Difficulty with precision and detail work
- 🔍 Frustrating menu/UI interactions

**Commonly reported bugs**

- Crashes when changing colors or brush types
- Compatibility issues with older iOS devices
- Occasional loss of progress due to autosave bugs

**Most requested features**

- Add layers and advanced compositing tools
- Implement a smudge/blur tool for better blending
- Improve canvas size and resolution options
- Introduce a pencil/marker tool for sketching
- Add support for pressure-sensitive styluses
- Implement an undo/redo history with more steps
- Provide better color management and palettes
- Allow for custom brush creation and saving

## Recent user reviews (10 of 323)

All indexed reviews: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/inspire/id315556628/reviews.md

### 5/5 — Great painting app

*2025-11-12, version 4.8.2*

This painting app is distinct from other apps, my favorite feature is the video progress. Where after you finish you can see the animation coming to life from simple lines and smudges to a castle. The painting itself is great, it takes some time to learn but it’s easy and fun.

### 5/5 — iPhoneで油絵

*2024-08-30, version 4.8.2*

通勤時間を有意義に過ごしています。

### 5/5 — Good App

*2024-06-09, version 4.8.2*

Good

### 5/5 — Excellent!

*2024-01-27, version 4.8.2*

Did all my artworks with inspire at robbacksstudio @IG.

### 5/5 — cool !

*2023-10-15, version 4.8.2*

Tanks !!!

### 5/5 — Love it!

*2022-08-22, version 4.8*

I’m no expert, but I’m having so much fun learning to paint digitally with this app.

### 1/5 — Not worth money

*2021-12-18, version 4.8*

I am quite annoyed I paid for this. Deleted and will not be using.

### 5/5 — Love this app

*2021-09-13, version 4.8*

I’ve made some things on here that surprise myself. Great app.

### 5/5 — A must have

*2021-09-05, version 4.8*

I love this app. It feels like your finger is a brush and no mess at all. So much fun!

### 4/5 — Amazing

*2021-07-03, version 4.8*

Inspires cool but we need to get a fulfilling button thing and make it easier to colour correct

## Frequently asked questions about Inspire

### What does Inspire do?

Inspire is a powerful and realistic painting, drawing, and sketching application designed for iPhone. It utilizes a proprietary engine to deliver a fast and fluid creative experience, allowing users to create artwork with a wide range of brushes and blending effects.

### What are the key features of Inspire?

Key features include a proprietary 64-bit painting engine, 150 customizable brushes, advanced blending effects, up to 16K canvas resolution, automatic video recording of the creation process, and a full-featured color picker with saved palettes. It also offers touch-sensitive controls for quick adjustments.

### How much does Inspire cost?

Inspire is a one-time purchase application. There are no subscription fees or in-app purchases required. Once you buy the app, you own it and all future updates forever.

### What devices is Inspire compatible with?

Inspire is available exclusively on the App Store and is meticulously engineered for iPhone. It supports all device orientations, allowing seamless switching between portrait and landscape modes.

### Who is Inspire best suited for?

Inspire is ideal for budding artists, seasoned professionals, and anyone in between who seeks an intuitive yet powerful illustration app for their iPhone. It caters to a wide range of skill levels for digital art creation.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 4.8.2 — 2023-02-28

This update contains several bug fixes and small improvements as we continually work toward refining the app to maintain its high quality.

### 4.8.1 — 2022-12-04

This update brings to you a brand new app icon and logo design as well as several bug fixes and small improvements as we continually work toward refining the app to maintain its high quality.

### 4.8 — 2020-06-09

iPhone, iOS, WatchOS
• Full support for the new iPhone SE, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iOS 13.5, WatchOS 6.2

Localization
• Inspire is now localized for 12 different languages: Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, and Russian

Bug fixes and minor improvements

### 4.7.1 — 2018-12-19

Several bug fixes and UI improvements to make sure your holiday painting, drawing, and sketching goes as smooth as ice and as fun as snow.

### 4.7 — 2018-11-07

Siri Shortcuts in iOS 12
• Hey Siri, painting time!
• Add a shortcut to Siri to automatically open Inspire, create a new canvas, and start painting right away

iPhone XS Max
• If you have a shiny new iPhone XS Max, you're going to love it even more with this Inspire update
• The UI fills the beautiful new 6.5” screen 
• Paint colors look vibrant and luscious on the new OLED display
• Brush strokes flow on the canvas in stunning detail with the new Super Retina HD resolution
• Paint, draw and sketch faster than ever before with our updated painting engine Sorcery, fully optimized for the new A12 Bionic chip
• As always, the entire app works in both portrait and landscape orientations, with all of the UI adapting seamlessly to the new iPhone XS Max screen

Apple Watch Series 4
• Fully tested and optimized for WatchOS 5 
• Support for the 4 new complication sizes and shapes in the new Infograph watch face: corner, bezel, circular, and rectangular

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## More apps by snowCanoe

- [Inspire Pro](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/inspire-pro/id355460798)

All apps by snowCanoe: https://appshunter.io/developer/315556631

## Related topics

[blend brush](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/blend-brush) · [paintbrush video](https://appshunter.io/ios/topics/paintbrush-video)

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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 2026-09-01.*