Comparison

iPastels vs Blackboard

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

iPastels

This app offers a realistic digital painting experience with lifelike pastel simulation and interactive textures. It allows for precise color blending and adjustable stroke sizes, catering to both beginners and experienced artists. Explore your creativity without the cost of traditional art supplies.

Highlights
  • Lifelike pastel simulation
  • Realistic paper/canvas textures
  • Precise color blending
  • Fingertip stroke size adjustment
  • Left-handed toolbar option
  • Live parameter changes
  • Multiple layers
Features
Read full description

A painting app for all artists, whether you’re experienced or just starting out. Perfect for creating beautiful works of art or a quick sketch whenever and wherever you have a burst of inspiration. You can also try out ideas and compositions before starting on a new painting in real life, or practise and refine your skills, all without the added cost of art supplies. • LIFELIKE PASTEL SIMULATION • The app features live-calculated brushes and strokes, making a realistic pastel simulation possible. Painting tools include soft pastels, oil pastels, pastel pencils, smudge tool, and more. • REALISTIC PAPER/CANVAS TEXTURES • When creating a new picture, a unique, non-repeating paper texture is generated that will interact in real-time with the live-calculated strokes you paint. You can change the default-generated texture to, for example, canvas, which goes great with oil pastels! • PRECISE COLOR BLENDING • When painting, especially with soft pastels, use Smudge or the Cotton Swab to blend and smoothen the colors right on the paper, as you would in real life. With oil pastels, in addition to smudging, the blending is often done by the pastel sticks themselves (for best results, reduce the force or use a similar or lighter color). If you use an Apple Pencil, it will feel incredibly realistic if you use the stylus to draw and use your finger to Smudge (assigned as a 2nd tool)! • FINGERTIP = STROKE SIZE • When you paint, the app measures how much of your finger is touching the screen and changes the stroke size accordingly. Apply just the corner of your fingertip for a thin line, or the whole fingerprint area for a broad stroke. A 2nd tool assigned to your finger will still use this feature, so don’t ignore it just because you have an Apple Pencil! • LEFT-HANDED? • Just swipe the toolbar over to the other side! • PARAMETERS CAN BE CHANGED LIVE • Use any buttons or controls to change/adjust color, size, force, simultaneously while painting. • UNIVERSAL PURCHASE • If you choose to buy the Pro upgrade, this one-time in-app purchase will unlock all Pro features in the app on all available platforms (iPad-iPhone-Mac)! • METAL • The engine is based on Metal, with 128-bit color and floating-point arithmetic. • SWIFT • The app was developed entirely using Swift (earlier versions used C++). • APPLE PENCIL SUPPORT • FULL SCREEN PAINTING • SEAMLESS PATTERN EDITING MODE • • DARK MODE • LANDSCAPE • PORTRAIT • WIDE COLOR • • MULTIPLE LAYERS • PHOTO TRACING MODE (Pro feature) •

About

Blackboard

Transform your device into a digital chalkboard for drawing and writing with colored chalks. Ideal for educational purposes, collaborative explanations, or casual games.

Highlights
  • Digital chalkboard simulation
  • Write and draw with colored chalks
  • Educational tool for children
  • Useful for explanations and graphs
  • Play games like tic-tac-toe
Features
Read full description

Blackboard is a new application that turns your iPhone/ iPad into a genuine chalkboard! The application lets you write and draw everything you want on the board, using colored chalks.This application is very useful in many situations: teach your child math, explain graphs to your colleagues, or simply play tic-tac-toe. Let your children play with Blackboard and teach them how to draw their first butterfly. Thank you for taking the time to report any bugs or to request an enhancement to Blackboard application. Feedback is very important to us. We will do our best to answer queries. Email us at drawerfree@gmail.com

Screenshots

iPastels4 screens
Blackboard1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Blackboard at none against iPastels's 6. Blackboard also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.7). iPastels's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and update cadence (every 6 weeks vs every 4 months). On price, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. iPastels sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Blackboard asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Blackboard holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: iPastels has 2.2K ratings behind it against 199, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, Blackboard every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
iPastels versus Blackboard: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriPastelsBlackboard
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (2.2K ratings)4.9 (199 ratings) — better
Positive reviews81.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings2.2K — better199
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeks — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesAd-supported — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.0 — better12.1
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB30 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNorbyteAn Banh

Customer experience

iPastels

All ratings2,142 ratings
Positive91.6%
Neutral4.3%
Negative4.1%
Written reviews231 reviews
Positive81.0%
Neutral7.8%
Negative11.3%

Blackboard

All ratings199 ratings
Positive98.0%
Neutral2.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

iPastels

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes when importing images
  • Layers sometimes disappear or get lost
  • Undo button deletes entire drawing sections

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add color picker tool
  • Improve layer management and visibility
  • Implement pressure-sensitive brush support
  • Provide more paper/canvas texture options
  • Allow saving and recalling custom palettes
Show 1 more
  • Add undo/redo functionality for individual strokes

Blackboard

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

6 purchases

iPastels

One-time6
  • Tip Jar: Smallest Tip$1.00
  • Tip Jar: Small Tip$2.00
  • Tip Jar: Medium Tip$5.00
Show 3 more
  • Pro Upgrade$7.00
  • Tip Jar: Big Tip$10.00
  • Tip Jar: Biggest Tip$25.00
None

Blackboard

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is iPastels free?
iPastels is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Blackboard free?
Blackboard is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, iPastels or Blackboard?
Blackboard is rated higher. iPastels averages 4.7 out of 5 from 2.2K ratings, while Blackboard averages 4.9 from 199 ratings.
Do iPastels or Blackboard have ads?
Blackboard shows ads; iPastels does not.
Which is updated more often, iPastels or Blackboard?
iPastels ships an update every 6 weeks, and Blackboard every 4 months. Most recently, iPastels was updated on November 1, 2026 and Blackboard on October 24, 2026.

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