AirSketch Pro for Android

This app is great for doing what it says it does. That is, it does not claim to mirror your Mobile to a computer; it allows you to annotate PDF documents and then the Mobile acts as web server. The page the app is serving can be seen on any browser connected to the same local network as the Mobile. And for online or physical teaching, you can ‘share screen’ of the browser window. The fact that the app does NOT mirror the Mobile raw is great because you can freeze what is being served - e.g. to prepare a new page for viewing or to change the size of the display on the Mobile without changing the size of what is being displayed on the browser. If you want to share the raw Mobile itself, you can use Reflector an app by Squirrels. This allows a computer to act as an Google airplay device. (But it did not work on our main university network; it works fine at home and satellite campus.) Or, you are supposed to be able to just hook up a USB cable and set up a ‘new movie’ session in QuickTime Player. For me, this method works on some computers, but not others.

I rushed into buying this app (coronavirus crisis, trying to adapt to online teaching), I thought it would be the perfect tool to teach my classes. When I got it, I realized that it can not mirror anything you do on your Mobile. It only mirrors pdf files and pictures! I wanted to use it together with OneNote, but that is not possible. So this app is useless to me. Customer support told me that, even if I had just tried the app for 10 min and I would never use the app again in my life, I could not get a refund. Very disappointed for this policy. The only thing I can do is write this review.

Many fellow educators are going to be struggling to suddenly integrate online teaching during the CoVid shutdowns. The fact AirSketch only casts to the local network may seem like a letdown, but it’s not. Open a window on your desktop to the URL for your AirSketch. From Google Meet, you can share that window, which allows you to basically use a whiteboard like a chalkboard!

I am college faculty and this app has revolutionized my presentations. I have also hooked several of my colleagues into using it as well. I have yet to see a downside with it.

I am very please with AirSketch Pro. It is a very intuitive app and let's me share work with my coworkers. I would like to have two additional features in a future update: 1. To be able to rotate the board to write as in a notebook 2. Allow connections of several people that can remotely draw and or comment in a single board.