Google right this moment made a important announcement concerning the way forward for its collaborative Jamboard whiteboarding software program. The corporate is ready to regularly section out the app, with the ultimate shutdown scheduled for late 2024. Concurrently, Google is unveiling the “subsequent section” of whiteboarding options, directing customers in direction of third-party functions that can apparently seamlessly combine with Workspace providers equivalent to Google Meet, Drive, and Calendar.
Google has dedicated to helping its prospects in transitioning to different whiteboard instruments, together with FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro. Jamboard was nice, however had very restricted options, and these third-party options have confirmed more practical as a consequence of their numerous characteristic units, which embrace infinite canvas sizing, ready-made templates for enterprise and schooling, voting capabilities, and extra.
In addition to the Jamboard software program, Google will even finish help for his or her moderately costly Jamboard screens.
We nonetheless have a yr to make use of Jamboard as regular. The method of phasing out the Jamboard app will start on October 1st, 2024. On this date, Jamboard will transition right into a read-only utility, rendering customers unable to create new Jams or edit current ones on any platform.
Customers can have till December thirty first, 2024, to again up their Jam information. After this deadline, Google will terminate entry and start the everlasting deletion of information.
Google goals to supply simple pathways for customers to safeguard and migrate their Jam information to FigJam, Lucidspark, and Miro, all of which will likely be available nicely prematurely of the app’s final discontinuation in late 2024.
This can be a actual disgrace, whereas Jamboard didn’t have many options, it did some issues fairly nicely. It labored nice as a fast brainstorming house with my college students throughout many lockdown Zoom coaching classes. It was very simple to create a Jam, throw out the hyperlink on Zoom Chat and have the scholars acquire entry with little or no friction. With Whiteboard.fi now requiring a subscription too, I’m going to must rethink among the methods I collaborate on distant instructing classes. That mentioned, Figma does look attention-grabbing already, and I’ve simply signed up for a free schooling account.
I’ll produce some guides to those alternate options quickly. I’ll report again once I’ve had extra of an opportunity to discover them.
