A part of Apple’s iPad experience is so compelling that the tablet has a sheer versatility. When I reviewed the new iPad Air with M3, I said in several ways to use it: through touch, apple pencil, or a magic keyboard. This is a beautiful winning formula.
In states here, it was a small business week last week, and I had a chance to chat with a surface designer Mandy Korkoran, which has been done on products sold on home goods, TJMX and Nordstom Racks to keep some names.
Now, I like a good design in myself, but the technical angle here is deep as Korkoran – which goes Amanda grace design – To do all this uses an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, and Purchase.
All this began on the Christmas morning in 2018, when her husband gave her an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, and as Korkoran, “it changed everything.”
“I downloaded Procreate that day, and just clicked,” he explained, seeing that Apple Pencil felt natural. After sketching digitally within the purchase, he realized that it would be a large part of his life.
Before jumping into the design work, Korkoran was linked in the tech; She was a programmer, described as a very logic-based-“This is the structure, flow and problem-solution, which always appealed to my brain. When I found a seamless pattern design in purchase, it felt like a constructive expansion of that mindset.” And he started his drawing – with pre iPad – using a wacom cintiq and Adobe Photoshop.
When she designs a pattern with Procreate, Korkoran says it allows her to use her “tech-grain” creatively. She explains that there is a mathematical precision for the creative and design process, as it needs to fit various designs together, detect the correct flow, and eventually finish with something meaningful.
“For me, all this is about giving tools to people to unlock their creativity faster,” describe the templates and patterns. He said that when he started for the first time, there were no templates or charts to help with layouts and iFlows.
So, when she started designing for the first time, she used to dive a deep dive within the app and ecosystem, learning every part of it. This helped him to create his first course and became one of the first teachers to offer adaptable pattern templates in 2023.
And its attention, or special sauce, is actually around the design of the surface – to make the equipment themselves, but at the same time offers courses to make others with these devices and design their own.
It is like an iPad ecosystem for design, and has to drink a well alcohol on it. She explains it, “I run a design business, create an online course, create a template, brush the test,” all iPads, and this is a tool where she can live without worrying about whether there is enough power or speed.
Corkoran uses an iPad Pro, which is with M4 chip under the hood with 13 inches. In the test of Techradar, it performed incredibly well, allowing you to explode through almost any task that you want to do on an iPad and run a more intensive creative workflow without a hitch.
She has been a fan of Apple Pencil, which described it as “expanding your thinking”. Korkoran is using the Apple Pencil Pro with its iPad Pro, which provides little more functionality including barrel roll support and squeeze functionality.
“As a person who likes to create a system, I really appreciate how Hover, Double Tap, and now Squeeze with Apple Pencil Pro, gives me a shortcut on his fingers – anytime without putting your pencil down. It’s too big,” Cockorine.
Using all this within Procreate and other creative apps, it allows for greater accuracy when creating a design, and when cockoran is teaching, it is an easy way to “move faster” and explain with more confidence.
It is clear that the iPad and Apple Pencils have been an important part of Cocoron’s career, allowing him to create his own business, but encourages other people to create and design on their own. “IPad and Apple Pencil have allowed me to create a creative career on their terms – and this is not something I have taken.”
In addition, she says that you do not need to be an expert to start with being creative on iPad, to encourage people and Techradar readers to open apps like “bus procreate, tap around, and playing.”
A few weeks ago, on 26 April, 2025, in Apple Carnegie Store in Washington, DC, Korkoran hosted today in the Apple session for 30 participants within the purchase using patterns around a fruit subject. He described it as a moment of a full-cycle, eventually allowing him to teach him what a life-changing process for him was.
After creating countless patterns and designs – some are now painted on products in major retailers – he left the crowd inspired and confident.
Korkoran said, “Some people later told me that they never realized how many things in their lives were – and this opened their eyes completely in a new way.”
