Colouring apps with a bigger page to fill
Colouring is close work on a small patch of a big picture, and the unfolded screen shows more of the picture. Four apps for it, starting with one built around the artists who draw its pages.
Colouring rewards a bigger page. One small region gets filled while the rest of the drawing decides what colour comes next, so on a phone the work turns into constant zooming with a fingertip in the way. Unfolded, more of the drawing stays in view at the zoom the colouring is actually done at.
Lake comes first. Every page in it is drawn by hand, more than 1500 of them by over 100 independent artists, each chosen by the app's own editors, and every book carries the name of the person who drew it. Every page is the work of a named illustrator; nothing in the catalogue is generated. Part of each subscription goes to those artists directly, and of the four apps here it is the only one whose listing says its subscription pays the people behind the pages. It won an Apple Design Award in 2017, and its latest release notes say the app is now fully adapted for the iPhone Duo: colour anywhere folded, and open it out when the details need more room.
The three after it each do something well of their own: the deepest set of realistic brushes, the largest free library of colour-by-number pictures, and a mandala maker with a way to colour from a photo. None of this has been tested here; every line comes from each app's own listing, its release notes, or what the app itself says.
- 1
Lake: Colouring for Adults
Drawing · Lake d.o.o.
Hand-drawn books from more than 100 independent artists, with part of every subscription paid to them, a Rainbow of more than 700 shades, glitter brushes and the sound of every stroke. Its developer says the app has been reshaped for the unfolded screen, so a page that was drawn by a person gets the room to be seen properly.
- 2
Adult Colouring Book - Pigment
Pixite Inc.
More than 30 tools that imitate pencil, marker, watercolour and pastel, plus new Stipple and Crackle fills, over a library the listing puts at more than 10,000 pages. Its latest notes add iPhone Duo support, and brushwork that imitates paper is easier to judge when the stroke is shown at a decent size.
- 3
Happy Color® – Colouring Games
X-FLOW LTD
Colour by number with more than 50,000 free pictures, from quick ones to very detailed ones, plus Marvel, Disney and Star Wars collections. The detailed pictures are made of many small numbered cells, and a wider screen shows more of them at once.
- 4
Colouring Book for Me
Mosaic S.r.l.
Over 20 categories of pages, a mode for designing your own mandalas, and a tool that fills uncoloured cells from a photo. Mandalas are symmetrical by design, and the unfolded screen keeps the whole circle in view while one segment is being coloured.
The selection and the order are ours. Each entry is written from that app’s own App Store listing, linked beside it, and this page from Lake on the App Store, Pigment on the App Store and Apple's iPhone Duo product page. Drafted with AI assistance and checked back against those sources before publishing; the disclosure page explains how. The iPhone Duo has been on sale since 23 October 2026 and nothing here has been seen running on one, so what each entry says about the fold is an argument rather than a test.