"I've waited 487 years": Huashijie Pro came to iOS years late, and hit the top three in Graphics & Design the month it launched

Huashijie Pro is a free painting app well known in China's art circles. It was already built out on Android, domestic tablets, and computers, and Tencent MyApp lists about 3M downloads. In Sep 2026 22, it finally came to iPhone and iPad. Over a bit more than a month it held steady at #2–#3 on the China App Store Graphics & Design free chart. It didn't climb because it shipped anything new. A large group of old users had waited for years, and the iOS release pulled them over in one go.

An idle iPad, and a Huawei tablet choking on its own lag

In Oct 21, someone left a five-star review on the App Store for Huashijie Pro titled "Sworn to follow Huashijie Pro":

I couldn't get used to Procreate, so my iPad sat idle. I kept forcing drawings out on my old Huawei tablet, which was lagging badly. Every stroke took three seconds to show up. Now I can finally retire my old partner.

That same month, similar reviews kept coming. "iOS finally has Huashijie Pro, I've waited 487 years" (10-16); "Huashijie Pro, my life was so hard without you" (10-22); "My white moonlight is back" (10-31); "My wife has returned" (11-02). Several named the competitor directly: "Goodbye, Poketi" (10-28), "Poketi is now just a roadside stall" (10-30). "Poketi" is Procreate, a nickname netizens use for it.

These users share a trait: they already used Huashijie Pro on Android phones or domestic tablets, then switched to an iPad or iPhone, or had an Apple device sitting at home. They weren't pulled in by ads. They had been waiting.

What it is

A professional digital painting app for illustration, comics, animation, and pixel art. The store page lists 100+ built-in brushes, 100+ adjustable brush parameters, 28 layer blend modes, onion skinning (for animation), liquify, various perspective guides, and symmetry drawing. You can import your own BRU brush files and Photoshop ABR brushes. It runs on phone, tablet, and computer, with brushes and cloud drafts synced across them.

The developer, Hangzhou Mojing Technology, is the same team behind the older app Huashijie (listed on iOS 2019 years ago, with about 54k ratings in China). The original Huashijie leans toward community and beginner drawing. Pro targets large screens and advanced users.

Revenue comes from memberships. The download is free, and in-app memberships are ¥10/month, ¥30/quarter, or ¥113/year (China App Store page, 11-06). For comparison, Procreate is a one-time ¥88 purchase, and its main version only runs on iPad.

How fast it grew

China App Store, average 4.5 stars. From 10-28 to 11-06 it stayed at #2–#3 on the Graphics & Design free chart. #1 was the widget app iScreen, #4 was Meitu Design Studio. It never reached the overall chart or Top Grossing. It charted only in the China store.

The raw numbers are modest: 7 new ratings in the last 250 days. The China free-chart bar for this category isn't high, and two or three hundred new ratings a week is enough to reach the top three. On Oct 30 it jumped by 97 at once. I couldn't find what drove that. Daily new ratings clearly fell off in early November, so the migration wave is already passing.

Where users come from

• Long-time users migrating is the main source, and the reviews show it. Almost every one compares it to the Android version: "I came over from an Android phone," "On my Huawei phone it never looked this blurry," "The brushes I bought in Huashijie won't sync over."
• Official channels: the official Bilibili account posted "[Launch notice] Long wait over! Huashijie Pro iOS/PC is officially live!" (Sep 24, about 113k views). There are also the official website, QQ groups, and the community of the older Huashijie.
• Chart exposure: landing in the top three of the category means people searching "painting" or "drawing" in the store see it, which brings in some new users (inferred).
• Overseas: TikTok has many #huashijiepro videos with tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of views, the top one around 280k, and one titled "best alternative for procreate." Most are about downloading the Android version or the overseas Mojing Paint from Huawei's app store, though, and that has little to do with the China iOS wave (TikTok, 11-06).
• I didn't see it running any ads.

What users complain about

The complaints are more specific than the praise, and most are about one thing: the iOS version has less than the Android version.

• Fewer brushes: "Bring back my ordered-dot and soft-edge brushes," "There's no charcoal or marker brush," "None of my usual brushes are here." Some users do help each other in the comments: search "classic" in the asset marketplace to download the old brushes for free (10-27).
• No 3D: more than a dozen reviews ask "why is there no 3D," some say "I want the newly released 3D feature," and others say "Please bring back the 3D animation feature, I'm worn out from animating."
• Pressure and peripherals: the stylus has no pressure sensitivity, wired drawing tablets won't connect, and pen-display cursors jump around. In Oct 21 the 3.4.5 update added Bluetooth drawing tablet support and Apple Pencil Pro squeeze and tilt pressure. Afterward, though, some users reported lag on the stroke and disconnects.
• The harshest one-star review is about saving: "I clearly tapped save... then when I reopened the drawing the layers were scrambled and content was missing, even a blank black screen" (10-24).

Even with reviews this harsh, the average rating is still 4.5, which suggests people are willing to wait for it to catch up. That patience was built up over years by a brand already known, and a new app can't get it.

Why this one

1. Pent-up demand: this app's iOS ID is from around 2021 years ago, which means the Apple version was built long ago and sat unreleased for some reason (I couldn't find out why). The longer it waited, the more concentrated the crowd that rushed in at launch.
2. Free, against a paid giant: Procreate costs ¥88 and doesn't run on phones. 画世界Pro is free and works on phone and tablet. Reviews include high schoolers saying they can't afford it, and this crowd cares most about free.
3. A low-bar chart: on the China store's Graphics & Design Top Free chart, a couple hundred ratings a week is enough to reach the top three, and charting gets it seen by more people.
4. Fast fixes: it shipped 3.4.5 within a month of launch, adding Bluetooth drawing tablet and Pencil support, and reputation didn't collapse.

Its edge (free, cross-platform, a Chinese community, an asset marketplace, its own brush format) is how it reached several million users on Android years ago. This iOS wave comes from the part of those millions who switched to Apple devices. The iOS version has fewer features than the Android one, so this growth can't be credited to feature leadership.

Is anyone copying it?

I haven't seen any iOS product built specifically to copy it. It is itself a representative of the "Procreate alternative" path, and the same path includes long-established products like ibis Paint X (330M installs on Google Play), Sketchbook, and MediBang. It has no public revenue, and tech media and X haven't written about it, so outside China few people know it. In China's drawing community, though, it's a name everyone knows.

If it were you

One-line verdict: this app can't be replicated. It's a company that has been around for years moving several million old users to a new platform, and a new team can't get those users. What can be taken are two playbooks.

Who it suits: teams with a product that already works on Android, domestic tablets, or the web, whose iOS version has never been built; or people building China-store iOS utility apps who want to chase a low-barrier category chart.

Who it doesn't suit: anyone starting from zero to build a "free Procreate." The drawing engine, brush feel, and accessory support took years to refine, and even 画世界Pro's own move to iOS drew complaints that the brushes were "blurry" and the pressure sensitivity was off. It also sits behind several decade-old products like Procreate, ibis Paint X, and Sketchbook.

How to do it:

1. If you have an Android user base, don't keep delaying the iOS version. Before launch, announce it where old users gather (Bilibili, QQ groups, in-app), and send a centralized notification on launch day. That way the first week's ratings and chart position have momentum.
2. At launch, match the old platform's features as closely as possible, at least the things users use most. What drew the most criticism for 画世界Pro was the brushes and the 3D "missing." For anything you can't match yet, say clearly in the app when it's coming, which is better than making users guess in the reviews.
3. Before choosing a category, check how high the bar is in the China store. In a category like Graphics & Design, where a couple hundred weekly ratings gets you into the top three, a small team can get up there and stay.

How it acquires users: migrating old users relies on owned channels (the official Bilibili account, communities, push notifications in the old app). After charting, some organic traffic comes from store search. Following its approach, you don't need to buy ads.

Is there a window to get in first?: no time window. This is a playbook, not an empty gap in the market.

What would show I got it wrong: (1) if after December it holds a top-three spot in its category with dozens of new ratings a day, that means new users are coming in too, not just old users moving over, and the "free Procreate" space on iOS may be bigger than I think; (2) if it reaches the China iOS Top Grossing chart, that means people are really buying memberships, and the money in this category is bigger than it looks.

Data and sources

• Ratings and chart position: App Store China store, 10-28 to 11-06.
• Price, release notes, and launch date: App Store China store page, 11-06.
• Verbatim reviews: App Store China store user reviews, 10-13 to 11-04.
• Android download counts: Tencent MyApp page; developer relationships: Tencent MyApp and Microsoft Store pages.
• Bilibili launch video: official account, published 9-24, view count as of 11-06.
• TikTok video views: as of 11-06.
• Competitor install counts: Google Play, 11-06; Procreate, ibis Paint X, and Sketchbook China-store rating counts: App Store, 11-06.
• Revenue, the reason for the iOS delay, and the reason for the rating spike on 10-30 are all undisclosed, so this article draws no conclusions on them.