Hi Jim Could you please explain to me what the acu design app does. It must be good for $50.CB 

Never having been good enough to command a $50 price, Jim says:

We've been so busy finishing up the videos that we haven't done much with AcuDesign, but I do have some opinions based on playing with it. Janome dealers are being told that it's essentially Digitizer Jr. for the iPad. That's not completely wrong, but it's not completely accurate either. Perhaps because it is based on DRAWings Snap, the first thing you notice is designs - a LOT of designs, all free with the app. Sadly they are all auto-digitized using DRAWings software and few, if any, would be even close to the quality of even the original Janome 8000 Memory Cards. Don't buy the app for the designs!

The app does give you the ability to get designs into the iPad without the clunky route through iTunes. It will read designs from Dropbox, AirStash, and a number of wireless USB products. It will also download designs from the machine, but I have not had much luck with downloading from the machine using any app. I'm hoping the V2 update will improve that.

Once you have a design in the app you can do a fair bit of editing on it. You can make it larger or smaller, without changing density. (At least that's what we're told - we have not tested this!) You can change colors, remove parts, insert other designs and generally do whatever you want short of actual digitizing. When you finish you can send the design to Dropbox, all the various wireless USB devices or the machine itself. This last one is interesting, for as hard as it is to READ designs from the machine, they WRITE almost instantly and reliably. Even better, you don't have to don't have to go through the agony of finding the machine and waiting forever while it locates and connects to it, as the Janome apps do. It just finds the machine by itself.

Overall, again just playing with it for a few minutes, I've found it to be kind of buggy with documentation that doesn't quite match up to the app. This is definitely a version 1 product that could have used a bit more time in the oven. If you have already bought it, do not despair - I'm sure it will be updated and the updates are free. But if you haven't taken the plunge just yet, I would hold off just a bit for the first update.