iPad: The Picture Book Project

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

New pressure sensitive stylus: Jot Touch

Just a quick note: The long awaited Jot Touch is out now and can be ordered from the Adonit website. The Jot Touch is the a further development of the Jot and Jot Pro. With its small transparent plastic discs the Jot stylus was already one of the (if not "the") most precise stylus available at the moment. The new Jot touch adds pressure sensitivity and two customisable shortcut Buttons. The whole thing looks very prommissing. They also add a new dampering tip that should improve the feeling while drawing with the Jot Touch. Maybe this will solve the problems I have with the actual Jot Pro stylus (I wrote about this in a former post).

I already ordered a Jot Touch and will write a review after trying it out. Until then have a look for the Jot touch features on the Adonit website and read the first review from Macworld.

Mit Blogsy veröffentlicht

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Will Microsofts Surface be a real drawing tablet?

Hello again,
this post will not be iPad related. This post will be about the new tablet from Microsoft (yes, I'm sorry for that) called "Surface" that was presented to the public in an event last monday.
So on first sight, it might be quite "off topic" but there is a fine detail that seems to be of interest here: The bigger pro version of the Surface tablet will come with a pen as an optional input device.

This pro version of Surface will run Windows 8 Pro, so as it seems, it will be a full pc in a tablet form. This would mean that you are able to run native windows drawing and painting software such as Photoshop, Painter, Sketch Pad Pro, Manga Studio etc. This in combination with a precise pen as an input device could really make a big deal.

By now, it is hard to get any more details about Surface. There are nearly no detailed informations available at the moment. So all interesting things like its price, battery life and especially informations about the pen still remain a secret by now.

All Information I can find regarding the pen are those: Surface seems to have two different kinds of "touch detection". The usual one for using your fingers and a second one that recognise the pen drawing on the screen. If the pen comes near the screen, the finger input is deactivated automatically, so you get a kind of palm rejection. Because of a quite thin layer of gorilla glass that covers the screen of the Surface, the distance between the pens tip and the screen is only about 0.7 mm. That would be great for drawing because such a small distance would give a similar feeling like drawing directly on paper.

Today a 47 minutes long video of the Microsoft Surface event was published. Unfortunately the pen is only shown for e few moments in action and what you'll see is only the use as a writing tool. If the pen would be a great drawing or painting tool I wander why Microsoft didn't point it out. So the video leaves more questions than giving answeres. Maybe this is the MS-version of trying to get a kind of Apple-like-hype for a new product :-).

Anyway, if the pen will work like expected, the Surface/pen combination could be like a Cintiq drawing tablet in form of a full featured tablett pc.

In my eyes this would be the first time, a competitor of apple comes out with a tablet feature that might be a real challenge for Apples iPad.

So maybe the rise of the Surface might bring Apple to the point where they might present there own pen input device for iPad. it shouldn't be a problem in regards of technology because last year, Apple already got patents for two different kinds of pen input devices that could be used for iPad. But with Apple patents you'll never know, if they will be turned into a real product or sleep forever in the drawer.

So I'm very curious about the details of the Surface tablet. If this product will not be a total flop like the Zune player, it might push the tablet market a bit further.

Let's wait and see. Regarding the availability of the Surface, the cryptic statement of Microsoft could be interpreted in the way that the "small" Surface version will come out at about october 2012 while the pro version with the pen that runs Windows 8 pro will follow three month later.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Stylus - or the search for the right iPad pen - part 2

Here is part two of my iPad pen thoughts/reviews

BRUSHES

6) Now I want to talk about a quite different kind of stylus. The NomadBrush. As you see this one looks like a brush and that's exactly what it is. Of course it's a brush for the iPad, so don't dipp it into paint of any kind. The NomadBrush feels exactly like a brush when you use it. This is maybe not ideal for fine line drawing, but really great for coloring your drawings or directly paint on the iPad in an oil or watercolor style. If you are doing iPad art like this and have a background in classic painting, you should try this. It is beautiful made in a kind of japanese style with a piece of engraved wallnut wood on it. What you see on the picture is the version with the long bristles. By now there's als a version with short bristles available for those who prefer this.

Stylus - or the search for the right iPad pen - part 1

Today I'd like to talk about using a stylus for drawing on the iPad. Maybe you remember Steve Jobs when he presented the iPad for the first time to the public.
He was proud that the iPad didn't come with a stylus and that it didn't need a stylus. In 2010 he said: "If you see a stylus, the blew it".

Well, he was surely right in regards of the everyday use of the iPad, but drawing and painting is another thing. When it comes to drawing on the iPad you'll quickly dicover that your finger isn't the ideal tool to get fine lines precisely on the iPad screen.

So imho you need a kind of stylus if you want to do draw on the iPad without getting completely frustrated.

By now even Apple itself got two quite new patents for two different kinds of stylus. So maybe we will see an Apple stylus one day, who knows.