I feel the main problem with using the iPad as a stylus input device is the latency. There's a very noticeable and annoying lag when drawing anything via a capacitive input device, unlike on a Wacom. Hopefully the rumors are true and Apple adds a digitizer to the next iPad model!
I'd love for the iPad to be a great digital creation tool. I really would.
But as it stands, it's horrible. It's laggy, lacks pressure sensitivity, and the apps are clunky at best.
Here's to hoping there's a push from Apple to improve things. But for the time being Microsoft's Surface line is about a thousand times better for actual creatives.
Astropad has a 7 day tryout.
So, I've been using it to pretty great results. I like it.
With Wifi it's actually laggy, but with the USB cable, it has been very fast.
Pressure sensitivity isn't that important to me - depends on your use-case.
Tried it with Photoshop and Illustrator and it works great.
Being able to see what you draw is great, far better then a normal Wacom Tablet.
So far, it's a great option. A bit on the expensive side, but cheaper then having
to buy a Cintiq or a Surface :)
I don't think Apple really cares about that since one of the most important design decisions made to create the iPhone/iPad was dropping stylus support. If they wanted their products to be creation devices we'd notice, they just don't.
Now with the way their product line has been going recently they very well could announce an iPad "creative edition" to compete with Wacom but that'd be a huge change of direction.
I'm not a professional arts it but spend a fair amount of time in Photoshop. Years ago I got a low end Wacom but never used it after the first week. Too much hassle to pull it out, and I never got the hang of looking at the screen while moving my hand.
Astropad is a good fit for me. I already own an iPad; and for <$100 I get Astropad and a pressure sensitive pen. This means the draw-on-screen experience of the $1K Cintiq and no extra peripheral to dig out.
I saw on other sites where someone complained that "pro" tablets give 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity while ipad pens give only 1024, but I can't tell a difference. (Esp when the LCD only has 256 levels per color channel!)
The geeky side of me is more impressed with how they got such low latency and high fidelity over the same wifi pipe used by other screen-mapping apps (Duet).
Technically, iPads have no pressure sensitivity due to the basic/standard digitizer within. They don't have a proper pressure-sensitive digitizer that works with a stylus like a Wacom Cintiq or a Microsoft Surface Pro. An iPad can fake it using a stylus that has a lot more beef built into the stylus itself to support some pressure sensitivity. But it still needs to have a big fat contact with the iPad digitizer itself since it isn't stylus-compatible. It will work with hot dog styli though... aka fat styli that simulate a finger.
Perhaps off-topic, but you might want to check out the book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain."
One of the things it teaches, if you're interested, is how to draw without looking at the page. It's incredibly useful if you're ever drawing from life, and will probably lessen the weirdness of using a tablet.
I have a Wacom. Haven't used it for a while now but used to some years ago. The way I got used to drawing while looking at the monitor was that when I first got it, I spent a few days drawing only simple shapes like circles and boxes as well as trying to lift the pen and pick some other spot on the screen that I wanted to draw the next shape at. It was very hard in the beginning but got much easier fast.
I was messing around with this the other day and I had a video playing on my computer. It showed up on the iPad pixelated like when tv censors nudity, pointer tracking seemed pretty fluid even with that playing.
What would be nice is a direct connection between the iPad and computer instead of wifi. My work network is a hassle to log into so I don't event do it most of the time. If I need to look up something on the iPad, i pull out my cell phone hotspot.
Great concept, but I would avoid "Ex-Apple Engineers" and go for "Former Apple Engineers" to avoid the negative wording. Sounds like you broke up with Apple and it's a sour relationship.
Can't see any mention of palm rejection and the image they show doesn't clearly show if his hand touches the screen or not while drawing. I'm curious how well the palm rejection problem is solved in these kind of apps? If not it would seem to be a pretty annoying problem.
ps. I'm the founder of Emotely, where I toyed around with a similar approach but then ended up focusing on game controllers instead. Early concept video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4
Had been toying with doing something exactly like this again recently called interscreen. Made some prototypes of going over USB, it's so fast when you do that, generally it's fast over wifi. Wifi is un-demoable at conferences, which was always an annoying factor for self promotion.
I'm just beginning to make khan academy style videos. That's where I use a tablet to make basic drawings, and screencast what I do.
Is astropad a good fit for this use case? I tried drawing via sketchbook express, but it was hard to keep tools offscreen yet still have enough space to make sketches on the ipad screen.
Currently I'm using jot whiteboard + Airserver, which lets me display my drawings to my mac.
I tried different stylus solutions and iPAD doest NOT differentiate your palm from the pen... (or through software hack) which means you can not rest your hand on the screen (as opposed to WACOM / Galaxy Note/ Surface)
And drawing all day long is tiresome.
Maybe one can get used to it, I dont :-)
Maybe your solution is good I hope.
I installed this on my iPad and Mac, excited to try out 53 Pencil support. Unfortunately, they don't tell you that it doesn't support 53 Pencil yet until after you start the free trial.
I wish I could start over my trial when my stylus is supported.
Good luck, looks like a nice product. My only request/suggestion for your website is to make it clear which iPads you're compatible with. e.g. does dock vs lightning connector matter? full size vs mini? iOS version?
Unrelated, but I utterly despise any and all video playback setups that don't let me control time. This isn't a VHS tape, let me watch your promotional video how I want plzkthx.
Not more than a month ago, I was looking for a similar products, and here it is. Good job. I have yet to try it, but especially the speed looks promising.
[+] [-] archagon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdonelli|11 years ago|reply
http://astropad.com/assets/img/pens.jpg
[+] [-] noahbradley|11 years ago|reply
But as it stands, it's horrible. It's laggy, lacks pressure sensitivity, and the apps are clunky at best.
Here's to hoping there's a push from Apple to improve things. But for the time being Microsoft's Surface line is about a thousand times better for actual creatives.
[+] [-] bornabox|11 years ago|reply
With Wifi it's actually laggy, but with the USB cable, it has been very fast. Pressure sensitivity isn't that important to me - depends on your use-case.
Tried it with Photoshop and Illustrator and it works great. Being able to see what you draw is great, far better then a normal Wacom Tablet.
So far, it's a great option. A bit on the expensive side, but cheaper then having to buy a Cintiq or a Surface :)
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] leppr|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cma|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wanderingstan|11 years ago|reply
Astropad is a good fit for me. I already own an iPad; and for <$100 I get Astropad and a pressure sensitive pen. This means the draw-on-screen experience of the $1K Cintiq and no extra peripheral to dig out.
I saw on other sites where someone complained that "pro" tablets give 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity while ipad pens give only 1024, but I can't tell a difference. (Esp when the LCD only has 256 levels per color channel!)
The geeky side of me is more impressed with how they got such low latency and high fidelity over the same wifi pipe used by other screen-mapping apps (Duet).
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdubs|11 years ago|reply
One of the things it teaches, if you're interested, is how to draw without looking at the page. It's incredibly useful if you're ever drawing from life, and will probably lessen the weirdness of using a tablet.
[+] [-] erikano|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emehrkay|11 years ago|reply
What would be nice is a direct connection between the iPad and computer instead of wifi. My work network is a hassle to log into so I don't event do it most of the time. If I need to look up something on the iPad, i pull out my cell phone hotspot.
[+] [-] davesque|11 years ago|reply
One question: How does this improve on the poor resolution of the iPad touch interface as compared with the Microsoft surface?
[+] [-] gdonelli|11 years ago|reply
We have a 7 days free trial take it for a spin, judge for yourself.
[+] [-] pokstad|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdonelli|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zmmmmm|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdonelli|11 years ago|reply
Upon this feature, we build our own palm detection. It works quite well. We have a 7 days free trial, take it for a spin.
[+] [-] endergen|11 years ago|reply
ps. I'm the founder of Emotely, where I toyed around with a similar approach but then ended up focusing on game controllers instead. Early concept video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE8-TntjYB4
Had been toying with doing something exactly like this again recently called interscreen. Made some prototypes of going over USB, it's so fast when you do that, generally it's fast over wifi. Wifi is un-demoable at conferences, which was always an annoying factor for self promotion.
[+] [-] endergen|11 years ago|reply
I wonder if there's a way to combine your tech with Tiltbrush's for a cool VR use case: http://tiltbrush.com
Being able to tilt the device as another axis of control for your virtual drawing plane could be cool.
[email protected]
[+] [-] graeme|11 years ago|reply
Is astropad a good fit for this use case? I tried drawing via sketchbook express, but it was hard to keep tools offscreen yet still have enough space to make sketches on the ipad screen.
Currently I'm using jot whiteboard + Airserver, which lets me display my drawings to my mac.
[+] [-] oenvoyage|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bane|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterhajas|11 years ago|reply
I wish I could start over my trial when my stylus is supported.
[+] [-] mronge|11 years ago|reply
Sorry about that, we had to pull Pencil support at the last minute due to bugs.
The trial only records days actually used, so if you resume when we have Pencil support you'll still have time left.
[+] [-] mcav|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moreati|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdonelli|11 years ago|reply
Any Mac running OS X 10.9+
Any iPad running iOS 8
[+] [-] forrestthewoods|11 years ago|reply
Unrelated, but I utterly despise any and all video playback setups that don't let me control time. This isn't a VHS tape, let me watch your promotional video how I want plzkthx.
[+] [-] gdonelli|11 years ago|reply
...but just for you: http://vimeo.com/astrohq/astropad
[+] [-] thenomad|11 years ago|reply
Any chance of it ever moving to Windows, or is it Mac-only forever?
[+] [-] yummybear|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] learc83|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdonelli|11 years ago|reply
Video: Mostly depends on the Mac graphic cards. it ranges from 12ms to 25ms on a good WiFi network
[+] [-] RodgerTheGreat|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dalys|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rokgregoric|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smrtinsert|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostly_s|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stefantalpalaru|11 years ago|reply