FiftyThree Announces Bluetooth 'Pencil' Stylus to Accompany 'Paper' App

All the shaking made me feel motion-sick. Thanks a lot, iOS 7.

It seems like the lack of an active digitiser on the iPad hasn't stopped quality drawing/note-taking apps from appearing on the iOS platform.

This is the issue that I'm currently having. I like Apple product and all, but there is just something that you can't do with the capacitive surface. I'm current still using my six+ years old Fujitsu Wacom tablet/laptop to take notes with Onenote. I don't care how you want to put it, that is currently the best digital note taking experience I have had, much much better then taking notes on the iPad.

All I see in this video is people trying to use the stylus and then going back to using their finger.

It seems like the lack of an active digitiser on the iPad hasn't stopped quality drawing/note-taking apps from appearing on the iOS platform.

That's one thing I wish the iPad had. It would be so nice to use a stylus for taking notes are painting in a paint app, etc. My fingers are way too big to do detailed artwork/handwriting.

All I see in this video is people trying to use the stylus and then going back to using their finger.

That's better than what I see, a shaking camera.

just don't like how these styluses tend to be application-specific to make best use of all its features. don't want to spend a few hundred bucks on styluses alone...

All that camera motion in the video makes it hard to watch. Very distracting. A suggestion of that hyperactive camera technique here and there would have been fine.

A video style more along the lines of the Paper video on FiftyThree's site would have enabled me to focus on the features and benefits of the Pencil stylus vs wondering who shot this thing.

I'm just dizzy now.

All I see in this video is people trying to use the stylus and then going back to using their finger.

I think they are trying to make the point that you can use either. In the real world when drawing with something like pencil, pastels or charcoal you use your fingers a lot for smudging and blending.

They recently launched the MFi programme for game controllers with iOS 7, the first game controller is released today. I could see stylus/pen support launched in the same way (after screen supports such required changes) where they launch a 3rd party framework in iOS as an MFi programme, I'm sure they've got that in the plans, I can't imagine with all the pens and styli popping up that they don't see the opportunity. I'd definitely be up for that, and it'd give me a reason to upgrade to the latest.

The cool thing is that you don't even need an API to enable support for styluses. Once the digitizer is built into the screen, all anyone has to do is make sure their product interfaces with it properly. No bluetooth, dongles, batteries, or anything of the sort. Once it's out of the box, you're ready to use it without any configuration.

Thing is, I don't see a Wacom stylus market catching on quite like the controller market eventually will, or how the capacitive stylus market already has. There are a thousand different ways a 3rd party can make the latter two. Controllers can have different shapes and button configurations. Cap styluses can attempt different things with the tips to give you a much different writing/drawing experience. A Wacom stylus is pretty much a Wacom stylus, no matter how it looks. Once you've tried one, you've tried them all, because all the action happens in the screen itself and underlying software. You might see a few 3rd party pens pop up that are longer, shorter, thicker, or thinner, but most everyone will probably stick with the Apple default, provided one comes packed in with future iPads.