Astropad App Updated With Support for iPad Pro, Apple Pencil

Astropad, the app designed to turn the iPad or iPhone into a graphics tablet for the Mac, was today updated with support for Apple's 12.9-inch iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil accessory.

For those unfamiliar with Astropad, it works alongside an accompanying Mac app to mirror the Mac's display to the iPad, allowing the iPad's touch screen and controls to be used for editing photos and creating art in Mac apps like Lightroom and Photoshop.

With today's update, Astropad has been optimized for the large screen of the iPad Pro, and it's gained features specifically implemented for the Apple Pencil. There's advanced stroke tuning to remote stray points for better stroke quality, tilt support for more accurate brush simulation, and a custom pressure curve designed with the Apple Pencil in mind.

For all users, latency has been reduced, especially for Macs with dual graphics cards, and image quality has been improved.

Astropad Graphics Tablet can be downloaded from the App Store for $19.99. [Direct Link]

Tag: Astropad

Top Rated Comments

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Nicky G

33 months ago

This is definitely a Killer App for artists, illustrators, and designers.

Rating: 3 Votes

joueboy

33 months ago

I just made a comment awhile ago about Apple should have made the Pencil as an accessory to Macs. Some comments ask me how and kinda stupid idea. Well I didn't know this app exist and it looks awesome. This would give an idea to Apple to create a native experience. But I also hope this app become successful and Apple will open app to avoid limitation to kind of ideas.

Rating: 2 Votes

nagromme

33 months ago

I was using this before today. There are YouTube reviews as well.

But it did just add tilt support.

Rating: 2 Votes

mronge

33 months ago

I want that iPad Pro stand. What's the name of it?

That's the ParcSlope by Twelve South https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/parcslope

Rating: 1 Votes

mRfung

33 months ago

Crap. I've yet to sell my Cintiq 13HD Touch!!

Rating: 1 Votes

Endymion42

33 months ago

If you want 2 displays use Duet with a cable.

As for Astropad, It rocks. Been using it for a couple of weeks with my iPad pro, pencil and MacBook Pro Retina using a cable connection and it works extremely well.

Rating: 1 Votes

Kissaragi

33 months ago

This could have been a good official feature of the ipad pro if apple could make it work better than these third party apps. I suppose they are banking on native 'professional' apps instead.

Rating: 1 Votes

Lucamegh

33 months ago

I want that iPad Pro stand. What's the name of it?

Rating: 1 Votes

campyguy

33 months ago

Doesn't the picture go over lightning cables as well as wifi?

Thank you, that's just what I needed to hear anyway. It's been really tempting to gamble but I don't know... The low res artefacting and the "feel" on my current iPad are what put me off but I haven't used an apple pencil yet, so have no point of reference. I'd miss my pen buttons for sure, too.

The apps do work over the Lightning/USB cable, mixel missed that. Over the cable, there's no artifacts in my short experience with my hardware (late-2013 rMBP, Dell P2715Q, iPP/Pencil) and the updated apps with PS 2015 CC. I'm not a Cintiq user, but I am a Intuos Pro user.

There's a bit of a "delay" on the iPP, but there's a real-time virtualized drawn path that is real-time; the actual "work" drawn on my display was real-time. I tried out a few 300 DPI documents and was impressed by the response by the HW/SW combo.

One more potential "hole" in the pixelation experience - I have my 2.4/5GHz wifi networks segregated; "slow" responses could be due to the two HW devices connecting to the admittedly-congested 2.4GHz network. I'm planning to try out a wireless connection over my 5GHz network and see what happens, and compare it to a wired connection.

OTOH, I spent about $3k on my Mac, $500 on my display, and about $1100 on my iPP and Pencil - I'm not going to let a $20 app get in the way of drawing bliss. Given that the devs are working their butts off updating their apps and not abandon it, I'm in and I didn't wait for a sale. I did get a 25% off iTS card, so I'll admit that I did cheat a bit there...

Rating: 1 Votes

covalt

33 months ago

I really need to try this setup before I'd consider selling my cintiq.. Previously Astropad hasn't exactly ran ideally on the iPad3.. Compared to the cintiq it's always been a bit cludgy and had a bit of weird latency and graphical artefacting. :/

Shame they don't have setups like this running in Apple stores for you to mess about with.

I wouldn't sell your Cintiq quite yet.
When I saw this today I bought the app immediately to try with my iPad Pro and my Mac Pro. It works, but it's no Cintiq.

The advantage is if you're traveling with your laptop and iPad and want to have something close to a Cintiq, then yeah, it works. But it's not the same thing. The sensitivity isn't as good as the Cintiq's, and the extreme-low-res artifact is pretty annoying. It refreshes to a sharper display once it can, but it's a little annoying while drawing.

Wonder if they'll be able to develop a wired Thunderbolt connection so they don't have to rely on wifi. That might help with the delayed screen rendering.

Rating: 1 Votes

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