A pressure-sensitive Bluetooth 4.0 Stylus to turn the iPad in to a digitizer

Article

Pressure-Sensitive Bluetooth 4.0 Stylus Coming to iPad#xtor=RSS-181#xtor=RSS-181#xtor=RSS-181#xtor=RSS-181

My Comments

The Bluetooth 4.0 Smart Ready ability that the Apple iPad has now is being considered of use. Here, Ten One Design have introduced a pressure-sensitive stylus that works with this touchscreen tablet and turns it in to a digitizer. This has the ability to increase the thickness and darkness of a line as you add pressure to the stylus in a similar vein to the real pen or pencil

Six of the iOS drawing apps provide inherent support for this stylus with more on the way. Here, the developers would have to integrate the functionality for this device in their software to have it work. As well, it would require you to work with the files being held on your iPad.

But, with appropriate bridging apps for the iOS platform and the MacOS X and Windows regular computing platforms, this could make it feasible for an iPad that is tethered to a regular computer to become an improved version of one of those “digitizers” or “graphics tablets”. These devices had a tablet surface and a stylus so you could trace hand-drawn graphics or do freehand drawing in to a graphics program. In some cases, these tablets also were a command surface for some CAD programs where you entered drawing commands by “picking” them using the stylus.

Here, the combination of an always-updatable touchscreen display could allow for a variety of options for this class of work. For example, it could permit the direct edit of work on the iPad while using the main screen as an overview display. This could include freehand digitizing and drawing with the iPad providing a natural “paper” feedback and the work appearing on the graphics program.

Similarly, a CAD / CAM program could benefit from turning the iPad in to a “tabbed” command tablet with the stylus being used to “pick” the commands.

Here, the idea of a Bluetooth stylus or, in some cases, a “puck” could make the iOS or Android tablet earn its keep in the CAD or graphics-design office rather than just as a tool for media consumption.

Leave a Reply