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iPad iPad Air stylus issues?

M

Metatone

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 14, 2013
6
0
Anyone else with an iPad Air noticed that it seems to require more pressure with a stylus?

I have 3 different styluses collected over my time with my old iPad, and they came in really useful for Paper and Artrage and Sketchbook. I can't remember the name of 2, but one was a Wacom Solo.

(All passive, no fancy pressure settings.)

Anyway, all of them seem less useful with the new iPad Air screen. Anyone else noticed similar problems? Any ideas which stylus might work best with an iPad Air?

Thanks!
 
Yep. Same here. My Cosmonaut stylus works beautiful on iPad 2, but terribly on the iPad Air. More pressure required and still only getting intermittent signal.

Hopefully, this is something an OS update can fix.
 
I am not having this problem at all. I recently upgraded from an iPad 3rd Gen to an Air (Black, 64GB, LTE). My Wacom Bamboo Stylus works just as well on my Air as it did on the 3. I would be very bummed if it didn't.

I have noticed several of these reports and am thinking there might be some manufacturing variances in the touch panel on the Air. If you are having these problems, I would suggest going to the Genius Bar. You might need a hardware replacement.
 
Boxwave seems to work

JohnofMars said:
Yep. Same here. My Cosmonaut stylus works beautiful on iPad 2, but terribly on the iPad Air. More pressure required and still only getting intermittent signal.

Hopefully, this is something an OS update can fix.
Click to expand...

I dug out my old Boxwave (rubber tip) stylus and it seems to work well.

I have a theory that the Wacom is just a bit too skinny and so unless you hold it vertically, it bends and so pressure becomes intermittent…

In the UK at least, the Boxwave rubber tip stylus is about £7 so might be worth a try, before you go to the Genius bar.

(I'm sceptical about going to the Genius bar because it works fine with fingers and that's what Apple design it for…)
 
I have the exact same problem. My stylus works intermittently, and it does seem to require more pressure. I've been noticing in general that everything on the iPad Air is not working as smoothly as it worked back on my old iPad. I mean, of course it works good, but animations seem jittery, and sometimes it doesnt understand my gestures right away.

Take into account that i've been using an iPad 2 for the past 2 years, so I know the gestures pretty well. I would never need to do them twice on the iPad 2. Typing seems off as well. Ive been typing on my iPad 2 for years, with great accuracy, without even having to look att he screen. Suddenly I've hit a snag, and i do a lot more typos. The keyboards appear to be the same, so it seems the multitouch is what is off. I really hope this is a software issue and not a sideeffect of shaving .5mm off the thickness by using a thinner screen.
 
If any of you have a screen protector on, that's the issue. Styli dont work well unless directly in contact with the glass
 
Right now I'm still using my iFaraday stylus which has a sort of conductive fabric tip. It feels much better than a rubber tip. I was thinking about upgrading to a bluetooth stylus to use with Sketchbook Pro both for pressure sensitivity and a narrower more accurate point. I found this on the Pogo Connect webpage after reading reviews on Amazon:


iPad Compatibility
As a result of changes in the iPad Air's screen, we were disappointed to find current model of Pogo Connect is not compatible with the iPad Air. However, we'd like to invite you to keep abreast of current development work with Pogo Connect.

So what has changed in the iPad Air?
The touch sensor used in the iPad Air works at a much higher frequency than previous models of iPad. The difference is enough to prevent the hardware in our pressure sensor from working correctly. Although we will continue to investigate, it does not appear that a firmware update can remedy this hardware incompatibility.
 
ZipZap said:
If any of you have a screen protector on, that's the issue. Styli dont work well unless directly in contact with the glass
Click to expand...

Can you present any proof of that? Or a reference to any proof of that? I tried a stylus with and without a screen protector, and in my case it did NOT seem to make a difference. So, at the very least, this advice is not universal, and might cause folks to waste a screen protector, as they generally do not go back on very well.

I had trouble with a Wacom Bamboo stylus with my gen 1 mini -- I posted about it back then. I still don't know why it would have performed poorly, and a cheap Targus stylus was much better. I use a fiber mesh-type stylus now (Truglide), and it's the best yet, though not perfect.
 
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I have a $4 drugstore stylus that I actually like a lot. I noticed immediately that it works flawlessly and effortlessly on my Galaxy S3. On my iPad mini and rMini though, I need to apply some obvious pressure to get it to work. Way more than you'd ever naturally do. Makes it more annoying than useful using it with a stylus. Though I'm sure certain stylus's may work better than others depending on the tip's design.
 
TJ61 said:
Can you present any proof of that? Or a reference to any proof of that? I tried a stylus with and without a screen protector, and in my case it did NOT seem to make a difference. So, at the very least, this advice is not universal, and might cause folks to waste a screen protector, as they generally do not go back on very well.

I had trouble with a Wacom Bamboo stylus with my gen 1 mini -- I posted about it back then. I still don't know why it would have performed poorly, and a cheap Targus stylus was much better. I use a fiber mesh-type stylus now (Truglide), and it's the best yet, though not perfect.
Click to expand...

From my experience and wasted time trying styli.

More pressure is needed if you have a protector. Its annoying.
 
I have the the Wacom Creative stylus(99$), it is the one with BT pressure sensitive.
I have not experienced any problems with it, actually best ipad stylus I've used, only down side is the price. I do a bit of drawing with SBP, SBI, Brushes, and some other apps and note taking in classes. It picks up on the slightest amount of pressure pretty consistently.

My other cheap stylus that I've had for years and been using and still use on my ipad 1 work just the same as well.
 
I have also had problems with styluses on ipad air. I have to press my Bamboo solo second gen. quite hard, it to start to register. Funny thing is that when you draw line it works normally after the initial press until you lift the pen. Same pen works great with my galaxy s3 even screen shield on. Only ones that work with my ipad with reasonable force are cheap styluses with wide soft tip.
 
I have a Bamboo stylus, but bought another stylus from the dollar store over the weekend. Both work best with the stylus as upright as possible, and the dollar store stylus glide MUCH more smoothly over the screen (with plastic screen protector). My wife came to the same conclusion, but thought the heavier Bamboo felt better in the hand. I think $29 extra feels great in the hand. :D

We don't have our old iPads, but both styli work at any angle on my HTC One phone.....
 
Eh... So does anyone have a stylus that they are using right now that has pressure sensitivity that is working well on the iPad Air? Every single review I'm reading on various popular styli are having issues with iPad Air or are sub par. I'm looking forward to the TruGlide Apex, but I kinda need a good styli now. Ah well.
 
Been using the Intuos Creative Stylus for a couple weeks. Have to say I really enjoy it. I've found it to be smoothest with the bamboo paper app as far as sensitivity on basic settings. Note: I don't use screen protector on my air.

I've been tweaking my SBP settings for the last couple of days and I'm really pleased with how I have it now. Could it be better? Yeah but I think that's a SBP Autodesk software update needed, because like I said, it works great with bamboo paper.

It also works with a handful of other apps. I've tried some and had no problems there either.

All the little nitpicks I have with it are more than likely software issues with different apps, and personal preference like the fact it uses AAAA batts instead of AAA, the placement of the buttons are a little uncomfortable for me, but I'm already adjusting to those.

Also I have the soft and firm nibs, definitely a difference between the feel and even response of the two. I'd use firm for note taking and soft for art, I also seen that Intuos/Wacom is looking into making an even softer nib and some apps have already pushed out little bug updates.

My opinion: best stylus I've used for a tablet yet, great feel and performance, nice case to keep extra batteries and nibs in plus protect it, but wish price wasn't so high.
 
Here is the sketch I started working on today in SBP. It will probably be a week or so before I'm really where I want to be with the stylus and hopefully an update to the app also.

9ehyzyty.jpg


In bamboo the pressure just works, as far as line thickness. In SBP you can adjust each brush/tool minimum an maximum, soft, solid or hard setting, spacing, opacity etc. then the stylus works within what you have set.
 
Seems like some people are seeing a problem and others are not. Could there be a problem with variance in screen sensitivity on iPad Airs, and using a stylus just magnifies the issue enough to be noticed?
 
On my iPad Air, finger touch is as sensitive as ever, but I've tried three different styluses (stylii?) and they're nowhere near as sensitive.

I have a Wacom Bamboo (not the pressure sensitive one), a Boxwave Evertouch Capacitive, and a cheapy rubber-tipped stylus that I'm not sure where I got it. They all perform around the same, which is, needs more pressure than a fingertip touch to register... to the point of sort of mashing down the rubber tip. So I end up missing lines because they don't start drawing until I'm about a half-inch down the line.

Caveat: I am using a Spigen SGP Ultra Nano Clear screen protector on my iPad Air, so maybe with the different touchscreen components it's just not as sensitive as the other iPads. However, both my Galaxy S3 and iPad 3 have the exact same make/model screen protectors, and the sensitivity with the styluses is just fine on them with the same apps (Sketchbook Pro, etc).

Only other thing I've considered is trying out the "naked glass" iPad Airs at the Apple Store with my current styluses. I'm not returning my Air, as I use a Surface Pro for most pressure-sensitive sketching, but I really love sketching in Paper on the iPad Air... it's just a much nicer device to hold and use. If the styluses are fine on the naked Airs, then I'll suck it up and peel off my screen protector.

Something interesting I read in a Procreate forum where they're complaining about the same thing... someone mentioned that he keeps one finger on the iPad screen in a corner while sketching and somehow that makes the stylus register better. I tried it and it *seems* to work better? But I'm not sure that it's not just all in my head. ;) Maybe some others can test it out too.
 
I have had no issues with my Air and the Jot Touch 4 and Jot Script stylus as far as sensitivity goes. Not using any kind of screen protector.
 
tekchic said:
Something interesting I read in a Procreate forum where they're complaining about the same thing... someone mentioned that he keeps one finger on the iPad screen in a corner while sketching and somehow that makes the stylus register better. I tried it and it *seems* to work better? But I'm not sure that it's not just all in my head. ;) Maybe some others can test it out too.
Click to expand...

I tried that with few apps and I think it works! I noticed earlier that I have to use presure only in the begining of line and after that I can relese some force and stylus is still registered by iPad. Maybe Air has some annoying feature to block accidental taps and brushes from small objects. The problem isn't that Air can't register stylus, but rather it won't. I hope it will be fixed.

Tekchic could you link the procreate thread?

"The software also works intelligently with the new display. Using a touch-rejection algorithm, iPad Air recognizes if your thumb is simply resting on the display while you’re holding it or if you’re intentionally interacting with the Multi-Touch screen. It's a great example of how Apple hardware and software are designed to work together to give you the best experience possible." From http://www.apple.com/ipad-air/design/

Could this be the culprit?
 
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Zumppa said:
Tekchic could you link the procreate thread?
Click to expand...

Here were the couple of threads I was reading yesterday. Two on Procreate's community and one from Wacom EU.
http://procreate.si/forums/index.php?topic=2013.200
http://procreate.si/forums/index.php?topic=2590.20
http://forum.wacom.eu/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16265

Zumppa, you might be onto something -- I wonder if that might be the reason? BTW still looking for "the specific finger touch" post on Procreate that I found yesterday, but the above threads were the ones I was surfing while looking for iPad Air stylus pressure issues. I'll edit this post when I find it. :)

HA... finger post: http://procreate.si/forums/index.php?topic=2729.20 (I've been also trying to decide if I want to buy Pencil by 53 or not... not sure if it'll be any better than the others I'm using now).
 
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