True, but that is the state of the competition these days. Nickel and diming your users for every brush is not going to go over well.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
'Paper' Aims to Be The Ultimate iPad Sketchbook
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
True, but that is the state of the competition these days. Nickel and diming your users for every brush is not going to go over well.
It's not the refresh rate that makes it slow, it's the response time of the panel.
I don't think that is correct. Simple drawing tools like pencil are instantaneous. But more complex tools require some computation for effects. Perhaps it is possible to optimize and improve performance via GPU, but as it stands, I find these tools to be too slow for my liking.
Bring up a drawing or painting app, now draw wavy lines around in your app fast, look at the curves, you should notice that they are not curves at all, but actually straight lines. Unless you draw slower you cannot achieve a curved line, this renders quick sketches useless.
I don't know why you assume I'm confusing it with a Galaxy Note, that already has stylus support and varying pressure levels which it supports. Were I assuming it were a Galaxy Note, I would not be wishing for these features, (As it would already have them) and I wouldn't be posting about them in a News Feature about an iPad app.
Also with the screen lag, draw something and you can see it being painted onto the screen quite some distance behind your finger, this ruins the whole experience.
The problem with most iPad sketching apps
If you put your hand on the iPad while you are sketching, which is how most real drawing is done, the app thinks you are drawing with your wrist.
Trying to float your hand above the iPad and draw is very inaccurate.
This is especially true when writing.
The Penultimate app has a wrist protection feature, but doesn't work all the time.
If you put your hand on the iPad while you are sketching, which is how most real drawing is done, the app thinks you are drawing with your wrist.
Trying to float your hand above the iPad and draw is very inaccurate.
This is especially true when writing.
The Penultimate app has a wrist protection feature, but doesn't work all the time.
On my iPad 3 one of my drawing apps does this for the first curve, but the rest are fine. This is also how I remember it one my iPad 1. Paper, however, shows beautiful curves--from the first one to the last--and very little lag.
The only issue I have with Paper is the colour palette; hopefully they give us a real one soon.
Having purchased every drawing and sketching app in the store for our design, engineering & art depts, we've found Inkpad to be the quickest, cleanest, and most useful application thus far. I'd go so far as to say 90% of the time our iPads are on, they're on to run it.
"Paper" has its work cut out for it.
"Paper" has its work cut out for it.
There's new MacBooks, OS X, ...things!!
They said 2012 is going to be a big year.
I Like It
I bought this today and have used only the pen and watercolor brush so far but like it very much. The watercolor brush actually feels a bit like using and blending pastels irl. At first I didn't "get" the rewind button, but after a few tries am now able to use it easily. I look forward to playing with it a lot more - I found it very relaxing.
I bought this today and have used only the pen and watercolor brush so far but like it very much. The watercolor brush actually feels a bit like using and blending pastels irl. At first I didn't "get" the rewind button, but after a few tries am now able to use it easily. I look forward to playing with it a lot more - I found it very relaxing.
Great invention! Hopefully it does get enough developers' support to succeed. Hopefully they make the tip thinner.
----------
Maybe you need to disable Gestures in your iPad's Settings.
----------
Wouldn't Inkpad be in a different category as it is a vector drawing app?
Pages is not vector based, so you souldn't compare it Inkpad. Each excels in it's category.
I just find a little odd that when you draw slow the line in thin, and when you draw fast the line gets thicker. I feel it should be the other way, as with a real pen. Unless we are supposed to just get used to this.
Procreate is the ultimate iPad painting* app in my view. The UI is simple, not flashy, but very polished. And the speed/power is great.
This looks neat, but it kind of seems to fit in between Penultimate and Procreate, and those two work great for me already.
* For vector drawing, I haven’t yet picked a winner!
This looks neat, but it kind of seems to fit in between Penultimate and Procreate, and those two work great for me already.
* For vector drawing, I haven’t yet picked a winner!
Mixed
Pass: Nice and smooth flowing ink. Great colors. Great navigation flow and just overall very "neat".
Fail: 8 bucks if you want the other 4 brushes, or for free you can stick with one brush. Eight smackers, mmm, not sure about that. Could be good for some but I don't think it's giving you 8 smackers worth of product. Might be worth watching the updates.
Limited color palette, at least it seems to be. Decent choice of colors but not a color wheel or selector.
Probably other stuff since it's new but I'm sure there's a niche regardless. My only true gripe is the 8 dollar price tag right now.
Pass: Nice and smooth flowing ink. Great colors. Great navigation flow and just overall very "neat".
Fail: 8 bucks if you want the other 4 brushes, or for free you can stick with one brush. Eight smackers, mmm, not sure about that. Could be good for some but I don't think it's giving you 8 smackers worth of product. Might be worth watching the updates.
Limited color palette, at least it seems to be. Decent choice of colors but not a color wheel or selector.
Probably other stuff since it's new but I'm sure there's a niche regardless. My only true gripe is the 8 dollar price tag right now.
I don't think the person I replied to was talking about how long it takes to apply a brush or complex brush or anything like that, as that doesn't have anything to do whatsoever with the refresh rate of the display.
If you open a drawing app on any iDevice and draw a squiggly line from top to bottom very quickly, you'll notice that there's a delay, it's essentially riding behind your finger.
Modern computer displays have response times of as little as 1ms, and for large 27 inch 1440p panels, they can be 12ms. Some touch screen panels can be 50, or even 100. I'm not sure what the iPad is, but I don't think it's less than 25ms.
The first pressure sensitive iPad stylus looks like being the Adonit Touch, which is due out in April. I use their Jot Pro and it's the only capacitive stylus (ie. glorified stick) that I like.
http://adonit.net/product/jot-touch/
This will be followed in May by the Jaja, which is similar but uses high frequency sound rather than Bluetooth to communicate with the iPad. It also has 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, which is five times as many as the Jot Touch.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonatherton/jaja-worlds-first-pressure-sensitive-stylus-for-ip
A sharp tip is not possible on iPad without additional hardware. The sharp tip on the Galaxy Note is made possible by hardware technology licensed from Wacom.
It was interesting to hear Phil Schiller's comments after AutoDesk's Sketchbook Ink presentation at the iPad 3 keynote: "Using your finger to draw with vectors on the high res display is amazing etc."
We get it Phil: the stylus does not exist.
http://adonit.net/product/jot-touch/
This will be followed in May by the Jaja, which is similar but uses high frequency sound rather than Bluetooth to communicate with the iPad. It also has 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, which is five times as many as the Jot Touch.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jonatherton/jaja-worlds-first-pressure-sensitive-stylus-for-ip
A sharp tip is not possible on iPad without additional hardware. The sharp tip on the Galaxy Note is made possible by hardware technology licensed from Wacom.
It was interesting to hear Phil Schiller's comments after AutoDesk's Sketchbook Ink presentation at the iPad 3 keynote: "Using your finger to draw with vectors on the high res display is amazing etc."
We get it Phil: the stylus does not exist.
Last edited:
Just don't expect that Wacom stylus to be anywhere near as good as their other products. It is really just a stick of aluminium with a bit of rubber on the end.
----------
Cintiq has pressure sensitivity, which iPad won't have until third party solutions begin to ship over the next couple of months. Even then, there will be no sharp-tipped styli.
These features really make a huge difference to the drawing experience. Screen resolution is really secondary.
----------
Cintiq has pressure sensitivity, which iPad won't have until third party solutions begin to ship over the next couple of months. Even then, there will be no sharp-tipped styli.
These features really make a huge difference to the drawing experience. Screen resolution is really secondary.
Marketing tip
Fantastic. Give the app to David Hockney (who already creates on an iPad) http://www.hockneypictures.com/home.php, it'll be an instant world-wide hit.
Fantastic. Give the app to David Hockney (who already creates on an iPad) http://www.hockneypictures.com/home.php, it'll be an instant world-wide hit.
Wirelessly posted
They've been saying that every year for at least a decade. And if AAPL is any indication, they've been right.
thisrocks said:
They've been saying that every year for at least a decade. And if AAPL is any indication, they've been right.
I felt the same way until I noticed how much better handwriting looks using this schema. My writing has never looked so professional and elegant!
This app is phenomenal! It really allows unartistic individuals such as myself to make some very nice drawings.
I spent a good hour with the application last night.
While I am not crazy about MR posting application "ads" on the site, I really do appreciate the fact that I wouldn't have found this application otherwise.
I spent a good hour with the application last night.
While I am not crazy about MR posting application "ads" on the site, I really do appreciate the fact that I wouldn't have found this application otherwise.
I tried this app out and it has tons of potential but right now is missing some very very basic features:
1) No ability to select a region and say delete, cut or copy
2) No ability to paste (even if you copied something from another app)
3) No ability to set a photo as the background for a page (only for a journal cover)
4) No "wrist protection" so taking notes does not work too well
5) No handwriting recognition for notes (like what was demoed for the Courier)
6) No ability to resize the eraser
7) No layers (not even two) so erasing even takes out anything you consider to be "background"
8) Limitation to the provided color palette (no color wheel selector)
9) No ability to tag a page with actual text so you can search it later -- which further limits the ability for note taking.
I could go on, but this app has a simplified interface not because they figured out how to do all these powerful things in a simple way but because they simply left out all the powerful things. I always felt the courier videos by Microsoft looked a bit on the "fluffy" side (lots of eye candy and not much in productivity), but by comparison, Paper by FiftyThree is complete fluff.
Also, while the UI is beautiful and the idea of the rewind feature makes sense I cannot for the life of me figure out how to consistently pull off the two finger twist without contorting my wrist and forearm. Ideally I would tap and hold with one finger and then use my other hand and draw counter-clockwise circles. Instead I have to twist both fingers in a circle to get it to start and can then switch to the way I described (but only sometimes). If somebody was using a stylus they would want to tap/hold with the stylus and then use their other hand to draw the counter-clockwise circles with one finger. So again, good idea, but poor execution.
Update: I was wrong about the "Rewind" feature though many other folks posted in the App Store and on The Verge with the same confusion. The gesture with two fingers in counter-clockwise circles is not like twisting off the cap from a milk bottle, but rather like tracing adjacent intersecting circles (like waxing a car). Once you get this down, the rewind gesture is probably one of the best things about this app.
My recommendation: get this app for free but don't buy any of the tools until they provide a decent update. This app is pretty like the "Clear" todo app, but like that app it is sorely missing in basic features.
To paraphrase Steve Jobs: the hard thing is making something incredibly complex and powerful, incredibly easy to use (like a steering wheel and a gas pedal in a car). All they have done with this app is make something that is really simple and limiting, really easy to use. If they can pull off the above features while maintaining the simplicity of the app then they will have a winner.
1) No ability to select a region and say delete, cut or copy
2) No ability to paste (even if you copied something from another app)
3) No ability to set a photo as the background for a page (only for a journal cover)
4) No "wrist protection" so taking notes does not work too well
5) No handwriting recognition for notes (like what was demoed for the Courier)
6) No ability to resize the eraser
7) No layers (not even two) so erasing even takes out anything you consider to be "background"
8) Limitation to the provided color palette (no color wheel selector)
9) No ability to tag a page with actual text so you can search it later -- which further limits the ability for note taking.
I could go on, but this app has a simplified interface not because they figured out how to do all these powerful things in a simple way but because they simply left out all the powerful things. I always felt the courier videos by Microsoft looked a bit on the "fluffy" side (lots of eye candy and not much in productivity), but by comparison, Paper by FiftyThree is complete fluff.
Update: I was wrong about the "Rewind" feature though many other folks posted in the App Store and on The Verge with the same confusion. The gesture with two fingers in counter-clockwise circles is not like twisting off the cap from a milk bottle, but rather like tracing adjacent intersecting circles (like waxing a car). Once you get this down, the rewind gesture is probably one of the best things about this app.
My recommendation: get this app for free but don't buy any of the tools until they provide a decent update. This app is pretty like the "Clear" todo app, but like that app it is sorely missing in basic features.
To paraphrase Steve Jobs: the hard thing is making something incredibly complex and powerful, incredibly easy to use (like a steering wheel and a gas pedal in a car). All they have done with this app is make something that is really simple and limiting, really easy to use. If they can pull off the above features while maintaining the simplicity of the app then they will have a winner.
Last edited:
Careful what you pay for
This app is waaaay overpriced! The app is free, but you have to pay for almost everything you need to use it. By the time you purchase the tools that would compare to Sketchbook Pro, you'll have paid 20 times what that costs.
This app is waaaay overpriced! The app is free, but you have to pay for almost everything you need to use it. By the time you purchase the tools that would compare to Sketchbook Pro, you'll have paid 20 times what that costs.