Writing On The iPad
I love my iPad. It is the one thing I use extensively throughout the day. My computing tasks are increasingly being done on an iPad rather than a Mac. However, I find myself wishing for one feature over and over again. The thing is, I want to be able to use a stylus on my iPad.
Steve Jobs famously eschewed a stylus in his iPhone keynote saying, “If you see a stylus, they blew it”. The thing is, at that point of time, stylus was the norm, and it was important to make people understand the value of multi-touch and how it was way better than using a stylus. Fast forward to today and hardly anyone will argue about that - for most applications.
The thing is, touching is a very approximate mode of input and by shifting to it we lost a form of input that was far more accurate - the stylus - for the comparatively niche areas in which it was way better.
What’s really important to note, though, is that an accurate input mechanism is often important for content creation. Case in point - Adobe Photoshop. The closest one comes to it on the iPad is Procreate. Although Procreate is state-of-the-art stuff, it still sucks to make stuff on it compared to Photoshop on the Mac. There’s absolutely no way to achieve something like pixel perfection on an iPad without wrecking your brains or fingers. Now, with all credit to the iPad, it has proved to be a remarkably capable content creation device. However, that’s been achieved by many by cleverly designing around the iPad’s limitations rather than by riding on iPad’s innate strengths.
Where does this leave us? Do I want the stylus to return? Heck no! Not in it’s previous and current form, anyway. Steve Jobs was right in saying, “Who wants a stylus? You have to get them, you put them away, you lose them — yuck!”. The second part of the statement is more important and informative. I have the following bare-minimum requirements for a stylus, if it ever comes to be.
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There needs to be a mechanism for the stylus to never get lost. And by that, I don’t mean using a string to tie it to the iPad itself. Also, it should be cheap enough to not worry about too much. The last time I used a stylus, I was dead scared of losing it.
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The iPad should still focus primarily on the approximate touch interfaces. A more accurate tool like the pen should be required in only apps that actually need it. I don’t see the OS needing it for the moment.
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The response times to the stylus should not be noticeable. Right now there is a noticeable lag when I draw using existing tools or even fingers.
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Spurious touch input due to the hands while using a stylus needs to be dealt with.
If you look at it, it’s actually a huge undertaking, but it is best if it is undertaken by Apple because you can trust them to get it right.
