15 ms·

I've often wondered why Apple doesn't have an "iPad Pro" that includes a Wacom or Wacom-like stylus system. I know that Apple is very much "no stylus" and I'm p

I've often wondered why Apple doesn't have an "iPad Pro" that includes a Wacom or Wacom-like stylus system. I know that Apple is very much "no stylus" and I'm positive that was the right move for most uses, but there seems to be an obvious market here for creative types that need a real stylus (as in tip angle detection, pressure sensitivity, on-stylus buttons, etc).

nemothekid 13y ago
If I had to guess, the market isn't large enough nor or are the margins high enough for Apple to actually care. Aside from the Mac Pro, Apple seems allergic to creating products that only serve a single niche.
- breckinloggins 13y ago
  You're probably right. In that case, I wonder if Wacom could make some kind of a "frame" around the iPad that can triangulate a stylus and receive pressure data, etc?
  - smacktoward 13y ago
    They'd probably be more inclined to find out if the market response to Surface had been something better than tepid.
  - 32bitkid 13y ago
    http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/ http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/
    - footpath 13y ago
      The Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus (what a mouthful) uses Bluetooth for pressure, which is similar to the Pogo Connect and Adonit Jot Touch styli. What the OP want is perhaps something similar to the iPen 2 <http://www.cregle.com/> http://www.cregle.com/>, a pen and receiver combo that captures pressure sensitive data.
- autoreverse 13y ago
  Thanks for this comment. It made me see Apple in a new light. Apple in my mind is now a consumer products business (has been for years I guess) not a computer business as I used to "feel". Perhaps I'll be more open to other hardware for my next dev machine.
  - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
    Everyone at Google and CS academia seems to have Macbook Retina Pros these days. They do very well in selling their consumer laptops to...developers, at least in these niches (I would guess that many HN crowd are in the same boat). And really, what more could you want as a dev (at least in a laptop)? My wife is a visual designer who has an external waccom tablet. She said the primary problem with integrated solutions to her is occlusion: she would still prefer a separate tablet. Gabe obviously has a different feeling about this, though I think he is using Illustrator also.
  - awad 13y ago
    Steve Jobs: "When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that’s what you needed on the farms. Cars became more popular as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became popular. PCs are going to be like trucks. They are still going to be around…they are going to be one out of x people. This transformation is going to make some people uneasy…because the PC has taken us a long ways. It’s brilliant. We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it’s uncomfortable." http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20006442-56.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20006442-56.html
    - majgr 13y ago
      Wiki: "A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a vehicle similar to a station wagon or estate car, usually equipped with four-wheel drive for on- or off-road ability. Some SUVs include the towing capacity of a pickup truck with the passenger-carrying space of a minivan or large sedan. Since SUVs are considered light trucks in North America, and often share the same platform with pick-up trucks, at one time, they were regulated less strictly than passenger cars under the two laws in the United States" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_utility_vehicle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_utility_vehicle People do not want trucks OR cars they do want BOTH.
37prime 13y ago
If you knew a high ranking Apple employee, slip “MacBook touch” in a conversation. You’d get an uncomfortable pause followed by a forced laugh.
- adamnemecek 13y ago
  http://gizmodo.com/5027706/rumor-macbook-touch-coming-in-october http://gizmodo.com/5027706/rumor-macbook-touch-coming-in-oct... ?
  - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    [2008]
coldtea 13y ago
>I've often wondered why Apple doesn't have an "iPad Pro" that includes a Wacom or Wacom-like stylus system. As much I'd like one (I have a Wacom too), the reason is because that's a market around 1/10000 the size of the overall iPad market. MS offers that because it tries whatever it can as a differentiator, but it's not working very well for them.
- theguycalledtom 13y ago
  The market for fingerprint readers for smart phones was almost nothing. Just look at the motorola atrix. Now Apple has added a fingerprint scanner and integrated it purely to make it slightly easier to log into your phone, and the iPhone 5s has sold out. If Apple added proper pen support with palm rejection software APIs to an iPad, you'll bet that people will still buy iPads. Mums will use pens to annotate their extension plans for their new house, maps to the park for child birthdays. Kids will use the pen to become better illustrators which will help them be better communicators later in life. Uni students will use pens to jot down notes quickly and draw math equations with ease. The pen on a tablet is not a niche. The Surface Pro is a niche product.
  - headShrinker 13y ago
    I had the original Palm Vx. I would never use a stylus because it makes nothing easier, except drawing. The stylus is sort of a gimmick. If you need to get serious work done and you are serious enough to need a stylus, the iPhone and iPad are not for you. As Elton Brown would say 'there is no room in the kitchen for multitaskers.' They do a bad job at many things. Touch unlock, however, is already in use by someone's grandpa... it's clean, it's easy. It's not multitasking. It's making the current norm safer and faster.
    - theguycalledtom 13y ago
      > makes nothing easier, except drawing Exactly. Drawing includes illustration and annotation. Two things that make communicating faster and easier. As the old saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words.
pippy 13y ago
If you're serious about art, you'll probably want a Wacom. If you're a professional you'll want a mac too, as there's the (almost standardised) software ecosystem with the creative types. There are Wacom Interactive Pen Displays for those who want to see their art digitised straight away. Gabe's requirements are quite niche, though if tool suits you there's nothing wrong with that. Though why bother to fork out $700 for a tablet when you can get a second hand tablet on ebay for less than $100?
- tincholio 13y ago
  I'm not sure I agree that being able to draw properly on the go is such a small niche. While most work undoubtedly happens at a desk, it could be useful for artists / illustrators on the move.
lnanek2 13y ago
There are a couple Bluetooth and infrasound options for pressure sensitive pens for iPad/iPhone. Not as good as a Wacom sensor built into the display itself, but they are there to some degree. The issue is the same on Android. Android devices are so cutthroat that an extra 25$ cost to include the pen and screen sensor will sink your product and not including the pen just makes it into an accessory no one has. And even then you won't beat Google's whitebox or Amazon's loss leader hardware pricing. Samsung is really the only successful Android device maker with a built-in pen, and they already pour ridiculous amounts of money into things no one else but Apple can, like marketing, so it isn't surprising. Although an infrasound pen works with any Android, just not as well again.
InclinedPlane 13y ago
There's actually a quite simple answer to this: iPad's are too profitable. That may not seem like a problem, and it certainly isn't to Apple, but it's a problem for the market. When it's easy to make huge profit margins and massive sales volumes with relatively simple designs there's not much impetus to innovate, take risks, or pursue smaller markets. The potential opportunity cost that Apple faces in spending a lot of development effort as well as production volume on an "iPad Pro" would be enormous, and almost certainly more than what could be recouped in profits even if such a thing were successful.
hackaflocka 13y ago
Why does the ipad need to be any different? Why can't all the hardware functionality be self contained in the stylus, and have it wirelessly convey signals to the ipad via Bluetooth or some such thing.
rahoulb 13y ago
There are a number of rumours of Apple trialling a 12 or 13" iPad going round at the moment [1]. To my mind, that would be Apple cannibalising Mac sales - an iPad that big would be aiming squarely at Macbook Air territory (especially coupled with the A7 and future processors). But if they did release one, they really should give it a decent digitiser - that, plus the bigger surface (sheesh) area, would be perfect for drawing on. [1] http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/24/apple-may-be-working-with-quanta-computer-on-larger-ipad/ http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/24/apple-may-be-working-wit...

nemothekid 13y ago

If I had to guess, the market isn't large enough nor or are the margins high enough for Apple to actually care. Aside from the Mac Pro, Apple seems allergic to creating products that only serve a single niche.

breckinloggins 13y ago
You're probably right. In that case, I wonder if Wacom could make some kind of a "frame" around the iPad that can triangulate a stylus and receive pressure data, etc?
- smacktoward 13y ago
  They'd probably be more inclined to find out if the market response to Surface had been something better than tepid.
- 32bitkid 13y ago
  http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/ http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/
  - footpath 13y ago
    The Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus (what a mouthful) uses Bluetooth for pressure, which is similar to the Pogo Connect and Adonit Jot Touch styli. What the OP want is perhaps something similar to the iPen 2 <http://www.cregle.com/> http://www.cregle.com/>, a pen and receiver combo that captures pressure sensitive data.
autoreverse 13y ago
Thanks for this comment. It made me see Apple in a new light. Apple in my mind is now a consumer products business (has been for years I guess) not a computer business as I used to "feel". Perhaps I'll be more open to other hardware for my next dev machine.
- seanmcdirmid 13y ago
  Everyone at Google and CS academia seems to have Macbook Retina Pros these days. They do very well in selling their consumer laptops to...developers, at least in these niches (I would guess that many HN crowd are in the same boat). And really, what more could you want as a dev (at least in a laptop)? My wife is a visual designer who has an external waccom tablet. She said the primary problem with integrated solutions to her is occlusion: she would still prefer a separate tablet. Gabe obviously has a different feeling about this, though I think he is using Illustrator also.
- awad 13y ago
  Steve Jobs: "When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that’s what you needed on the farms. Cars became more popular as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became popular. PCs are going to be like trucks. They are still going to be around…they are going to be one out of x people. This transformation is going to make some people uneasy…because the PC has taken us a long ways. It’s brilliant. We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it’s uncomfortable." http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20006442-56.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20006442-56.html
  - majgr 13y ago
    Wiki: "A sport utility vehicle (SUV) is a vehicle similar to a station wagon or estate car, usually equipped with four-wheel drive for on- or off-road ability. Some SUVs include the towing capacity of a pickup truck with the passenger-carrying space of a minivan or large sedan. Since SUVs are considered light trucks in North America, and often share the same platform with pick-up trucks, at one time, they were regulated less strictly than passenger cars under the two laws in the United States" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_utility_vehicle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_utility_vehicle People do not want trucks OR cars they do want BOTH.

37prime 13y ago

If you knew a high ranking Apple employee, slip “MacBook touch” in a conversation. You’d get an uncomfortable pause followed by a forced laugh.

adamnemecek 13y ago
http://gizmodo.com/5027706/rumor-macbook-touch-coming-in-october http://gizmodo.com/5027706/rumor-macbook-touch-coming-in-oct... ?
- aaronbrethorst 13y ago
  [2008]

coldtea 13y ago

>I've often wondered why Apple doesn't have an "iPad Pro" that includes a Wacom or Wacom-like stylus system. As much I'd like one (I have a Wacom too), the reason is because that's a market around 1/10000 the size of the overall iPad market. MS offers that because it tries whatever it can as a differentiator, but it's not working very well for them.

theguycalledtom 13y ago
The market for fingerprint readers for smart phones was almost nothing. Just look at the motorola atrix. Now Apple has added a fingerprint scanner and integrated it purely to make it slightly easier to log into your phone, and the iPhone 5s has sold out. If Apple added proper pen support with palm rejection software APIs to an iPad, you'll bet that people will still buy iPads. Mums will use pens to annotate their extension plans for their new house, maps to the park for child birthdays. Kids will use the pen to become better illustrators which will help them be better communicators later in life. Uni students will use pens to jot down notes quickly and draw math equations with ease. The pen on a tablet is not a niche. The Surface Pro is a niche product.
- headShrinker 13y ago
  I had the original Palm Vx. I would never use a stylus because it makes nothing easier, except drawing. The stylus is sort of a gimmick. If you need to get serious work done and you are serious enough to need a stylus, the iPhone and iPad are not for you. As Elton Brown would say 'there is no room in the kitchen for multitaskers.' They do a bad job at many things. Touch unlock, however, is already in use by someone's grandpa... it's clean, it's easy. It's not multitasking. It's making the current norm safer and faster.
  - theguycalledtom 13y ago
    > makes nothing easier, except drawing Exactly. Drawing includes illustration and annotation. Two things that make communicating faster and easier. As the old saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words.

pippy 13y ago

If you're serious about art, you'll probably want a Wacom. If you're a professional you'll want a mac too, as there's the (almost standardised) software ecosystem with the creative types. There are Wacom Interactive Pen Displays for those who want to see their art digitised straight away. Gabe's requirements are quite niche, though if tool suits you there's nothing wrong with that. Though why bother to fork out $700 for a tablet when you can get a second hand tablet on ebay for less than $100?

tincholio 13y ago
I'm not sure I agree that being able to draw properly on the go is such a small niche. While most work undoubtedly happens at a desk, it could be useful for artists / illustrators on the move.

lnanek2 13y ago

There are a couple Bluetooth and infrasound options for pressure sensitive pens for iPad/iPhone. Not as good as a Wacom sensor built into the display itself, but they are there to some degree. The issue is the same on Android. Android devices are so cutthroat that an extra 25$ cost to include the pen and screen sensor will sink your product and not including the pen just makes it into an accessory no one has. And even then you won't beat Google's whitebox or Amazon's loss leader hardware pricing. Samsung is really the only successful Android device maker with a built-in pen, and they already pour ridiculous amounts of money into things no one else but Apple can, like marketing, so it isn't surprising. Although an infrasound pen works with any Android, just not as well again.

InclinedPlane 13y ago

There's actually a quite simple answer to this: iPad's are too profitable. That may not seem like a problem, and it certainly isn't to Apple, but it's a problem for the market. When it's easy to make huge profit margins and massive sales volumes with relatively simple designs there's not much impetus to innovate, take risks, or pursue smaller markets. The potential opportunity cost that Apple faces in spending a lot of development effort as well as production volume on an "iPad Pro" would be enormous, and almost certainly more than what could be recouped in profits even if such a thing were successful.

hackaflocka 13y ago

Why does the ipad need to be any different? Why can't all the hardware functionality be self contained in the stylus, and have it wirelessly convey signals to the ipad via Bluetooth or some such thing.

rahoulb 13y ago

There are a number of rumours of Apple trialling a 12 or 13" iPad going round at the moment [1]. To my mind, that would be Apple cannibalising Mac sales - an iPad that big would be aiming squarely at Macbook Air territory (especially coupled with the A7 and future processors). But if they did release one, they really should give it a decent digitiser - that, plus the bigger surface (sheesh) area, would be perfect for drawing on. [1] http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/24/apple-may-be-working-with-quanta-computer-on-larger-ipad/ http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/24/apple-may-be-working-wit...