46 ms·

Pencil

882 points by xuki 13y ago

Mithaldu 13y ago
Wow, another website featuring a product that is Apple-only and almost actively hides the fact that it only works on a single platform.
pagekicker 13y ago
Microsoft addressed most of the issues addressed in this thread twelve years ago when it launched XP for Tablet PC with "ink as a first class citizen" data type in the OS.
alexobenauer 13y ago
This is probably the first time I've ever thought that a scrolling-aware content page has actually added meaningful functionality to the page without being in the way and annoying. Really nice work there.
etler 13y ago
I've never heard anyone using finger input to do smudging. That's so obvious but so smart. I don't know how I haven't heard of that before.
epaga 13y ago
Seems like this company should be an insta-cquire for Apple any day now. They display Apple's core values more than any other company I know (outside of Apple). Since it's Bluetooth it seems to be a great way to get probably close to 100% accurate palm detection which has always been the most annoying part of stylus usage on iPad for me. Genius.
- srik 13y ago
  Isnt't it ironic that the cofounders actually came out of Microsoft R&D. They were among the Courier team, for those who don't know. Courier was a pre-iPad tablet device with amazing untapped potential. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpftPSuXe4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpftPSuXe4
  - CmonDev 13y ago
    Sigh, and now it's one of select demo apps in every Apple store. It alone almost made me buy an iPad. Way to go Bill Gates shutting down Courier, well done.
    - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
      Sorry, are you saying that had billg not shut down Courier, Microsoft would have made the iPad? Its rather like the Winklevoss twins - if Microsoft could have invented the iPad, they would have invented the iPad.
      - fidotron 13y ago
        The Courier looked far more like it would've found an actual market than Surface RT. The question is really how much of what leaked was functional versus what they hoped it was going to do.
        Touche 13y ago
        If you look just at the journal parts of the video, the parts Paper can duplicate, most of them are not in Paper at all. Paper is just a special type of drawing app.
      - quarterto 13y ago
        No, they're saying had billg not should down Courier, Microsoft would have made Courier.
  - Touche 13y ago
    That's just a concept video. Paper can't do most of what is shown in the journal parts of the video, so I'm guessing they were no where close to making Courier a reality.
- jcl 13y ago
  On the other hand, Apple is surprisingly anti-stylus. Perhaps they feel it represents a barrier between the user and machine, or maybe they feel it differentiates the iPad from the stylus-based tablets that came before. Regardless, styluses seem to be one of the few tablet accessories that you can buy in almost any electronics store except an Apple store.
nilliams 13y ago
Paper is the only app I've ever used that makes me wish I had a bigger tablet than my iPad 2 (because I love it).
baumgarn 13y ago
"Pencil is the most natural and expressive tool for getting ideas on Paper" I thought this would be some kind of parody at first...
- gonzo 13y ago
  you are not alone in this.
- mherdeg 13y ago
  Yeah, I thought this was a Web page advertising an actual pencil.
  - VintageCool 13y ago
    I thought that the whole HN userbase was going along with the joke.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    Good 'ol Poe's Law (the other way around this time)
- Grue3 13y ago
  It took me until they started describing USB port when I realized that this is not a page making fun of shitty iPad accessories, but an actual shitty iPad accessory.
- applecore 13y ago
  Genius, in my opinion. Naming their products on such a broad term effectively establishes them as the "category killer" -- a competitor will never be able to find a name that's more effective[1]. [1]: http://www.igorinternational.com/process/silk-naming-consumer-products.php http://www.igorinternational.com/process/silk-naming-consume...
- davexunit 13y ago
  I thought this was making fun of all of the useless products that are marketed with these flashy web pages. Then I realized that they were actually serious.
applecore 13y ago
Awesome scrolling effect on the Pencil in the Crafted For Creativity section.
- gulbrandr 13y ago
  The script for the scrolling effet: http://www.fiftythree.com/js/pencil.js http://www.fiftythree.com/js/pencil.js
- aasarava 13y ago
  Ah! I didn't see it happen on Chrome, so I missed it. Went back with Firefox after I saw your comment and now I get it. Very nice.
- consonants 13y ago
  Obnoxious is more like it.
gbog 13y ago
Looks interesting. I must have missed the part where they explain with which tablets and apps this pencil is compatible.
- jnardiello 13y ago
  No, it's clearly stated that this pencil is compatible with Paper. Paper is an iOS app, therefore this product is compatible with the iPad family.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- sharmanaetor 13y ago
  See the Frequently Asked Questions at http://shop.fiftythree.com/ http://shop.fiftythree.com/
- girvo 13y ago
  It's compatible with Paper, the iOS app. I didn't get it at first either, but then it clicked.
  - brettz 13y ago
    Took me awhile. Not having an iPad, I had no clue what "Paper" was until 5 minutes ago.
colinramsay 13y ago
Is this pressure sensitive?
- TruthSHIFT 13y ago
  No, it does not seem to be. But, I'm not sure why it's not pressure sensitive. It seems like that is something that they could have added using the bluetooth connection. I'm guessing that functionality would have made it too expensive or fragile.
  - tenfingers 13y ago
    Then, there is no point in buying this particular pen at all.
    - Pxtl 13y ago
      That's my reaction too. Without pressure-sensitivity, how is it different from any other capacitive stylus? The palm-detection and the eraser? That's kinda weak. It's unfortunate that Apple is so devoted to purely-consumer hardware and that other companies lack Apple's dedication to quality. The Galaxy Note's hardware makes this kind of system look like a children's toy... but then you're stuck with Samsung software.
      - jonknee 13y ago
        Palm detection is pretty big for drawing.
        Pxtl 13y ago
        Does it require a dedicated piece of hardware, though? Can't any multi-touch system do palm-detection or does the capacitive touchscreen get too overwhelmed by the whole palm to detect the little point of the stylus?
        slantyyz 13y ago
        A cheap solution for palm rejection is to just pick up some cotton gloves from the local dollar store.
mikeg8 13y ago
Pencil looks really cool!! but that video made my stomach turn a bit. As someone who used to edit videos, I can't image working on that, I would have puked for sure.
CmonDev 13y ago
We asked for Android support and this is what we get instead? http://support.fiftythree.com/customer/portal/questions/821857-is-there-an-android-equivalent- http://support.fiftythree.com/customer/portal/questions/8218...
- wriq 13y ago
  It is that surprising? When you have limited dev resources it's smart to focus on the platform that would garner the most attention and profit.
  - smrtinsert 13y ago
    Exactly, grandma needs her new Christmas present!
  - eloisant 13y ago
    The thing is the Android market is much bigger. Maybe history will repeat itself? * Company makes a great innovative product on iOS * Competitor gets to Android first, embracing the platform * Company finally releases an half-assed Android port with iOS look and useless back buttons while Competitor is already established on Android => After the Android launch failure, Company publishes numbers comparing iOS and Android sales and claim "See, no profit to be done on Android!"
    - gress 13y ago
      The number of android devices is much bigger but because most of those devices are at the extreme low end, especially in tablets, the market for Android software and accessories is much smaller.
    - wriq 13y ago
      Has this happened? It does make sense to me and seems like a good opportunity for a competitor but I can't think of a case where a very popular iOS app lost out to an android alternative.
  - Tyrannosaurs 13y ago
bbx 13y ago
Paper is the only "entertainment" app I actually installed on my iPad. (I don't have games, news or social media apps.) On its own, Paper is already a very interesting experience. The content is simple but provides tons of possibilities. I also own a Wacom stylus that I never use. Pencil seems to solve the main issues of a stylus: being able to rest your palm, to erase easily, and to keep it close at hand (by snapping it to the iPad cover). It's a perfect example of software / hardware synergy.
charlieflowers 13y ago
I wonder how well something like this would work for doing math. Say, for example, a word problem, or a proof. You often need more than one sheet of paper for a problem, but if you're using a notebook, it becomes painful to try to concentrate on what you're doing while also flipping back to the previous page to look at something you need. If you work the problems on separate detached sheets, you have more flexibility, but you end up with separate detached sheets :). A computerized tablet interface could solve all these problems and automatically organize the finished work for you. But it would have to not SCREW UP all the symbols you'd be writing. Has anyone here successfully used Pencil or any other stylus/tablet combination for doing math?
- notphilip 13y ago
  Surface Pro (or any windows tablet with a wacom-like stylus) with Onenote addresses all of these issues. Especially since you can easily screengrab portions of the screen (e.g., a relevant theorem from a pdf) and 'print' anything to any onenote page, it's really clean and easy to get all relevant content in one place. It also makes your handwriting and printouts searchable. I also really like using the webcam to take pictures of whiteboards/lecture slides to annotate on top of (really helpful for 'old school' classes or Professors that don't share their slides).
- egypturnash 13y ago
  Pencil was just announced today, so nobody will have used it yet. You might want to try Adobe Ideas and a stylus for this; it offers a huge, scalable canvas that you can scroll around in.
asolove 13y ago
This is wonderful and beautiful. I don't want to knock it. I'll probably buy one and love it. If you like this, also look at the demo video for Adobe's project Mighty/Napoleon, a pen and drafting tool combo that is pretty incredible: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/17/adobe-xd-mighty-napoleon-contour-parallel-hands-on/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/17/adobe-xd-mighty-napoleon-... What I think is sad about both of these products is that they are tied to specific apps. These closed ecosystems get to be more powerful instead of becoming tools on top of which larger things can be hacked together. I don't blame 53 or Adobe for that: making open hardware with open standard communication is probably incredibly hard, and getting it to interact with a tablet operating system through anything other than your one app is perhaps impossible. But it's still sad. With the growing popularity of hardware hacking, it's only natural that developers will start making our own physical tools the same way we write our own software tools. Unix makes this easy by providing abstractions like pipes, sockets, etc. for getting small programs to work together using common interfaces. What are the OS-level abstractions that will make it easier to build, combine, and reuse our own hardware tools? The current methods for using device drivers, detecting wireless devices, or sharing them across a network are not very open to reuse and sharing. What is the way forward where we can use something like this pencil with its smart palm rejection and erase, hack together our own physical drafting tool, and plug them both in to existing software by writing a little adapter? It makes me wonder whether we need to go back and steal some of the bits of plan9/inferno: a single abstraction around sharing both data and devices, a natural way to multiplex input and output streams, and transparent network sharing of everything.
- taylodl 13y ago
  One of the most insightful comments I've read on HN. Love your idea of taking the Unix approach to hardware - don't know enough about hardware hacking to know if that's doable but I like the idea!
- diminish 13y ago
  The current trends in mobile apps, and smartphones pushed such "silos" of functionalities not open to other devices, forget hacking. It's time for someone to develop an open source hardware and make all the protocol open, and maybe call it "finger".. Edit: on the other side, we have Rasperry, Arduino etc..
beauzero 13y ago
meh
davb 13y ago
Tell me it's not Apple-only. Tell me it's not Apple-only... crosses fingers Oh, bugger. It's Apple-only.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  Why's that a big deal? If you really care about a stylus on a tablet, a tablet with a real digitizer seems to be a much better choice -- and there are some good, reasonably priced non-Apple options out there like Samsung's Note series of products, the Surface Pro, Thinkpad Tablet 2, etc.
  - hadem 13y ago
    It's a big deal because they are interested in the product and it requires you to have an iPad...
  - davb 13y ago
    It's not that there are no comparable products - there are. It's more that I thought this particular implementation, at this price, looked really interesting.
nat 13y ago
I actually laughed out loud when I scrolled past the exploded view of its innards. Best use of parallax scrolling I've ever seen.
- chrismonsanto 13y ago
  This is the only example of parallax scrolling I have ever liked.
acron0 13y ago
Gutted it's only for Retina & Mini (i.e. not the iPad 2) [1] devices as well :( This would have been an amazing Christmas present for my wife. [1] http://shop.fiftythree.com/ http://shop.fiftythree.com/ (System Requirements at the bottom)
- jakebellacera 13y ago
  The iPad 2 does not support Bluetooth 4.0, unfortunately.
linux_devil 13y ago
Paper is one of my favorite app on ipad. Pencil looks innovative and promising . But I was using the app effectively with stylus, also palm detection is something which can be done at application level.
parthoghosh86 13y ago
This is so wonderful and amazing....
jlebrech 13y ago
My pencil is paper compatible also.
abbot2 13y ago
The web site misses one obvious sentence: "Pencil is a ...". I spent 60 seconds on the web site, did not understand what the heck is this thing, and closed the web site. Will never open again I guess.
- warrenmiller 13y ago
  watch the video
  - abbot2 13y ago
    Watched 40 seconds. Don't have sound. Understood nothing.
    - danellis 13y ago
      How hard is it to understand? It's an iPad stylus.
    - frogpelt 13y ago
      You probably aren't the target market.
  - linker3000 13y ago
    Videos (normally) run in realtime and unless you want to miss something by skipping, you have to watch from start to finish - ie: in the video creator's timeframe. Maybe I'm a control freak, but I want to scan a few paragraphs at a speed that suits me rather than be 'forced' to sit through a promo video from end-to-end. It's the same reason why I'd rather read a tech article than listen to a podcast.
decasteve 13y ago
Reminds me of a prototype I had seen a few years ago, Conté, after the artists crayon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDqT_oKM7j8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDqT_oKM7j8
smrtinsert 13y ago
These product vids are ripe for a funnyordie parody.
- kepano 13y ago
  http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6905817/every-tech-commercial http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6905817/every-tech-commerc...
blackdogie 13y ago
That video made me a little dizzy. it was a fun effect, highlighting the pencil in the middle of the shot, but I had to turn it off. "Pencil is the most natural and expressive tool for getting ideas on Paper" iPad + Pencil + App = most expensive expression tool I know too !
fidotron 13y ago
Maybe I'm stupidly jaded, and it's one of the things that has steadily pushed me out of the Apple ecosystem, but this trend for overly emotional marketing of stuff, especially in the hipster end of the market, grates enormously. This is like a sort of tech-etsy. It's got to the point I can't actually take products like this seriously without getting annoyed by them going on about artisanal wood carvings. Like the owning of the object itself is more important than what you're supposed to do with it . . .
- awakeasleep 13y ago
  I'm just glad they didn't use the word "Gorgeous". At some point I imagine my son will see his wife doing something beautiful, illuminated by a golden sunrise, and when he tells her she looks gorgeous, she'll say "What? Like a fucking app or something?"
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- 3327 13y ago
  I must say the video is most definitely over emotional no to mention it made me sea sick with the over use of shaking. The product looks great and interesting. >It's got to the point I can't actually take products like this seriously without getting annoyed by them going on about artisanal wood carvings. Like the owning of the object itself is more important than what you're supposed to do with it . . . i agree with you on your point but it also has upsides, design was forgotten and every electronic device we owned was either matt black or white (think of all the VCR's, home audio, laptops). So now that a sense of design has returned we rebel against it 'being' hipster. Its a delicate balance i guess.
  - fidotron 13y ago
    To be clear, I'm definitely in favour of good design, but good design can often speak for itself.
sudont 13y ago
Explains why they prevaricated on other Bluetooth styluses: http://support.fiftythree.com/customer/portal/questions/1461965-wacom-intuos-creative-stylus?b_id=167 http://support.fiftythree.com/customer/portal/questions/1461... Safe to say this is the only one that will be supported.
ruswick 13y ago
Pencil seems like an fairly interesting idea, but it's priced in a really odd way. The $50 price point puts it well out of reach consumer and hobbyist users. Despite this, Pencil and Paper are not as robust as, nor ate they priced comparably to, professional digital drawing tools like Wacom's system. Pencil precludes the casual demographic who just wants to doodle in their free time or take notes with its high price, but does not cater to the group of elite professionals who would be willing to cough up a substantial amount of money for drawing tools. I just don't understand who this is for.
- cmicali 13y ago
  I don't think a $49 price point is "well out of reach" for consumer and hobbyist users.
  - ruswick 13y ago
    I would argue that it is. What portion of iPad owners have ever spent any money on software or peripheral devices? Probably less than half. Now, what portion of them would be willing to shell out $50 for a stylus? I just can't imagine that a non-negligible proportion of iPad owners would be willing to spend that much on an accessory. Also keep in mind that the current price point is "introductory" and will increase in the future.
    - smackfu 13y ago
      Selling high-end accessories to Apple users is an existing market. There's whole companies focused on that, for instance twelve south (http://twelvesouth.com/ http://twelvesouth.com/).
    - pietro 13y ago
      Artist equipment is very expensive, and $50 is less than you'll pay for a decent water color brush. The last one I got was about twice that expensive, and I don't even use it anymore. I use Paper. If it works as advertised, Pencil is a steal.
diydsp 13y ago
>"artisanally crafted" (grammar) Did an artisan craft it? No, it looks to me mass-manufactured to spec by someone or something who doesn't have a say in its design or the ability to individualize it. You mean "made of wood," but that's the most you can squeeze out. Please don't try to steal the thunder of actual artisans. > "unique built-in eraser" > "unique sensor lets you flip Pencil to erase" Yeah, the crappy Wacom knockoff I bought in 1998 had the same thing. Wacoms have the same thing. If you are like all the other, most popular, long-existing things, you are not a unique thing. If they're delusional about this, what else are they delusional about? Why would I spend money to support hubris? Because I'll have some minor extension of my abilities within a double-walled garden? Aim higher.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - Tomdarkness 13y ago
    While I don't agree with the comment you've replied to, I equally don't agree with your comment. Why should someone not comment on HN if their opinion is not representative of the majority of users on HN? They should be free to express their opinion, even if the majority of people don't agree with it.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - danellis 13y ago
    So you're calling for the suppression of minority opinions?
  - bananacurve 13y ago
    People seem to be under the misapprehension that Google Play is not a walled garden.
    - LukeShu 13y ago
taude 13y ago
I have mixed feelings about this. I wish Apple would just get it on with having some form of integrated active digitizer builtin to the iPad. After playing with MSFT Surface Pro and even Samsung S-Pen, it's obvious to me that these are superior solutions to all these third-party workarounds for iOS. And this is really a locked-in third party solution... Anyway, I think iOS eco system is ripe for more accurate artist/drawing tools and it seems they should be able to support both types of input (touch & pen)...
lukeschlather 13y ago
What really struck me about Pencil here is that they're marketing Pencil as a durable good. The idea that someone's marketing a computing device without hoping I'll throw it away in 12-18 months is really inspiring. On the other hand, it only works properly with a single brand of tablet.
hippee-lee 13y ago
I'm a paper user. Here are my pros and cons: Pros: - easy to get started or back into drawing - easy to sketch UI concepts and send them around - easy for my daughter to play with Cons: - fixed canvas size; you can scale an are a tiny bit but not much - no layers - customer support has shown an indifference to existing technogy (with pressure and palm detection) even for the styli they support. - customer support seems to have a (IMO) arrogance in how they respond to things on the forums. - including the upgrades makes Paper 2x as expensive vs Procreate which has more drawing fools and the abity to customize and save my own tools. It was a good app to have and my daughter still uses it. But for my own doodling or quick UI concepts at work I switched to procreate. The wacom creative (http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/ http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/) stylus was on my Xmas list u until I saw the adobe tool mentioned. I'll be checking that out.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jwr 13y ago
  I wonder why so few people complain about the speed. I tried to use Paper and while I love the results I can get (nice-looking drawings even if you are not artistically inclined), I can't stand the slowness, and the fact that I can't properly dot my i's. I switched to Upad for all my tech drawings. It works great, and is very responsive. No, my drawings do not look as cool, but at least they get drawn.
  - hippee-lee 13y ago
    I noticed that too when I colored things fast. It was fast enough for most things. The most frustrating speed issue for me was when painting with watercolor brush where the variable speed changes the effect of the ink. Thanks for the tip re: Upad! I'll check it out.
  - eridius 13y ago
    I hadn't heard of Upad before. The screenshots look nice, especially if it really does work well for handwriting. Just yesterday I tried doing some mathematical note-taking in another app (already forget which one) and it was pretty bad. Sadly, the support links leave me with little confidence in the product. The "PockeySoft Web Site" link is actually a youtube video, and "UPAD Support" takes me to a 404 (http://www.pockeysoft.com/upad http://www.pockeysoft.com/upad). If I remove the path on that URL, most of the images on the resulting site are broken. If their site is that broken, and the app hasn't been updated in 11 months, it sure gives the impression that the app has been abandoned.
jedberg 13y ago
Whoever directed that video needs to go back to film school. I understand that you're trying to "highlight the product", but causing nausea in your customer isn't the best way to do that.
- Segmentation 13y ago
  Not sure why this is downvoted, he's completely right. Too many start up product videos nowadays are directed with shots all over the place. I hate it when I see it in movie trailers, but they can at least explain themselves as not wanting to show you too much of the movie. No excuse in a product video that doesn't need to rush itself.
  - slantyyz 13y ago
    Wow, that was even more nauseating than the Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield.
- bluthru 13y ago
  I thought, "Oh, that's kind of interesting" when it first tracked the pencil and I thought it was done. Nope. It followed for the rest of the video. I started feeling nauseous, and I don't even get car sick.
- joeblau 13y ago
  I didn't get that feeling, but the "Hm... I wonder if anyone is getting nauseous watching this" thought did cross my mind.
- ronaldj 13y ago
  I thought it was cute.
  - rhubarbquid 13y ago
    Cute but nauseating.
    - 13y ago
lasermike026 13y ago
Someone kill me.
NikolaTesla 13y ago
All I want is a tablet that has the line fidelity of a pen or pencil, not a crayon. If I can record my writing/drawing with voice-over, even better.
marban 13y ago
If you don't need the eraser and battery worries, I recommend http://www.studioneat.com/products/cosmonaut http://www.studioneat.com/products/cosmonaut
desireco42 13y ago
Awwww, I got Evernote's Jot pen that takes them forever to ship (still didn't arrive). This is really tempting, but how many styluses a man really can use. I really love what they did here. On the other hand, Samsung Note and Surface are places if you really need to use stylus. I thin Surface is especially strong there.
asadotzler 13y ago
After using a Surface Pro for a year with a real stylus and its excellent digitizer, I wonder how so many people can be so happy with something so inferior. iPads are a joke for input.
toddmorey 13y ago
Does pencil provide any additional drawing resolution or pressure sensitivity? Genuinely curious. Didn't see any mention of those on the site, but I saw a battery required and wondered if that did more than power the eraser.
oddshocks 13y ago
Anyone know of some open hardware that does this same sort of thing and works with existing software?
- CatsoCatsoCatso 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper They're both super cheap and open. With the right skill and a few plugins [0] you can create stunning pieces of content [1]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint (Not to be confused with MS Paint) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Death [I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself.]
ajmarsh 13y ago
Ok so I'm going to end up buying this. However I feel like I'm due a refund on the Bamboo stylus I bought from Studio 53 when I originally started using the Paper app. The Bamboo stylus was so laggy it was unusable. Hopefully the Bluetooth stylus will work as advertised.
darkstalker 13y ago
It probably has a noticeable latency, like most touchscreen inputs. The video just shows silly camera/pen movements and no actual drawing scenes.
jdalgetty 13y ago
wow that camera was annoying.
- millerm 13y ago
  Yes, yes it was. I was feeling a bit woozy near the end and had to just stop watching. Big monitor here, didn't like the movement.
typon 13y ago
Wait how is this better than Surface Pro? Seems like it has the same features.
- curyous 13y ago
  It is far worse than the Surface Pro, not even in the same league, but hardly anyone uses a Surface Pro.
yolo137 13y ago
lol
borismus 13y ago
Still too thick.
- xerophtye 13y ago
  thank you! Good to see i am not the only one
spenrose 13y ago
Dangerous. Fifty-three employees will use them 6 hours/day, only a fraction of Paper customers will ever try one once. Anti-dogfooding.
jeena 13y ago
Honestly, I read the whole page and I have still no idea what this is. It says it is a Pencil which works with Paper, both pencil and paper with uppercase letters which seem to indicate that they mean something else then a carpender pencil and a peace of paper to write on, so does the price and that you can load some battery and connect to something unspecified with bluetooth. Could someone tell me what this is for and why they have a beautiful website which doesn't tell me what the product is for?
- InclinedPlane 13y ago
  It's a bluetooth smart stylus for iOS devices, especially tablets, which integrates with their existing graphic design app "paper". The reason it's non-trivial and potentially interesting is because it doesn't just rely on the limited resolution of the capacitive touch screens of iDevices, it has its own sensor which improves on that. If it were just an ordinary capacitive stylus it wouldn't have the precision to be very useful for drawing or even hand writing.
  - jeena 13y ago
    > It's a bluetooth smart stylus for iOS devices, especially tablets, which integrates with their existing graphic design app "paper". Such a simple and short explenation! I wonder why they don't mention iOS devices, the word stylus or the word app on their website.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- VMG 13y ago
  Before watching the video, I thought this was a parody
lignuist 13y ago
"If you see a stylus, they blew it" - Steve Jobs
- alexobenauer 13y ago
  While relevant, to be fair he meant as the primary method of interacting with and navigating a handheld device, as in needing a stylus to scroll through your email, make calls, etc. This 'pencil' is simply for painting and drawing on a tablet, arguably a different scenario.
  - lignuist 13y ago
    I Agree. I just could not resist posting this quote. :) Actually Pencil looks nice and I always wondered why Apple did not release such a device itself.
    - sbuk 13y ago
      Refer to the quote that you posted earlier.
      - lignuist 13y ago
        Probably that was the reason why Apple did not have the courage to do so, but it is obvious that it creates additional value for some people. Especially designers and illustrators, I think.
        samelliot 13y ago
        Also relevant to any student that does math and has to write equations (every person in the 1st world.) Also relevant to every student who needs to read a book and highlight passages and annotate (every person in the 1st world). Also relevant to every person who wishes to draw a diagram to communicate their idea (every person in the world).
        sbuk 13y ago
sgt 13y ago
I feel silly about this, but did anyone else also get seasick from watching that video?
jroseattle 13y ago
Makes me wonder what the Rembrandts and Picassos would have thought of such a device and whether it encourages or prohibits artistic expression. I can imagine it certainly does on the tablet medium, but in general I wonder if there is any aspect of artistic creativity gained or lost when moving away from traditional mediums.
- malrase 13y ago
  David Hockney has certainly embraced it as a medium. http://www.wired.com/design/2013/11/hockney/ http://www.wired.com/design/2013/11/hockney/
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
archagon 13y ago
To me, latency is by far the most important issue here, and I don't see any mention of it on the page. Compared to my Wacom tablet, touch input is just too laggy to use in anything but the most basic drawing and note-taking tasks; is Bluetooth better or worse? (Judging by my existing BT devices, I'm gonna have to guess "worse".)
celerity 13y ago
I like the whole idea of well-crafted products, but in the end this is nothing but a crappy, laggy, low fidelity finger-simulator/crayon. Writing any text with it is probably clumsy, and certainly impossible to do as well as with any other pencil on paper. Pass. Apple needs to get out something with a proper active digitizer so that all these satellite companies start making nice pens that also work well.
hashtree 13y ago
The cost of purchasing moleskine notebooks each month has gotten out-of-hand ($16+ per). As a previously die-hard paper/pen guy, I've attempted to make the move over to iPad based note taking only to find its abilities completely lacking. There are great apps and stylus hardware, but even when tightly coupled to overcome the iPad's lack of hardware support.. it leaves much to be desired. You see companies like Jot and 53 having to invent far too much in attempts to solve this problem. A shame for otherwise great tablets.
sosuke 13y ago
The tip still gets me. I just have a hard time with the thick tip where I can't see my connection to the 'paper'. I keep wanting to try out the Adonit Jot http://adonit.net/jot/touch/ http://adonit.net/jot/touch/
deltaqueue 13y ago
Can any artists on HN comment on how useful styli are with tips this thick? I suspect the added thickness is required for capacitive touch screens, but I always thought my fingertip was far too thick for accurately initiating thin lines or dots (e.g. in games like Draw Something). Something like this seems like it would require far less erasing: http://www.wacom.com/en/us/everyday/bamboo-stylus-feel-samsung-galaxy-note http://www.wacom.com/en/us/everyday/bamboo-stylus-feel-samsu... *edited for clarity
- tenfingers 13y ago
  For drawing, you can get away with larger tips, but I cannot understand how can people use those soft-rubber tips for capacitive screens, where the center-point of contact is actually moving as you scrub the screen. For comparison, I use a Wacom Intuos 5 large, and I'm already noticing that the pen tilt affects the position of the cursor (a 45' angle moves the point up to 0.5mm in the direction of tilt). I saw several people taking notes with those pens though, but the note-taking applications offer a large "writing" area where you can write text as big as 4cm in height. I honestly cannot write efficiently at that size. The "Pencil" here also has such a large tip that clearly covers the area of contact even if you use it with the short side up. I assume you will be able to figure out the point of contact after a while, but I would have chosen a normal pen design, not an "artisan pencil" at all.
- bdegman 13y ago
  Useful for sketching but any real work is going to be done with an actual drawing tablet like the ones Wacom makes.
- eridius 13y ago
  The added thickness is to compensate for the fact that the iPad touch screen has a reasonable distance between sensors. You cannot get pixel-perfect accuracy on the iPad touch screen, and a pointed stylus would make that extremely apparent. So instead the trend is for larger tips, to encourage users to bump up their line thicknesses and to obscure the lack of pixel-perfect accuracy. Think marker, not pen.
  - 13y ago
egeozcan 13y ago
It doesn't ship to Germany. I was ready to buy an ipad just to give this a go for my note taking needs though.
kitwalker12 13y ago
would've loved some iPad 2 love
nilsbunger 13y ago
Am I the only one who at first thought this was a joke, i.e. making fun of our crazy hyperbole by marketing a real pencil?
- alan_cx 13y ago
  No, I thought that too. In fact, I was disappointed. I thought it might go on about how useful a pencil still is. Some sort of comparison thing. Personally, in my IT capacity, I still love going to meetings, seeing all the non tech people with their various electronic toys, and I get out a pencil and a pad of note paper... Weakly amusing, true, but it also makes a semi-serious point. Im a tech guy who will not waste money on technology for the sake of it. I like to see real benefit for the money spent. On top of that, during such meetings, Im never the one who holds up proceedings taking notes. Kind of help ram the point home.
leoc 13y ago
For most of the way through this, reading about Pencil and its compatibility with Paper, the palm-rejection technology and the super-handy eraser on the rear, I thought I was reading a parody advertisement.
joelle 13y ago
I absolutely LOVE the paper app. This is so cool.
caiob 13y ago
Satires please. hehe
crorella 13y ago
Nice idea and execution. The video makes me dizzy :P
ep103 13y ago
Did anyone else notice that this site somehow causes IE to crash?
yk 13y ago
I am confused, is this a parody of the current "Not as cool as a pencil" iPad ad, or is this a real product?
tieTYT 13y ago
Is that software that it works with (apparently called "Paper") going to stay free? I see it's free as of today: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003812 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003...
- cytzol 13y ago
  It's free, but you have to buy the individual tools with in-app purchases: see the list on the left of the iTunes link.
  - gorner 13y ago
    It's not super clear from their website but if you buy Pencil, apparently you get the tools for free while you have the stylus connected.
twodayslate 13y ago
No pressure sensitivity?
freshchilled 13y ago
I really had to come into the comments to see if this was satire or not. Paper, Pencil, Book. I swore this was a joke, even after I saw there was an actual price tag!
adultSwim 13y ago
It's not clear to me which benefits are from the new stylus and which are built into Paper. For instance I don't see how the smudge with finger is actually a Pencil feature. What are the differences compared to just using a regular/dumb stylus?
- the906 13y ago
  A normal stylus is dumb and only does a line. This stylus allows for change in depth.
- TruthSHIFT 13y ago
  What makes it interesting is that they are able to distinguish between the 3 different types of input. Most apps can't tell the difference between a finger and a stylus. This one can. In addition, this stylus knows which end you are using. I suspect that this is accomplished using an accelerometer and the orientation data is transmitted to the tablet via bluetooth.
trumbitta2 13y ago
I was ready to buy it. But no. I'm in Italy so screw me :-/
hellyeasa 13y ago
Why do all websites have the same design? It's boring and lifeless?
WalterBright 13y ago
I watched the video, and although it is pretty cool, I have a couple of issues with it: 1. It's a bit fat, not skinny like a pencil. I generally don't like fat pens. 2. The point is pretty large and blunt. This suggests it is hard to locate it precisely. I've done professional drafting work in the past, and having a nice sharp tip to control exactly where the mark goes is important.
- robflynn 13y ago
  iPads do not play nicely with fine tips.
skrebbel 13y ago
I knew the "Buy Now" button would link to a Kickstarter page. Kudos to the FiftyThree folks for proving me wrong. This looks like a great product. I'll buy one as soon as they port it to Windows (because seriously, doing real work on a device that doesn't even expose a filesystem? I'm clearly old-fashioned).
mekoka 13y ago
Saw the upvotes, opened the link, watched the video, came back to HN comments, saw many people confused and criticizing. I have to ask, why so many upvotes then? Could it be that people here upvote even before opening links? Or just because everybody else seem to think it's a good idea to upvote?
- encoderer 13y ago
  Or that there are many more people upvoting than commenting? And that generally the impression is favorable?
- MatmaRex 13y ago
  I almost upvoted because I thought this was a joke and it seemed funny. Thankfully I scrolled to the part where they mention USB inside the "Pencil".
MattBearman 13y ago
This looks really cool, but what really blew me away was the way the pencil dismantles as you scroll the page down. Absolutely beautifully done.
mey 13y ago
Some suggestions for pressure sensitive tablets http://cintiqcompanion.wacom.com/en/?country=us&language=en http://cintiqcompanion.wacom.com/en/?country=us&language=en Microsoft Surface's use Wacom digitizers as well, see http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/26/the-surface-2 http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/26/the-surface-2 Samsung's Note series also has a good digitizer http://www.samsung.com/us/topic/galaxy-note-10-1-2014-edition http://www.samsung.com/us/topic/galaxy-note-10-1-2014-editio...
devindotcom 13y ago
I will never understand the stylus-on-capacitive-screen thing. The lag, the limited accuracy, the interpolation of your movements, it's all very opposite to the idea of a stylus as an input. I'm glad others find it useful, but every stylus I've ever used on a capacitive screen has immediately struck me as, to me, worthless.
omegote 13y ago
Yet another product that expects EVERYONE to own an iPad. W-T-F? Try this. Control + F, search for "ipad". Nothing. Search for "apple", nothing. Search for "android". NO-THING. What's wrong? Is the iPad the definitive standard and everyone is now born with one? Sick.
- sp332 13y ago
  It says "Paper" all over it, and Paper already requires an iPad. Requiring an iPad would be redundant. Edit: Also at the bottom they actually mention Apple once, in tiny print in an image lol
  - omegote 13y ago
    So? I didn't know anything about that "Paper" app before. Anyways, I guess you don't get what I mean.
  - anonymouz 13y ago
    When I was reading that page I wasn't sure whether they just misspell paper, misspell it on purpose to make a parody of these marketing websites, or whether that should be something else. Only the HN thread told me that apparently it's an iPad App (for sketching I purpose). Especially when the app has such a common word as a name at least a link or something wouldn't hurt...
sly010 13y ago
Only 30 times more expensive than this: http://www.cableandcase.com/products/stylus-touch-screen-iphone-ipad-stylus-pen?gclid=CN3TlJHW8boCFct9OgodGwYAiA http://www.cableandcase.com/products/stylus-touch-screen-iph... Is it 30 times better though?
chris-at 13y ago
> Our adaptive palm rejection instantly knows whether it’s your hand or Pencil touching the page. Rest your hand on the screen, write from any angle. No calibration or setup. You’ll forget you’re creating on a tablet. Does anyone know if this works with iPad gestures enabled? All of the other apps promising palm detection/rejection (like Penultimate) require you to turn off iPad gestures.
liminal 13y ago
So apparently this is a device to be used with iPads. Would have been nice if the company put that somewhere on the product's webpage.
metaphorical 13y ago
Bluetooth but no pressure sensitivity? Pressure sensitive stylus is the closest thing that emulates drawing on "paper". It's a beautiful stylus, but not a very practical one.
EGreg 13y ago
So this is basically a stylus that feels like it's made of wood? Or it is made of wood? That's about it?
xiaoma 13y ago
As someone who has done a decent amount of digital art, this is a far inferior solution to existing Wacom products. Not only are there issues with using such a large "pencil", but the iPad simply doesn't have the ability to differentiate between different levels of pressure like the Intuos or even the much cheaper Bamboo tablets.
airencracken 13y ago
"Capacitve screens are so great, you don't need a stylus anymore" Sigh.
bitwize 13y ago
Wait, so this is a thing? It's not some sort of tongue-in-cheek joke about our reliance on technology? Geez, Poe's law even applies to marketing...
lnanek2 13y ago
There are already pressure sensitive pens that are supported in multiple apps, not just Paper, like the Pogo Connect. Seems actually bad for the ecosystem to have another separate pen with yet another SDK. Some apps will support one, some others.
a3_nm 13y ago
Did anyone else read this at first as a very well executed parody website explaining all the benefits of using traditional paper and pencil? I sniggered when I read "Our adaptive palm rejection instantly knows whether it’s your hand or Pencil touching the page." It took me some time to realize that this was a real product...
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  Yup, I'm using my status indication adaptation to uniquely and fluidly demonstrate a situation of synchronistic agreement has been established between your cognisization and mine. With it's motile upper sections and manipulable terminal section it's the perfect vehicle to deliver not only indications of agreement but many other natural gestures drawing you in to an incalculable world of novel experiences. [pbhjpbhj raised his hand.]
- interstitial 13y ago
  Half the items I see on kickstarter I think are parodies, especially with the high design stock music, ideation sketches on the wall and the animated group brain storming sessions. But hipsters are soft targets full of much self-importance and wow.
Lerc 13y ago
/r/SomebodyMakeThis works! http://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/comments/cgkoz/smt_an_active_stylus_for_capacitive_touchscreens/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/comments/cgkoz/smt_... I made this pic several years ago trying to express what I thought styluses could be. http://i.imgur.com/yLuh8.png http://i.imgur.com/yLuh8.png
guiomie 13y ago
Just bought one for Christmas. Not for me, but my dad who is addicted to his ipad (hes got the TV turned on in the background by habit, but he is actually consuming content on his ipad on his couch).
beloch 13y ago
Is there anyone who has used one of these who can comment on the amount of lag? The website makes a lot of claims about almost everything except lag. High accuracy (claimed) is nice and all, but it really throws you off if you're drawing a curve and what's showing up on the screen is precisely half a second behind your hand! Low latency is crucial for a stylus. Absolutely crucial. It's what separates tools from toys.
DonGateley 13y ago
Cool if you like writing with a log.
protomyth 13y ago
I wonder how many types of "tools" we will get that work with tablets. I'm still hoping someone comes up with a electronic airbrush.
julianz 13y ago
I watched the video and scrolled to the bottom of the page. I don't know what they're selling - is it just the stylus thing? Does it work with every app, or just their one? Is it only for ipads, or can I use it on an Android? Then I noticed they spelt "ginkgo biloba" wrong on the sketch underneath the video. Twice. And then I closed the tab.
xs 13y ago
Although it looks cool... for my tablet... It doesn't bring the collaboration I still seek. I often work remote and do screen sharing of my laptop. I have a wacom tablet that allows me to draw on my computer screen which is then being shared to my team. It would be great if I could use my existing iPad and something cool like pencil to do my drawing and have it display on my computer so my remote team can see it.
boristhespider 13y ago
The Russians used a...
CSDude 13y ago
The shaking on the video is so disturbing that I had urge to close the video. It does not how to shake for all the video duration.
beefsack 13y ago
I still can't figure out if that page is satirical or not.
pfh 13y ago
Saw this cool idea. It really is cool, I really do want one (for Android... details details). What was it called? Ah! "Pencil". Let me just google that... I know flickr-style names are kinda old now, but they work.
brickmort 13y ago
I don't understand all the negativity in this post. This product is a work of art. This layout/presentation is making Apple stop and take notes.
elacey 13y ago
This has to be my favorite HN comment ever... bravo 53, for this gold alone: "Pencil isn't designed to only work with Paper. Anyone who is interested in an SDK for Pencil should let us know..." Oh my, we've come full circle. I look forward to next learning about Bookmark's SDK and it's integration with Bound Book
xerophtye 13y ago
Am i the only one who thinks its too damn THICK? Aren't pencils and styli supposed to be slim and easy to hold in your hand?
matponta 13y ago
It's just lovely
0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago
A pencil you can use to shake the world and play violins, nice.
jotm 13y ago
So, uh, it's a stylus, right? Cause I can't tell for sure from that page...
serge2k 13y ago
this looks amazing. Too bad I'll never buy one. Enjoy your ipad toys, I'll go continue not having pencil on my nexus. :(

882 points by xuki 13y ago

Wow, another website featuring a product that is Apple-only and almost actively hides the fact that it only works on a single platform.

pagekicker 13y ago

Microsoft addressed most of the issues addressed in this thread twelve years ago when it launched XP for Tablet PC with "ink as a first class citizen" data type in the OS.

alexobenauer 13y ago

This is probably the first time I've ever thought that a scrolling-aware content page has actually added meaningful functionality to the page without being in the way and annoying. Really nice work there.

etler 13y ago

I've never heard anyone using finger input to do smudging. That's so obvious but so smart. I don't know how I haven't heard of that before.

epaga 13y ago

Seems like this company should be an insta-cquire for Apple any day now. They display Apple's core values more than any other company I know (outside of Apple). Since it's Bluetooth it seems to be a great way to get probably close to 100% accurate palm detection which has always been the most annoying part of stylus usage on iPad for me. Genius.

srik 13y ago
Isnt't it ironic that the cofounders actually came out of Microsoft R&D. They were among the Courier team, for those who don't know. Courier was a pre-iPad tablet device with amazing untapped potential. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpftPSuXe4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlpftPSuXe4
- CmonDev 13y ago
  Sigh, and now it's one of select demo apps in every Apple store. It alone almost made me buy an iPad. Way to go Bill Gates shutting down Courier, well done.
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    Sorry, are you saying that had billg not shut down Courier, Microsoft would have made the iPad? Its rather like the Winklevoss twins - if Microsoft could have invented the iPad, they would have invented the iPad.
    - fidotron 13y ago
      The Courier looked far more like it would've found an actual market than Surface RT. The question is really how much of what leaked was functional versus what they hoped it was going to do.
      - Touche 13y ago
        If you look just at the journal parts of the video, the parts Paper can duplicate, most of them are not in Paper at all. Paper is just a special type of drawing app.
    - quarterto 13y ago
      No, they're saying had billg not should down Courier, Microsoft would have made Courier.
- Touche 13y ago
  That's just a concept video. Paper can't do most of what is shown in the journal parts of the video, so I'm guessing they were no where close to making Courier a reality.
jcl 13y ago
On the other hand, Apple is surprisingly anti-stylus. Perhaps they feel it represents a barrier between the user and machine, or maybe they feel it differentiates the iPad from the stylus-based tablets that came before. Regardless, styluses seem to be one of the few tablet accessories that you can buy in almost any electronics store except an Apple store.

nilliams 13y ago

Paper is the only app I've ever used that makes me wish I had a bigger tablet than my iPad 2 (because I love it).

baumgarn 13y ago

"Pencil is the most natural and expressive tool for getting ideas on Paper" I thought this would be some kind of parody at first...

gonzo 13y ago
you are not alone in this.
mherdeg 13y ago
Yeah, I thought this was a Web page advertising an actual pencil.
- VintageCool 13y ago
  I thought that the whole HN userbase was going along with the joke.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Good 'ol Poe's Law (the other way around this time)
Grue3 13y ago
It took me until they started describing USB port when I realized that this is not a page making fun of shitty iPad accessories, but an actual shitty iPad accessory.
applecore 13y ago
Genius, in my opinion. Naming their products on such a broad term effectively establishes them as the "category killer" -- a competitor will never be able to find a name that's more effective[1]. [1]: http://www.igorinternational.com/process/silk-naming-consumer-products.php http://www.igorinternational.com/process/silk-naming-consume...
davexunit 13y ago
I thought this was making fun of all of the useless products that are marketed with these flashy web pages. Then I realized that they were actually serious.

applecore 13y ago

Awesome scrolling effect on the Pencil in the Crafted For Creativity section.

gulbrandr 13y ago
The script for the scrolling effet: http://www.fiftythree.com/js/pencil.js http://www.fiftythree.com/js/pencil.js
aasarava 13y ago
Ah! I didn't see it happen on Chrome, so I missed it. Went back with Firefox after I saw your comment and now I get it. Very nice.
consonants 13y ago
Obnoxious is more like it.

gbog 13y ago

Looks interesting. I must have missed the part where they explain with which tablets and apps this pencil is compatible.

jnardiello 13y ago
No, it's clearly stated that this pencil is compatible with Paper. Paper is an iOS app, therefore this product is compatible with the iPad family.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
sharmanaetor 13y ago
See the Frequently Asked Questions at http://shop.fiftythree.com/ http://shop.fiftythree.com/
girvo 13y ago
It's compatible with Paper, the iOS app. I didn't get it at first either, but then it clicked.
- brettz 13y ago
  Took me awhile. Not having an iPad, I had no clue what "Paper" was until 5 minutes ago.

colinramsay 13y ago

Is this pressure sensitive?

TruthSHIFT 13y ago
No, it does not seem to be. But, I'm not sure why it's not pressure sensitive. It seems like that is something that they could have added using the bluetooth connection. I'm guessing that functionality would have made it too expensive or fragile.
- tenfingers 13y ago
  Then, there is no point in buying this particular pen at all.
  - Pxtl 13y ago
    That's my reaction too. Without pressure-sensitivity, how is it different from any other capacitive stylus? The palm-detection and the eraser? That's kinda weak. It's unfortunate that Apple is so devoted to purely-consumer hardware and that other companies lack Apple's dedication to quality. The Galaxy Note's hardware makes this kind of system look like a children's toy... but then you're stuck with Samsung software.
    - jonknee 13y ago
      Palm detection is pretty big for drawing.
      - Pxtl 13y ago
        Does it require a dedicated piece of hardware, though? Can't any multi-touch system do palm-detection or does the capacitive touchscreen get too overwhelmed by the whole palm to detect the little point of the stylus?
      - slantyyz 13y ago
        A cheap solution for palm rejection is to just pick up some cotton gloves from the local dollar store.

mikeg8 13y ago

Pencil looks really cool!! but that video made my stomach turn a bit. As someone who used to edit videos, I can't image working on that, I would have puked for sure.

CmonDev 13y ago

We asked for Android support and this is what we get instead? http://support.fiftythree.com/customer/portal/questions/821857-is-there-an-android-equivalent- http://support.fiftythree.com/customer/portal/questions/8218...

wriq 13y ago
It is that surprising? When you have limited dev resources it's smart to focus on the platform that would garner the most attention and profit.
- smrtinsert 13y ago
  Exactly, grandma needs her new Christmas present!
- eloisant 13y ago
  The thing is the Android market is much bigger. Maybe history will repeat itself? * Company makes a great innovative product on iOS * Competitor gets to Android first, embracing the platform * Company finally releases an half-assed Android port with iOS look and useless back buttons while Competitor is already established on Android => After the Android launch failure, Company publishes numbers comparing iOS and Android sales and claim "See, no profit to be done on Android!"
  - gress 13y ago
    The number of android devices is much bigger but because most of those devices are at the extreme low end, especially in tablets, the market for Android software and accessories is much smaller.
  - wriq 13y ago
    Has this happened? It does make sense to me and seems like a good opportunity for a competitor but I can't think of a case where a very popular iOS app lost out to an android alternative.
- Tyrannosaurs 13y ago

bbx 13y ago

Paper is the only "entertainment" app I actually installed on my iPad. (I don't have games, news or social media apps.) On its own, Paper is already a very interesting experience. The content is simple but provides tons of possibilities. I also own a Wacom stylus that I never use. Pencil seems to solve the main issues of a stylus: being able to rest your palm, to erase easily, and to keep it close at hand (by snapping it to the iPad cover). It's a perfect example of software / hardware synergy.

charlieflowers 13y ago

I wonder how well something like this would work for doing math. Say, for example, a word problem, or a proof. You often need more than one sheet of paper for a problem, but if you're using a notebook, it becomes painful to try to concentrate on what you're doing while also flipping back to the previous page to look at something you need. If you work the problems on separate detached sheets, you have more flexibility, but you end up with separate detached sheets :). A computerized tablet interface could solve all these problems and automatically organize the finished work for you. But it would have to not SCREW UP all the symbols you'd be writing. Has anyone here successfully used Pencil or any other stylus/tablet combination for doing math?

notphilip 13y ago
Surface Pro (or any windows tablet with a wacom-like stylus) with Onenote addresses all of these issues. Especially since you can easily screengrab portions of the screen (e.g., a relevant theorem from a pdf) and 'print' anything to any onenote page, it's really clean and easy to get all relevant content in one place. It also makes your handwriting and printouts searchable. I also really like using the webcam to take pictures of whiteboards/lecture slides to annotate on top of (really helpful for 'old school' classes or Professors that don't share their slides).
egypturnash 13y ago
Pencil was just announced today, so nobody will have used it yet. You might want to try Adobe Ideas and a stylus for this; it offers a huge, scalable canvas that you can scroll around in.

asolove 13y ago

This is wonderful and beautiful. I don't want to knock it. I'll probably buy one and love it. If you like this, also look at the demo video for Adobe's project Mighty/Napoleon, a pen and drafting tool combo that is pretty incredible: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/17/adobe-xd-mighty-napoleon-contour-parallel-hands-on/ http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/17/adobe-xd-mighty-napoleon-... What I think is sad about both of these products is that they are tied to specific apps. These closed ecosystems get to be more powerful instead of becoming tools on top of which larger things can be hacked together. I don't blame 53 or Adobe for that: making open hardware with open standard communication is probably incredibly hard, and getting it to interact with a tablet operating system through anything other than your one app is perhaps impossible. But it's still sad. With the growing popularity of hardware hacking, it's only natural that developers will start making our own physical tools the same way we write our own software tools. Unix makes this easy by providing abstractions like pipes, sockets, etc. for getting small programs to work together using common interfaces. What are the OS-level abstractions that will make it easier to build, combine, and reuse our own hardware tools? The current methods for using device drivers, detecting wireless devices, or sharing them across a network are not very open to reuse and sharing. What is the way forward where we can use something like this pencil with its smart palm rejection and erase, hack together our own physical drafting tool, and plug them both in to existing software by writing a little adapter? It makes me wonder whether we need to go back and steal some of the bits of plan9/inferno: a single abstraction around sharing both data and devices, a natural way to multiplex input and output streams, and transparent network sharing of everything.

taylodl 13y ago
One of the most insightful comments I've read on HN. Love your idea of taking the Unix approach to hardware - don't know enough about hardware hacking to know if that's doable but I like the idea!
diminish 13y ago
The current trends in mobile apps, and smartphones pushed such "silos" of functionalities not open to other devices, forget hacking. It's time for someone to develop an open source hardware and make all the protocol open, and maybe call it "finger".. Edit: on the other side, we have Rasperry, Arduino etc..

beauzero 13y ago

meh

davb 13y ago

Tell me it's not Apple-only. Tell me it's not Apple-only... crosses fingers Oh, bugger. It's Apple-only.

slantyyz 13y ago
Why's that a big deal? If you really care about a stylus on a tablet, a tablet with a real digitizer seems to be a much better choice -- and there are some good, reasonably priced non-Apple options out there like Samsung's Note series of products, the Surface Pro, Thinkpad Tablet 2, etc.
- hadem 13y ago
  It's a big deal because they are interested in the product and it requires you to have an iPad...
- davb 13y ago
  It's not that there are no comparable products - there are. It's more that I thought this particular implementation, at this price, looked really interesting.

nat 13y ago

I actually laughed out loud when I scrolled past the exploded view of its innards. Best use of parallax scrolling I've ever seen.

chrismonsanto 13y ago
This is the only example of parallax scrolling I have ever liked.

acron0 13y ago

Gutted it's only for Retina & Mini (i.e. not the iPad 2) [1] devices as well :( This would have been an amazing Christmas present for my wife. [1] http://shop.fiftythree.com/ http://shop.fiftythree.com/ (System Requirements at the bottom)

jakebellacera 13y ago
The iPad 2 does not support Bluetooth 4.0, unfortunately.

linux_devil 13y ago

Paper is one of my favorite app on ipad. Pencil looks innovative and promising . But I was using the app effectively with stylus, also palm detection is something which can be done at application level.

parthoghosh86 13y ago

This is so wonderful and amazing....

jlebrech 13y ago

My pencil is paper compatible also.

abbot2 13y ago

The web site misses one obvious sentence: "Pencil is a ...". I spent 60 seconds on the web site, did not understand what the heck is this thing, and closed the web site. Will never open again I guess.

warrenmiller 13y ago
watch the video
- abbot2 13y ago
  Watched 40 seconds. Don't have sound. Understood nothing.
  - danellis 13y ago
    How hard is it to understand? It's an iPad stylus.
  - frogpelt 13y ago
    You probably aren't the target market.
- linker3000 13y ago
  Videos (normally) run in realtime and unless you want to miss something by skipping, you have to watch from start to finish - ie: in the video creator's timeframe. Maybe I'm a control freak, but I want to scan a few paragraphs at a speed that suits me rather than be 'forced' to sit through a promo video from end-to-end. It's the same reason why I'd rather read a tech article than listen to a podcast.

decasteve 13y ago

Reminds me of a prototype I had seen a few years ago, Conté, after the artists crayon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDqT_oKM7j8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDqT_oKM7j8

smrtinsert 13y ago

These product vids are ripe for a funnyordie parody.

kepano 13y ago
http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6905817/every-tech-commercial http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6905817/every-tech-commerc...

blackdogie 13y ago

That video made me a little dizzy. it was a fun effect, highlighting the pencil in the middle of the shot, but I had to turn it off. "Pencil is the most natural and expressive tool for getting ideas on Paper" iPad + Pencil + App = most expensive expression tool I know too !

fidotron 13y ago

Maybe I'm stupidly jaded, and it's one of the things that has steadily pushed me out of the Apple ecosystem, but this trend for overly emotional marketing of stuff, especially in the hipster end of the market, grates enormously. This is like a sort of tech-etsy. It's got to the point I can't actually take products like this seriously without getting annoyed by them going on about artisanal wood carvings. Like the owning of the object itself is more important than what you're supposed to do with it . . .

awakeasleep 13y ago
I'm just glad they didn't use the word "Gorgeous". At some point I imagine my son will see his wife doing something beautiful, illuminated by a golden sunrise, and when he tells her she looks gorgeous, she'll say "What? Like a fucking app or something?"
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
3327 13y ago
I must say the video is most definitely over emotional no to mention it made me sea sick with the over use of shaking. The product looks great and interesting. >It's got to the point I can't actually take products like this seriously without getting annoyed by them going on about artisanal wood carvings. Like the owning of the object itself is more important than what you're supposed to do with it . . . i agree with you on your point but it also has upsides, design was forgotten and every electronic device we owned was either matt black or white (think of all the VCR's, home audio, laptops). So now that a sense of design has returned we rebel against it 'being' hipster. Its a delicate balance i guess.
- fidotron 13y ago
  To be clear, I'm definitely in favour of good design, but good design can often speak for itself.

sudont 13y ago

Explains why they prevaricated on other Bluetooth styluses: http://support.fiftythree.com/customer/portal/questions/1461965-wacom-intuos-creative-stylus?b_id=167 http://support.fiftythree.com/customer/portal/questions/1461... Safe to say this is the only one that will be supported.

ruswick 13y ago

Pencil seems like an fairly interesting idea, but it's priced in a really odd way. The $50 price point puts it well out of reach consumer and hobbyist users. Despite this, Pencil and Paper are not as robust as, nor ate they priced comparably to, professional digital drawing tools like Wacom's system. Pencil precludes the casual demographic who just wants to doodle in their free time or take notes with its high price, but does not cater to the group of elite professionals who would be willing to cough up a substantial amount of money for drawing tools. I just don't understand who this is for.

cmicali 13y ago
I don't think a $49 price point is "well out of reach" for consumer and hobbyist users.
- ruswick 13y ago
  I would argue that it is. What portion of iPad owners have ever spent any money on software or peripheral devices? Probably less than half. Now, what portion of them would be willing to shell out $50 for a stylus? I just can't imagine that a non-negligible proportion of iPad owners would be willing to spend that much on an accessory. Also keep in mind that the current price point is "introductory" and will increase in the future.
  - smackfu 13y ago
    Selling high-end accessories to Apple users is an existing market. There's whole companies focused on that, for instance twelve south (http://twelvesouth.com/ http://twelvesouth.com/).
  - pietro 13y ago
    Artist equipment is very expensive, and $50 is less than you'll pay for a decent water color brush. The last one I got was about twice that expensive, and I don't even use it anymore. I use Paper. If it works as advertised, Pencil is a steal.

diydsp 13y ago

>"artisanally crafted" (grammar) Did an artisan craft it? No, it looks to me mass-manufactured to spec by someone or something who doesn't have a say in its design or the ability to individualize it. You mean "made of wood," but that's the most you can squeeze out. Please don't try to steal the thunder of actual artisans. > "unique built-in eraser" > "unique sensor lets you flip Pencil to erase" Yeah, the crappy Wacom knockoff I bought in 1998 had the same thing. Wacoms have the same thing. If you are like all the other, most popular, long-existing things, you are not a unique thing. If they're delusional about this, what else are they delusional about? Why would I spend money to support hubris? Because I'll have some minor extension of my abilities within a double-walled garden? Aim higher.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- Tomdarkness 13y ago
  While I don't agree with the comment you've replied to, I equally don't agree with your comment. Why should someone not comment on HN if their opinion is not representative of the majority of users on HN? They should be free to express their opinion, even if the majority of people don't agree with it.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- danellis 13y ago
  So you're calling for the suppression of minority opinions?
- bananacurve 13y ago
  People seem to be under the misapprehension that Google Play is not a walled garden.
  - LukeShu 13y ago

taude 13y ago

I have mixed feelings about this. I wish Apple would just get it on with having some form of integrated active digitizer builtin to the iPad. After playing with MSFT Surface Pro and even Samsung S-Pen, it's obvious to me that these are superior solutions to all these third-party workarounds for iOS. And this is really a locked-in third party solution... Anyway, I think iOS eco system is ripe for more accurate artist/drawing tools and it seems they should be able to support both types of input (touch & pen)...

lukeschlather 13y ago

What really struck me about Pencil here is that they're marketing Pencil as a durable good. The idea that someone's marketing a computing device without hoping I'll throw it away in 12-18 months is really inspiring. On the other hand, it only works properly with a single brand of tablet.

hippee-lee 13y ago

I'm a paper user. Here are my pros and cons: Pros: - easy to get started or back into drawing - easy to sketch UI concepts and send them around - easy for my daughter to play with Cons: - fixed canvas size; you can scale an are a tiny bit but not much - no layers - customer support has shown an indifference to existing technogy (with pressure and palm detection) even for the styli they support. - customer support seems to have a (IMO) arrogance in how they respond to things on the forums. - including the upgrades makes Paper 2x as expensive vs Procreate which has more drawing fools and the abity to customize and save my own tools. It was a good app to have and my daughter still uses it. But for my own doodling or quick UI concepts at work I switched to procreate. The wacom creative (http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/ http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/) stylus was on my Xmas list u until I saw the adobe tool mentioned. I'll be checking that out.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jwr 13y ago
I wonder why so few people complain about the speed. I tried to use Paper and while I love the results I can get (nice-looking drawings even if you are not artistically inclined), I can't stand the slowness, and the fact that I can't properly dot my i's. I switched to Upad for all my tech drawings. It works great, and is very responsive. No, my drawings do not look as cool, but at least they get drawn.
- hippee-lee 13y ago
  I noticed that too when I colored things fast. It was fast enough for most things. The most frustrating speed issue for me was when painting with watercolor brush where the variable speed changes the effect of the ink. Thanks for the tip re: Upad! I'll check it out.
- eridius 13y ago
  I hadn't heard of Upad before. The screenshots look nice, especially if it really does work well for handwriting. Just yesterday I tried doing some mathematical note-taking in another app (already forget which one) and it was pretty bad. Sadly, the support links leave me with little confidence in the product. The "PockeySoft Web Site" link is actually a youtube video, and "UPAD Support" takes me to a 404 (http://www.pockeysoft.com/upad http://www.pockeysoft.com/upad). If I remove the path on that URL, most of the images on the resulting site are broken. If their site is that broken, and the app hasn't been updated in 11 months, it sure gives the impression that the app has been abandoned.

jedberg 13y ago

Whoever directed that video needs to go back to film school. I understand that you're trying to "highlight the product", but causing nausea in your customer isn't the best way to do that.

Segmentation 13y ago
Not sure why this is downvoted, he's completely right. Too many start up product videos nowadays are directed with shots all over the place. I hate it when I see it in movie trailers, but they can at least explain themselves as not wanting to show you too much of the movie. No excuse in a product video that doesn't need to rush itself.
- slantyyz 13y ago
  Wow, that was even more nauseating than the Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield.
bluthru 13y ago
I thought, "Oh, that's kind of interesting" when it first tracked the pencil and I thought it was done. Nope. It followed for the rest of the video. I started feeling nauseous, and I don't even get car sick.
joeblau 13y ago
I didn't get that feeling, but the "Hm... I wonder if anyone is getting nauseous watching this" thought did cross my mind.
ronaldj 13y ago
I thought it was cute.
- rhubarbquid 13y ago
  Cute but nauseating.
  - 13y ago

lasermike026 13y ago

Someone kill me.

NikolaTesla 13y ago

All I want is a tablet that has the line fidelity of a pen or pencil, not a crayon. If I can record my writing/drawing with voice-over, even better.

marban 13y ago

If you don't need the eraser and battery worries, I recommend http://www.studioneat.com/products/cosmonaut http://www.studioneat.com/products/cosmonaut

desireco42 13y ago

Awwww, I got Evernote's Jot pen that takes them forever to ship (still didn't arrive). This is really tempting, but how many styluses a man really can use. I really love what they did here. On the other hand, Samsung Note and Surface are places if you really need to use stylus. I thin Surface is especially strong there.

asadotzler 13y ago

After using a Surface Pro for a year with a real stylus and its excellent digitizer, I wonder how so many people can be so happy with something so inferior. iPads are a joke for input.

toddmorey 13y ago

Does pencil provide any additional drawing resolution or pressure sensitivity? Genuinely curious. Didn't see any mention of those on the site, but I saw a battery required and wondered if that did more than power the eraser.

oddshocks 13y ago

Anyone know of some open hardware that does this same sort of thing and works with existing software?

CatsoCatsoCatso 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pencil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper They're both super cheap and open. With the right skill and a few plugins [0] you can create stunning pieces of content [1]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paint (Not to be confused with MS Paint) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Triumph_of_Death [I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself.]

ajmarsh 13y ago

Ok so I'm going to end up buying this. However I feel like I'm due a refund on the Bamboo stylus I bought from Studio 53 when I originally started using the Paper app. The Bamboo stylus was so laggy it was unusable. Hopefully the Bluetooth stylus will work as advertised.

darkstalker 13y ago

It probably has a noticeable latency, like most touchscreen inputs. The video just shows silly camera/pen movements and no actual drawing scenes.

jdalgetty 13y ago

wow that camera was annoying.

millerm 13y ago
Yes, yes it was. I was feeling a bit woozy near the end and had to just stop watching. Big monitor here, didn't like the movement.

typon 13y ago

Wait how is this better than Surface Pro? Seems like it has the same features.

curyous 13y ago
It is far worse than the Surface Pro, not even in the same league, but hardly anyone uses a Surface Pro.

yolo137 13y ago

lol

borismus 13y ago

Still too thick.

xerophtye 13y ago
thank you! Good to see i am not the only one

spenrose 13y ago

Dangerous. Fifty-three employees will use them 6 hours/day, only a fraction of Paper customers will ever try one once. Anti-dogfooding.

jeena 13y ago

Honestly, I read the whole page and I have still no idea what this is. It says it is a Pencil which works with Paper, both pencil and paper with uppercase letters which seem to indicate that they mean something else then a carpender pencil and a peace of paper to write on, so does the price and that you can load some battery and connect to something unspecified with bluetooth. Could someone tell me what this is for and why they have a beautiful website which doesn't tell me what the product is for?

InclinedPlane 13y ago
It's a bluetooth smart stylus for iOS devices, especially tablets, which integrates with their existing graphic design app "paper". The reason it's non-trivial and potentially interesting is because it doesn't just rely on the limited resolution of the capacitive touch screens of iDevices, it has its own sensor which improves on that. If it were just an ordinary capacitive stylus it wouldn't have the precision to be very useful for drawing or even hand writing.
- jeena 13y ago
  > It's a bluetooth smart stylus for iOS devices, especially tablets, which integrates with their existing graphic design app "paper". Such a simple and short explenation! I wonder why they don't mention iOS devices, the word stylus or the word app on their website.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
VMG 13y ago
Before watching the video, I thought this was a parody

lignuist 13y ago

"If you see a stylus, they blew it" - Steve Jobs

alexobenauer 13y ago
While relevant, to be fair he meant as the primary method of interacting with and navigating a handheld device, as in needing a stylus to scroll through your email, make calls, etc. This 'pencil' is simply for painting and drawing on a tablet, arguably a different scenario.
- lignuist 13y ago
  I Agree. I just could not resist posting this quote. :) Actually Pencil looks nice and I always wondered why Apple did not release such a device itself.
  - sbuk 13y ago
    Refer to the quote that you posted earlier.
    - lignuist 13y ago
      Probably that was the reason why Apple did not have the courage to do so, but it is obvious that it creates additional value for some people. Especially designers and illustrators, I think.
      - samelliot 13y ago
        Also relevant to any student that does math and has to write equations (every person in the 1st world.) Also relevant to every student who needs to read a book and highlight passages and annotate (every person in the 1st world). Also relevant to every person who wishes to draw a diagram to communicate their idea (every person in the world).
      - sbuk 13y ago

sgt 13y ago

I feel silly about this, but did anyone else also get seasick from watching that video?

jroseattle 13y ago

Makes me wonder what the Rembrandts and Picassos would have thought of such a device and whether it encourages or prohibits artistic expression. I can imagine it certainly does on the tablet medium, but in general I wonder if there is any aspect of artistic creativity gained or lost when moving away from traditional mediums.

malrase 13y ago
David Hockney has certainly embraced it as a medium. http://www.wired.com/design/2013/11/hockney/ http://www.wired.com/design/2013/11/hockney/

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

archagon 13y ago

To me, latency is by far the most important issue here, and I don't see any mention of it on the page. Compared to my Wacom tablet, touch input is just too laggy to use in anything but the most basic drawing and note-taking tasks; is Bluetooth better or worse? (Judging by my existing BT devices, I'm gonna have to guess "worse".)

celerity 13y ago

I like the whole idea of well-crafted products, but in the end this is nothing but a crappy, laggy, low fidelity finger-simulator/crayon. Writing any text with it is probably clumsy, and certainly impossible to do as well as with any other pencil on paper. Pass. Apple needs to get out something with a proper active digitizer so that all these satellite companies start making nice pens that also work well.

hashtree 13y ago

The cost of purchasing moleskine notebooks each month has gotten out-of-hand ($16+ per). As a previously die-hard paper/pen guy, I've attempted to make the move over to iPad based note taking only to find its abilities completely lacking. There are great apps and stylus hardware, but even when tightly coupled to overcome the iPad's lack of hardware support.. it leaves much to be desired. You see companies like Jot and 53 having to invent far too much in attempts to solve this problem. A shame for otherwise great tablets.

sosuke 13y ago

The tip still gets me. I just have a hard time with the thick tip where I can't see my connection to the 'paper'. I keep wanting to try out the Adonit Jot http://adonit.net/jot/touch/ http://adonit.net/jot/touch/

deltaqueue 13y ago

Can any artists on HN comment on how useful styli are with tips this thick? I suspect the added thickness is required for capacitive touch screens, but I always thought my fingertip was far too thick for accurately initiating thin lines or dots (e.g. in games like Draw Something). Something like this seems like it would require far less erasing: http://www.wacom.com/en/us/everyday/bamboo-stylus-feel-samsung-galaxy-note http://www.wacom.com/en/us/everyday/bamboo-stylus-feel-samsu... *edited for clarity

tenfingers 13y ago
For drawing, you can get away with larger tips, but I cannot understand how can people use those soft-rubber tips for capacitive screens, where the center-point of contact is actually moving as you scrub the screen. For comparison, I use a Wacom Intuos 5 large, and I'm already noticing that the pen tilt affects the position of the cursor (a 45' angle moves the point up to 0.5mm in the direction of tilt). I saw several people taking notes with those pens though, but the note-taking applications offer a large "writing" area where you can write text as big as 4cm in height. I honestly cannot write efficiently at that size. The "Pencil" here also has such a large tip that clearly covers the area of contact even if you use it with the short side up. I assume you will be able to figure out the point of contact after a while, but I would have chosen a normal pen design, not an "artisan pencil" at all.
bdegman 13y ago
Useful for sketching but any real work is going to be done with an actual drawing tablet like the ones Wacom makes.
eridius 13y ago
The added thickness is to compensate for the fact that the iPad touch screen has a reasonable distance between sensors. You cannot get pixel-perfect accuracy on the iPad touch screen, and a pointed stylus would make that extremely apparent. So instead the trend is for larger tips, to encourage users to bump up their line thicknesses and to obscure the lack of pixel-perfect accuracy. Think marker, not pen.
- 13y ago

egeozcan 13y ago

It doesn't ship to Germany. I was ready to buy an ipad just to give this a go for my note taking needs though.

kitwalker12 13y ago

would've loved some iPad 2 love

nilsbunger 13y ago

Am I the only one who at first thought this was a joke, i.e. making fun of our crazy hyperbole by marketing a real pencil?

alan_cx 13y ago
No, I thought that too. In fact, I was disappointed. I thought it might go on about how useful a pencil still is. Some sort of comparison thing. Personally, in my IT capacity, I still love going to meetings, seeing all the non tech people with their various electronic toys, and I get out a pencil and a pad of note paper... Weakly amusing, true, but it also makes a semi-serious point. Im a tech guy who will not waste money on technology for the sake of it. I like to see real benefit for the money spent. On top of that, during such meetings, Im never the one who holds up proceedings taking notes. Kind of help ram the point home.

leoc 13y ago

For most of the way through this, reading about Pencil and its compatibility with Paper, the palm-rejection technology and the super-handy eraser on the rear, I thought I was reading a parody advertisement.

joelle 13y ago

I absolutely LOVE the paper app. This is so cool.

caiob 13y ago

Satires please. hehe

crorella 13y ago

Nice idea and execution. The video makes me dizzy :P

ep103 13y ago

Did anyone else notice that this site somehow causes IE to crash?

yk 13y ago

I am confused, is this a parody of the current "Not as cool as a pencil" iPad ad, or is this a real product?

tieTYT 13y ago

Is that software that it works with (apparently called "Paper") going to stay free? I see it's free as of today: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003812 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/paper-by-fiftythree/id506003...

cytzol 13y ago
It's free, but you have to buy the individual tools with in-app purchases: see the list on the left of the iTunes link.
- gorner 13y ago
  It's not super clear from their website but if you buy Pencil, apparently you get the tools for free while you have the stylus connected.

twodayslate 13y ago

No pressure sensitivity?

freshchilled 13y ago

I really had to come into the comments to see if this was satire or not. Paper, Pencil, Book. I swore this was a joke, even after I saw there was an actual price tag!

adultSwim 13y ago

It's not clear to me which benefits are from the new stylus and which are built into Paper. For instance I don't see how the smudge with finger is actually a Pencil feature. What are the differences compared to just using a regular/dumb stylus?

the906 13y ago
A normal stylus is dumb and only does a line. This stylus allows for change in depth.
TruthSHIFT 13y ago
What makes it interesting is that they are able to distinguish between the 3 different types of input. Most apps can't tell the difference between a finger and a stylus. This one can. In addition, this stylus knows which end you are using. I suspect that this is accomplished using an accelerometer and the orientation data is transmitted to the tablet via bluetooth.

trumbitta2 13y ago

I was ready to buy it. But no. I'm in Italy so screw me :-/

hellyeasa 13y ago

Why do all websites have the same design? It's boring and lifeless?

WalterBright 13y ago

I watched the video, and although it is pretty cool, I have a couple of issues with it: 1. It's a bit fat, not skinny like a pencil. I generally don't like fat pens. 2. The point is pretty large and blunt. This suggests it is hard to locate it precisely. I've done professional drafting work in the past, and having a nice sharp tip to control exactly where the mark goes is important.

robflynn 13y ago
iPads do not play nicely with fine tips.

skrebbel 13y ago

I knew the "Buy Now" button would link to a Kickstarter page. Kudos to the FiftyThree folks for proving me wrong. This looks like a great product. I'll buy one as soon as they port it to Windows (because seriously, doing real work on a device that doesn't even expose a filesystem? I'm clearly old-fashioned).

mekoka 13y ago

Saw the upvotes, opened the link, watched the video, came back to HN comments, saw many people confused and criticizing. I have to ask, why so many upvotes then? Could it be that people here upvote even before opening links? Or just because everybody else seem to think it's a good idea to upvote?

encoderer 13y ago
Or that there are many more people upvoting than commenting? And that generally the impression is favorable?
MatmaRex 13y ago
I almost upvoted because I thought this was a joke and it seemed funny. Thankfully I scrolled to the part where they mention USB inside the "Pencil".

MattBearman 13y ago

This looks really cool, but what really blew me away was the way the pencil dismantles as you scroll the page down. Absolutely beautifully done.

mey 13y ago

Some suggestions for pressure sensitive tablets http://cintiqcompanion.wacom.com/en/?country=us&language=en http://cintiqcompanion.wacom.com/en/?country=us&language=en Microsoft Surface's use Wacom digitizers as well, see http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/26/the-surface-2 http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/26/the-surface-2 Samsung's Note series also has a good digitizer http://www.samsung.com/us/topic/galaxy-note-10-1-2014-edition http://www.samsung.com/us/topic/galaxy-note-10-1-2014-editio...

devindotcom 13y ago

I will never understand the stylus-on-capacitive-screen thing. The lag, the limited accuracy, the interpolation of your movements, it's all very opposite to the idea of a stylus as an input. I'm glad others find it useful, but every stylus I've ever used on a capacitive screen has immediately struck me as, to me, worthless.

omegote 13y ago

Yet another product that expects EVERYONE to own an iPad. W-T-F? Try this. Control + F, search for "ipad". Nothing. Search for "apple", nothing. Search for "android". NO-THING. What's wrong? Is the iPad the definitive standard and everyone is now born with one? Sick.

sp332 13y ago
It says "Paper" all over it, and Paper already requires an iPad. Requiring an iPad would be redundant. Edit: Also at the bottom they actually mention Apple once, in tiny print in an image lol
- omegote 13y ago
  So? I didn't know anything about that "Paper" app before. Anyways, I guess you don't get what I mean.
- anonymouz 13y ago
  When I was reading that page I wasn't sure whether they just misspell paper, misspell it on purpose to make a parody of these marketing websites, or whether that should be something else. Only the HN thread told me that apparently it's an iPad App (for sketching I purpose). Especially when the app has such a common word as a name at least a link or something wouldn't hurt...

sly010 13y ago

Only 30 times more expensive than this: http://www.cableandcase.com/products/stylus-touch-screen-iphone-ipad-stylus-pen?gclid=CN3TlJHW8boCFct9OgodGwYAiA http://www.cableandcase.com/products/stylus-touch-screen-iph... Is it 30 times better though?

chris-at 13y ago

> Our adaptive palm rejection instantly knows whether it’s your hand or Pencil touching the page. Rest your hand on the screen, write from any angle. No calibration or setup. You’ll forget you’re creating on a tablet. Does anyone know if this works with iPad gestures enabled? All of the other apps promising palm detection/rejection (like Penultimate) require you to turn off iPad gestures.

liminal 13y ago

So apparently this is a device to be used with iPads. Would have been nice if the company put that somewhere on the product's webpage.

metaphorical 13y ago

Bluetooth but no pressure sensitivity? Pressure sensitive stylus is the closest thing that emulates drawing on "paper". It's a beautiful stylus, but not a very practical one.

EGreg 13y ago

So this is basically a stylus that feels like it's made of wood? Or it is made of wood? That's about it?

xiaoma 13y ago

As someone who has done a decent amount of digital art, this is a far inferior solution to existing Wacom products. Not only are there issues with using such a large "pencil", but the iPad simply doesn't have the ability to differentiate between different levels of pressure like the Intuos or even the much cheaper Bamboo tablets.

airencracken 13y ago

"Capacitve screens are so great, you don't need a stylus anymore" Sigh.

bitwize 13y ago

Wait, so this is a thing? It's not some sort of tongue-in-cheek joke about our reliance on technology? Geez, Poe's law even applies to marketing...

lnanek2 13y ago

There are already pressure sensitive pens that are supported in multiple apps, not just Paper, like the Pogo Connect. Seems actually bad for the ecosystem to have another separate pen with yet another SDK. Some apps will support one, some others.

a3_nm 13y ago

Did anyone else read this at first as a very well executed parody website explaining all the benefits of using traditional paper and pencil? I sniggered when I read "Our adaptive palm rejection instantly knows whether it’s your hand or Pencil touching the page." It took me some time to realize that this was a real product...

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
Yup, I'm using my status indication adaptation to uniquely and fluidly demonstrate a situation of synchronistic agreement has been established between your cognisization and mine. With it's motile upper sections and manipulable terminal section it's the perfect vehicle to deliver not only indications of agreement but many other natural gestures drawing you in to an incalculable world of novel experiences. [pbhjpbhj raised his hand.]
interstitial 13y ago
Half the items I see on kickstarter I think are parodies, especially with the high design stock music, ideation sketches on the wall and the animated group brain storming sessions. But hipsters are soft targets full of much self-importance and wow.

Lerc 13y ago

/r/SomebodyMakeThis works! http://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/comments/cgkoz/smt_an_active_stylus_for_capacitive_touchscreens/ http://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis/comments/cgkoz/smt_... I made this pic several years ago trying to express what I thought styluses could be. http://i.imgur.com/yLuh8.png http://i.imgur.com/yLuh8.png

guiomie 13y ago

Just bought one for Christmas. Not for me, but my dad who is addicted to his ipad (hes got the TV turned on in the background by habit, but he is actually consuming content on his ipad on his couch).

beloch 13y ago

Is there anyone who has used one of these who can comment on the amount of lag? The website makes a lot of claims about almost everything except lag. High accuracy (claimed) is nice and all, but it really throws you off if you're drawing a curve and what's showing up on the screen is precisely half a second behind your hand! Low latency is crucial for a stylus. Absolutely crucial. It's what separates tools from toys.

DonGateley 13y ago

Cool if you like writing with a log.

protomyth 13y ago

I wonder how many types of "tools" we will get that work with tablets. I'm still hoping someone comes up with a electronic airbrush.

julianz 13y ago

I watched the video and scrolled to the bottom of the page. I don't know what they're selling - is it just the stylus thing? Does it work with every app, or just their one? Is it only for ipads, or can I use it on an Android? Then I noticed they spelt "ginkgo biloba" wrong on the sketch underneath the video. Twice. And then I closed the tab.

xs 13y ago

Although it looks cool... for my tablet... It doesn't bring the collaboration I still seek. I often work remote and do screen sharing of my laptop. I have a wacom tablet that allows me to draw on my computer screen which is then being shared to my team. It would be great if I could use my existing iPad and something cool like pencil to do my drawing and have it display on my computer so my remote team can see it.

boristhespider 13y ago

The Russians used a...

CSDude 13y ago

The shaking on the video is so disturbing that I had urge to close the video. It does not how to shake for all the video duration.

beefsack 13y ago

I still can't figure out if that page is satirical or not.

pfh 13y ago

Saw this cool idea. It really is cool, I really do want one (for Android... details details). What was it called? Ah! "Pencil". Let me just google that... I know flickr-style names are kinda old now, but they work.

brickmort 13y ago

I don't understand all the negativity in this post. This product is a work of art. This layout/presentation is making Apple stop and take notes.

elacey 13y ago

This has to be my favorite HN comment ever... bravo 53, for this gold alone: "Pencil isn't designed to only work with Paper. Anyone who is interested in an SDK for Pencil should let us know..." Oh my, we've come full circle. I look forward to next learning about Bookmark's SDK and it's integration with Bound Book

xerophtye 13y ago

Am i the only one who thinks its too damn THICK? Aren't pencils and styli supposed to be slim and easy to hold in your hand?

matponta 13y ago

It's just lovely

0xdeadbeefbabe 13y ago

A pencil you can use to shake the world and play violins, nice.

jotm 13y ago

So, uh, it's a stylus, right? Cause I can't tell for sure from that page...

serge2k 13y ago

this looks amazing. Too bad I'll never buy one. Enjoy your ipad toys, I'll go continue not having pencil on my nexus. :(