4 ms·

It's really interesting to me that most of these are just Bluetooth-connected buttons. There's no pressure or angle sensitivity in the FiftyThree Pencil, it's j

It's really interesting to me that most of these are just Bluetooth-connected buttons. There's no pressure or angle sensitivity in the FiftyThree Pencil, it's just a button. I tried to find the "pressure" API in iOS 8, but I just found a new majorRadius field (with an error tolerance). Android supports a bunch of information (including "pressure" and radius) -- I bet you get pretty rich data on devices with dedicated stylus support. I was able to connect to the Pencil from Android via BTLE and observe the tip being pressed and released (though not the eraser for some reason; maybe I have to write some value out for that characteristic to come alive?) -- maybe later this summer I'll try to make a basic Pencil-compatible Android drawing app :).

tritchey 12y ago
FWIW, the Ink is a lot more than that, including accelerometer data, and pressure sensitivity.
- i_am_ralpht 12y ago
  That's cool; thanks for sharing. So you could use the accelerometer independently of the touchscreen for gestures like flicking ink blots or swishing the "brush" in "water" -- or maybe you can do some fancy things on the screen like tapping on the same spot for stippling (using the accelerometer to approximate height and velocity, independent of the final pressure on the tip). There's so much fun stuff to do here!
  - tritchey 12y ago
    Definitely, that is what we hope developers will start using it for. We expose the accelerometer data in the SDK, so developers can get access to the data. We also use the relative pen position to the iPad to sort out some offset issues to make sure the line appears to be coming from the tip itself.
    - lsaferite 12y ago
      Does it also include a gyro sensor?
joezydeco 12y ago
In a capacitive touchscreen there really is no way to measure how hard your finger is pressing on the screen. What you can measure is how large of a footprint your meat-finger creates when it smashes down on the glass. The center of the point hasn't changed, but the radius of the circle has.

tritchey 12y ago

FWIW, the Ink is a lot more than that, including accelerometer data, and pressure sensitivity.

i_am_ralpht 12y ago
That's cool; thanks for sharing. So you could use the accelerometer independently of the touchscreen for gestures like flicking ink blots or swishing the "brush" in "water" -- or maybe you can do some fancy things on the screen like tapping on the same spot for stippling (using the accelerometer to approximate height and velocity, independent of the final pressure on the tip). There's so much fun stuff to do here!
- tritchey 12y ago
  Definitely, that is what we hope developers will start using it for. We expose the accelerometer data in the SDK, so developers can get access to the data. We also use the relative pen position to the iPad to sort out some offset issues to make sure the line appears to be coming from the tip itself.
  - lsaferite 12y ago
    Does it also include a gyro sensor?

joezydeco 12y ago

In a capacitive touchscreen there really is no way to measure how hard your finger is pressing on the screen. What you can measure is how large of a footprint your meat-finger creates when it smashes down on the glass. The center of the point hasn't changed, but the radius of the circle has.