Ask HN: Why is there no stylus with the iPad?

3 points·bioweek··6 comments

Shouldn't any tablet have handwriting recognition, or at least let you make freehand notes and drawings? I think that would be really useful to me, or to edit photos by drawing on them, etc.

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The only thing that is keeping me away from buying an iPad is the lack of some sort of handwriting/stylus feature.

This would open up for you to take it to school and take notes or make notes in meetings.

Capacitive touchscreens tend to require electrical contact with the body to activate. This avoids accidental clicks due to non-body objects pressing the screen and provides slightly better accuracy than resistive touchscreen technology, but it also means that a nonconductive stylus will not work. a conductive one would need to distort the electric fieldof the touchscreen in much the same way as a finger, and this is tricky to do with a small point. This is one reason I prefer resistive touchscreens (built one into my Eee).

I'd love to be able to jot down quick notes & sketches. Perhaps Apple think this is more of a business user requirement, and the ipad is more a leisure device.

Plus the stylus would need to be a conductor or carry some sort of a charge to work on the capacitive screen.

So you could make a thin stylus if you put a charge on it? I guess otherwise using a conductor it would have to be the size of your finger.

Might be a good idea for a third party product?

The size and shape does strongly suggest writing with a stylus.

Needs a stylus, no question. Need to be able to take notes at lectures with this thing or I'm not buying it. Need to be able to take notes on the stuff I'm reading on it.

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