Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved | Hacker News Reader

Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved

kickstarter.com

98 pointsorionvmjoseph69 comments

The video still shows a lot of lag between when the stylus touches the glass and the pixels in the app show the pen trail. This needs to be heavily optimized or else it will make their hardware a lot of engineering work for nothing and users won't be happy. At this stage, from the video, it looks to have similar latency as other existing iPad sketch apps and those have no hardware dongle or stylus (and cost $100 less.)

There is no way to optimize it as the matter is out of their hand. Its just the delay for input events to go from hardware to kernel to user land.

MS Research had a neat demo on this very topic some time ago.

Edit: never mind, it seems they use their own hardware. In that case, it would be interesting to know if iOS allows fast raw access to the external periphery.

This is the demo video you're talking about : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOvQCPLkPt4

Ah yes, I remember this. Worth noting that his device is a projector putting the image on a screen, and I think it's got a lot more computing power behind it than an iPad has available.

The current latency isn't a CPU issue though. I'm not sure of the refresh rate of the iPad (60Hz?) but the hardware has no trouble updating the display in a single frame.

It should be noted that unless Microsoft had a 1000Hz display running, there was something fishy going on with their 1ms update.

It's a custom display purpose built for this demo. I believe that it is 1000Hz.

From this high speed video I took I think the refresh rate is 60Hz (this shows it is at least 60).

http://owenimholte.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/ipad-3-screen-re...

Lag = fail. Interesting since it seems they use the dock connector so you would assume that there would be minimal lag compared to say Bluetooth.

From Collusion: Hi All just in case didn't catch my reply, I'd like to direct your attention to what i posted elsewhere on hacker news:

Paraphrased from our Kickstarter page: Thanks to those that have identified an issue with our drawing video clips, they were shot with a high fps camera and included in our video at HALF SPEED. In response, our video will be adjusted to demonstrate the drawing at normal speed. Additionally, we have identified areas to further optimize our algorithms for you to ensure that any latency is fully minimized. You can consider drawing speed to be equivalent experience to the iPad touch interface; if not better. Cheers, Rob (CEO) Collusion

By the way we are now 'de lurking' as we have finally got some sleep after the marathon lead-up to the kickstarter launch - 53 hours and no kip is not pleasant! Feel free to ask us questions directly. There is a LOT of work going into Collusion to address many of the existing fundamental issues of pen on tablet computing (many raised right here on hacker news inc latency, accuracy, palm rejection etc) we kindly ask you do this before reaching for the nearest pitchfork:) Talk to us.

I believe the hardware limit on iPads is still pretty shitty compared to some next gen touchscreens. It is already likely reasonably optimized.

It's a neat idea, but the lag is a dealbreaker for me. I've been looking/waiting for a pen based note-taking solution, even if it's a unitasking solution, to get rid of the heavy hardcover sketchbook in my briefcase.

My use case is simple, I just want a digital copy of my notes -- I don't need any OCR or anything fancy like that, and I'm not convinced that a LiveScribe is the way to go.

I had high hopes for the NoteSlate, but that product has turned out to be vapor ware.

Have you seen the wacom inkling? http://www.wacom.com/en/products/inkling.aspx

The Inkling looks interesting. The Verge gave it a 6.8, which isn't too too reassuring.

The thing with the smart pens is that they're chunkier than I'm used to, and then I worry about the smoothness of the pens.

I know the LiveScribe doesn't have gel based ink refills, which is basically the only type of pen I write with. I find the friction from normal ball point pens a little uncomfortable.

You should honestly consider purchasing a fountain pen. They work via capillary action, which means that they write on contact -- no pressure needed. At all.

Some good starters are the LAMY Safari, the TWSBI 540, and the Kaweco Sport. All of these cost <$50 and can take bottled ink (with possible modifications to the Kaweco), reducing refill costs drastically.

I, too, used to think gel pens were the bomb, but writing with a fountain pen is just something else. :D

That's very informative, I think I'll give a fountain pen a shot.

Unless you're left-handed :-( Then you spend your time scratching and pushing against the paper and smudging your handwriting :-(

If you're trying to do mirror writing they become awesome again, but that's not a frequent use case:-(

I'm a 'lefty' and write with a fountain pen using Parker's Quink - a fairly fast drying ink. Works remarkably well.

Thanks, nice to know. Btw, do you use a particular model of fountain pen (hard / supple head, wide / narrow tip) ?

I'm left handed. :)

Camscanner + regular pen and paper is solution i'm currently using. I use camscanner to create a PDF version of my paper notes.

Livescribe works pretty well.

> ... but the lag is a dealbreaker for me ... well, according to the twitter-post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4052175) it seems that the whole thing was filmed in high-speed (https://twitter.com/collusionapp/status/208366845781221377/p...)

Either Penultimate or Paper are fit for the task. Paper has slightly better tracking allowing for more detail, and the pencil simulation is great. The only thing missing is real pressure sensitivity.

I asked about the lag and they responded with this tweet. https://mobile.twitter.com/#!/collusionapp/status/2083668457...

> due to high-speed filming

The laggy footage starting at 0:28 looks like real-time to me. You can see the crosshair falling behind at 0:35 too, and that's clearly normal speed unless the guy can do handwriting in slow-motion. And I can't think of any way a high framerate would affect the perception of lag when played in realtime.

https://twitter.com/collusionapp/status/208366845781221377 for those not on a mobile phone (it was asking me to log in on the mobile subdomain but I'm already logged in on my laptop)

The hashbang is the problem, just removing it also does the trick: http://mobile.twitter.com/collusionapp/status/20836684578122...

When I tried it last night, the guys said that the lag is due to iOS framework stuff, but they have an open gl version in the works which fixes it

I have an iPad 3 with Paper, Penultimate and Inkflow (my personal favorite) and they are all laggy using a finger or a stylus, so, maybe, the lag comes from the iPad 3 with Retina display?

erm, that might be because your still looking at the current video. New video to be uploaded in the morning, have a look then:)

The name Collusion elicits negative connotations and my initial reading of the title led me to think that there was come wrongdoing on Kickstarter's part. I really would reconsider the name of the name of the company / product, unless this is the intended effect.

I really don't get the name at all. You wouldn't call your product "Insider Trading" or "Price Fixing" – why is "Collusion" any better?

I would rather use this on an $80 android tablet than a $500 iPad. I'd be a lot more likely to take it with me everywhere if dropping it wasn't so costly.

Come to think of it, I'd rather use an android with a custom ROM that turned it into dedicated writing/drawing device.

Edit: watching this video also made me think of how much better math textbooks could be on dedicated writing tablets.

I'm going back to school to finish up a math degree, so I've recently been reading a lot of math textbooks. An interactive version on a dedicated tablet would be amazing.

Think about it--animated examples, working out problems right there on the page, writing a function and then tapping it to automatically graph it.

You would be more impressed by a Wacom penabled tablet or phone, like the Galaxy Note.

My Wacom penabled tablet/laptop convertible PC was invaluable at taking calculus and economics notes in Word 2007 - You can type all the text, then pick up the stylus and draw formulas, graphs, and symbols where you want.

It was such a powerful use-case for me that I don't understand why nobody has copied it yet.

Off topic, but you could have done your notes in LaTeX as well. In fact, in my experience, using TeX for math formulas (I did a semester's worth of calculus notes in LaTeX) is actually faster than writing them out by hand (\unless I give up on trying to make the result readable at all, and maybe even then.

Admittedly, graphs and illustrations were an issue. In fact, I basically didn't bother with either. But just for text and math notation, LaTeX was awesome.

I took my math and CS notes in LaTeX because I hated writing and wanted everything together in files that I had source control on, but I definitely didn't find it faster to type in the equations than write them out by hand, even with a fair bit of practice at Emacs keyboard shortcuts for common stuff.

Are they lag free? The video I saw of the Galaxy Note's sketch/note app showed lag.

This looks to be exactly like another iPad stylus on Kickstarter called the iPen [1]. It's funding was successful in December.

[1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1225098940/ipen-the-firs...

Or the By-zero[1] with apps titled like "Studio Basic +". And a review[2].

[1] http://www.by-zero.com/ [2] http://www.ipadforums.net/ipad-accessories/57538-byzeo-studi...

Hard to know how far this will go to solving what people want in this type of product. The lag is pretty clear in the video - don't underestimate how much this will frustrate you in reality. Watch the scene where the student is writing very carefully just to form simple letters in a short word.

In my experience, two things matter with styluses on the iPad - precision and responsiveness.

With a view to replacing all the scraps of notes and sketches I have lying around, I bought a stylus recommended by an Industrial Designer friend and gave it a crack on my iPad: http://adonit.net/product/jot-pro/ ($45 including shipping to Australia)

I've used that stylus in some sketching app I can't remember and Penultimate (which has some palm avoidance settings that are somewhat but not completely effective). The stylus itself is well made and the little tip piece works well enough. For rough wireframe sketches and largeish notes, it all works fairly well.

But if you want to annotate your drawings by hand, I think you may find it frustrating. Writing text is pretty weak. My stylus sits largely unused and I'm sketching on paper as much as ever.

In stylus demos, ignore any moments where they circle part of a map, or underline something, or sign their name. Looks lovely, but none of that is especially hard with a cheap stylus and a sketching app, nor will most people be doing a whole lot of it.

Pay special attention to the moments where they try to write in any small detail and watch for the thinness, quality of the lettering and responsiveness to the pen. Did you see the collaborative drawing of the Sydney Opera House? For almost everyone, that's what the drawings will probably look like - a bit of a rough mess.

The collaborative features might appeal to others, but at no point in my work/home life am I usually sharing a drawing space with a colleague. I'm rarely excited at the idea of someone messing with my garden layout drawings or idea wireframes! If I'm dealing with wireframes for a client project, it's usually not on an iPad.

Hey Prawn,

You are making some very good points, sounds like you are particularly familiar with the issues at hand. RE the operahouse stuff - the student that did that were going for a 'ken done' look - very scribbly:) I'd say the pen performance when dealing with small detail is very decent - not Wacom Pro decent but not far off. Might org a video to show the performance. By the way we're drawing up a list of internal testers, can I interest you in trying out Collusion and telling us what you think?

Cheers,

Rob CEO - Collusion

Happy to help you test if you want. I'm in Adelaide.

I had a play with this and it's essentially a two dollar stylus that can also emit high frequency audio based on pressure, with the iPad attachment having a couple of mics in it to receive audio. This enables the stylus to transmit pressure levels as inaudible sounds, resulting in the ability to draw thin and thick lines.

The software was ok, but the biggest problem is still that typical stylus lag on iOS. Not much you can do about that due to iOS restrictions. It's early days for Collusion so i'm sure they'll come up with something.

$2 Dollars! Can u send me the name of your supplier (off-line of course)- for every ultrasonic pen you can get at $2, I'll happily pay you $30+ and my right arm.. jokes asides (seriously the tech behind making the ultrasonic stuff work is heavily patented and expensive).

BTW the inking weight system has nothing to do with the inking state of the pen (which incidentally is Binary), (so the fact you couldn't tell i guess is a complement to Sumo) the transmission of which is IR not ultrasonic. Last thing, there is indeed plenty of latitude to address several aspects of laginess in iOS that arn't restricted, you just have to look for them, and be prepared to invest a lot of time. We know because we're doing it right now, and your right - it is early days, and thanks for the thumbs up - we are indeed coming up with something:)

I am probably somewhere in the target market for this (as someone who works in architecture), but as nice is it is technically and as good as the implementation might be, I'm not sure it would be very useful to me. I barely use a stylus as is (only for detailed work in photoshop) and most of the other situations for using this I'd actually prefer pen and paper (physical copies are easy to sort, trash and store, I'd rather not look at a screen all day, etc.)....

Neat product, but I think they lose a bit of credibility with this quote:

"nobody's nailed how to make the iPad a compelling every day productivity tool"

Really? Also, $139 seems like a bit high, but I could be wrong.

Hi, RJ let us get Collusion out the door:) or come try it at our next test event. My definition of 'nailing it' (my quote so i take responsibility for it) is to see people regularly using their iPads, in meetings, a lecture theater, or choose to use it over the laptop that they have sitting on their desk. I dont see that yet, not even close. I think that's a big hairy goal worth going after. Sincerely hoping to prove you wrong... just a little bit:)

As for the price - yes indeed it is expensive - this is new and quite complex tech (sporting the worlds fastest cloud collaboration system - as you could imagine is somewhat different to slapping it up on EC2. It should be expensive, as we're not building it on the cheap:) Given it adresses a gaping hole in the market for a lot of people who want to use the iPad as a primary productivity tool, I'd argue it is excellent value:)*takes off marketing hat.. Hope to win you over in the coming months. Keep an eye on us.

Cheers,

Rob, CEO Collusion.

It seems odd that they would state that one of their cofounders "brings a degree in electronics and computing from M.I.T." when he in fact went to Manukau Institute of Technology.

They are either being dishonest or obtusely misleading - http://au.linkedin.com/in/navdeep2u

Google "MIT NZ", Manukau Institute of Technology is almost exclusively referred to as "MIT" here. I don't think this is as much of a regional interpretation error as it is dishonesty. Also, this is petty.

OMG someone is wrong on the interwebs. In this instance Jetman I'm biting. Full disclamer - Nav is my close friend and co-founder - so I'm honorbound in Aussie culture to say the following. If this were a pub and you were in Oz, we'd be stepping outside right about now. Since this is hacker news - I'll simply say the following:

Who knew, the world is indeed bigger than the US of A. I'm guessing you knew that before you posted such nasty stuff when you clicked on Nav's Linkedin page and saw that his degree was from Manukau Institue of Technology MIT NZ.

Costic & Willfully Dumb in one post - Jetman, please fly far, far away.

Nav earn't his degree, is working a full time job + doing about 35 hours a week on Collusion. We're busting our asses to build some very cool tech, and do care about our rep.

Frankly we're kind of stunned at the generally negative attitude on Y Combinator hacker news. We're in the same boat (startup), starved for our art for the last year, we built it, and were going to market. Give us a break. More so - give us your support.

Seems like two different products - the app and the pen. I don't see how the app couldn't be created without the pen or the pen created without the app.

The pen can't be created without the app because it uses a receiver that's plugged into the 30pin port using the Apple iAccessory Protocol. This means the application is required in order to actually implement the software side of the accessory.

As for the app without the pen, that would certainly work. In fact the $139 level includes 2 promo codes for a touch-only preview version of the app (only usable until the public launch).

[OT] Why is it that I knew he was a fellow Australian the second the video popped up and without volume? The brain is a crazy thing.

From Collusion.

RE: The Pen Hardware. A few details (beats guessing eh?), we're working in partnership with Byzero of Korea with respect to the pen and receiver, and we are getting excellent results optimising hardware and software.

RE: Real world lag 'issues'as apposed to 1/2 speed video issues: We've publicly tested Collusion with about 100 people with a VERY early POC release - the same software as used in the video (which is now 3+ months old) very few commented on lag as being an issue - and that was with no serious attempt at lag optimisation on our software. As you can see some of these kind folk have come to our defence on this forum (thanks fellas). We are extremely anal about squeezing every last drop of performance out of our software and iOS for release to make using a pen on the iPad as good as it can be. We're confident that we're getting it right, and look forward to our next open invitation test catchup to show people first hand how Collusion is evolving, and yes we'll shove a video camera in there, and post links here:)

To those who have a problem with our name, we have dedicated a special FAQ just for you. See http://collusionapp.com/faq/#a1

Guys (that is an Australianism that includes all the female posters here too) - we recon we have the pen thing in hand - was that a pun (assume for a second it is)... there is a LOT of brainpower here (hacker news), please turn your attention to other things we are working on... please - its seriously cool stuff - if you think Collusion is just a note taking squiggly drawing app - look a little deeper.

I'll say this the pen is simply and enabling technology, a gateway to far far more interesting stuff. We know people fixate on the pen, and thats fine, but we think people once they have it, will stick will Collusion for what it does.

Final note, pen input on tablet is as important as a keyboard or mouse to a PC: Really important till the point where it 'just works' then hardly noticed thereafter. We've hardly noticed the pen for a while now;) You dont use your computer for the keyboard, and we've not built Collusion for the pen.

There are some big ideas in Collusion - we've updated our Kistarter page text to hint at them a bit more strongly. Please have a read.

This looks exactly like the functionality my Compaq TC1000 tablet had back in 2002, thanks to Windows Journal. Microsoft even allowed you to search through your handwritten notes, as it was doing fuzzy handwriting recognition on your scribbles (which would never hav been accurate enough for actual recognition, but for purposes of "find me a scribble that could be me writing the word "hello" it was downright epic).

Come on, whatever you do only the resistive screen or active styluses can make iPad usable for handwriting -- the first would kill this "slidiness" and glass surface which seems a core selling factor for this stuff, the second would require a wired stylus or a battery-draining wireless powering. Ergo, if you wish pen productivity, buy an old tablet PC.

It's Collusion the same as iPen by Cregle? http://www.cregle.com/ipen and their Kickstarter page http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ipen/ipen-the-first-acti...

If you're looking for a tablet with a highly accurate stylus (made by Wacom) buy the Galaxy Note 10.1.

Every time I see one of these stylus products for an iPad I chuckle. An active digitiser would be a great addition to a future model, but if pen input is important to you, look elsewhere.

Accuracy is not the issue -- the jot pro stylus seems very accurate to me. The real problem is lag, which so far prevents me from doing any handwriting on the tablet.

From what I can tell, lag is an issue for all the tablets right now?

I use an iPad with Penultimate and a Wacom Bamboo Stylus every day. Works great. I don't need this.

It's ok, the resolution is nowhere near as good as this though. I have to write quite big to be legible.

Try Inkflow. Works great and has a zoom feature if you need to write small.

A dongle? I understand why it's necessary for the pressure sensitivity and being able to draw fine lines, but it seems like a drag. I hope they release the app with support for regular touch input, it looks good.

That's some gorgeous writing interpolation. How high is the detection resolution / Hz?

BUT YOUR HAND CAN'T REST ON THE SCREEN :(

> Collusion offers the highest precision input available for the iPad via a dedicated digital pen (not a capacitive stylus). We've also developed sophisticated (proprietary) palm rejection technology so you can write and draw naturally with your hand resting on the screen.

jobs would hate it.

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