Show HN: Turn your pen into a touchscreen stylus | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Turn your pen into a touchscreen stylus

more-real.com

10 pointsabdophoto12 comments

I can only imagine how pissed someone would be when they accidentally touch their phone or tablet with the wrong end of the Sharpie. Would rather put it on an actual pen than a permanent marker. Seems way too easy to make that mistake, since the ends even look fairly alike.

By the by, Sharpies are pens? Is it like one of those "all squares are rectangles" things?

Exactly what I was thinking. If you forget to put the cap back on your Sharpie, you suddenly have a nice black line on the screen of your brand new iPad Mini.

Luckily, markers are not permanent on glass. Some glass cleaner or even regular rubbing alcohol will clean it off. Now if you have a screen protector, all bets are off...

It seems to me like having a screen protector should be the best case. Isn't this the sort of thing they are for? Peal it off and stick a new one on; much easier than scrubbing down your screen.

Possibly. In my experience, screen protectors are fiddly to put on, and when I had one I never wanted to have to replace it. Far too easy to get bubbles. There's also some amount of cost involved in replacing it, no matter how small. Rubbing alcohol is just something you typically have lying around your house, the marginal cost is less than a penny. A quick wipe with an alcohol-moistened tissue is all it takes.

Hmm. Maybe they should make screen protectors with built in screen protector protectors. Each time something gets messed up you just peal off one of the several layers, like some sort of flaky biscuit of screen protection. :)

Show HN should be where you show your cool personal projects and stuff like that, not a place where you advertise your company/product.

This is really nice, but it would be even better if you made a non Sharpie version. I would get it if it worked with a normal pen because I never use a Sharpie.

Although this is a neat idea (I converted a sharpie to a stylus last year, replacing the pen tip itself) and you've made a pretty beautiful website, the product inferior to the latest stylus usability improvements on the market.

Last week my Hand Stylus (http://handstylus.com/) arrived. Unlike other styluses (stylii?) on the market, the tip is on a swivel mount, meaning you never experience the "flop" or roll of the nib as you change direction. After using this, I would never consider a fixed nib stylus again.

I just saw a video review of this here - http://thetechblock.com/morereal-stylus-cap-for-the-ipad

The price point is way out of line. $25 ???

I wouldn't say so. A low-volume product takes engineering costs into the price point, and while engineering might have been reasonably cheap here, I doubt it was free. Replacement tips are quite cheap as well ($6).

It's marketed as a premium tool and selling at a low volume. I don't know how quality it actually is, and I probably wouldn't buy one, but if I were in the market for a capacitive stylus, I wouldn't balk at $25. Pogo styluses (are crap) sit between $10 and $20. And they're useless for writing due to being squishy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com