Think – Fast mobile whiteboarding
fiftythree.com
fiftythree.com
Some context: I spent years working in graphic facilitation and working closely with clients creating mockups in real-time, both on paper and on whiteboards. The "speed-of-thought" attribute being referred to in the video is critical, because the conversation will move with or without you. Apps like this are exactly what I wish I had at the time, so I for one am excited to see this launch.
Most people don't know that each year one single Android device typically sells 10x more than any other one. For ex: Samsung S4 sold more than the next 2nd,3rd,4th, etc rank devices combined.
In addition, the screen sizes are almost all very similar these days. I don't know of a single Android designer or dev who has issues with that. As the UIs scale pretty gracefully. Pretty much the same way web designers adopted responsive design, mobile designers know to expect the UIs to scale/shrink.
Even Apple devices have similar size disparity: typical medium-sized phones, phablet, tablet sizes. And now a totally new watch UI.
The OS versioning disparity on Android is also becoming less of an issue on Android as devices have moved on to 4.0+. As the changes to frameworks are less drastic between 4.0 vs 5.0. Programming is much more predictable than it was say with 2.3 vs 4.0 for example.
In what way?
It was too small to substitute the A4 size (~us letter)
Me, a friend, and his friend recently bought a 12.2" Galaxy Note Pro which is almost A4 size and it's just awesome. Those two friends don't use their iPad anymore:
* True pressure sensitivity and pixel perfect accuracy
* Good size and light weight to substitute a real paper notebook
Those are the only two things needed to substitute paper: Decent size and decent stylus. Those wannabe iPad styluses are just trash compared to a good Wacom Stylus for the Note series.
You will know it if you have used both: Crappy iPad Styluses and real Wacom Styluses on a Note Pro.
http://phys.org/news/2012-03-microsoft-finger-1ms-touchscree...
If they're going to market this as taking care of all the fiddly bits and letting you just be creative, then they should really take care of all the fiddly bits.
For sketching charcoal/crayon-style they're probably fine, but that's not what's being shown in the video.
Edit: and calling either of these styluses "pressure sensitive" is to diminish the term to nothingness. Wacom is pressure sensitive, these are barely pressure aware. Erratic pressure response, just not very useful.
http://www.goodnotesapp.com (I'm not the maker, just a really big fan)
What is the innovation here besides a neat picture app for the iPad?
However the tool itself looks awesome, seems like they nailed down the interaction perfectly. I can list a million crappy diagramming apps that are unnatural and annoying enough that it's just easier to draw on paper.
The TV show Silicon Valley has done a good job of satirizing this religion-style promotion of products in the tech scene.
I am almost never in the same room as clients.
`vagrant --share` is a tool(ala very different) that gets this so right.
Makes a little more sense if you start from http://fiftythree.com/paper , but this style of web design is beautiful and frustrating and overbranded for the product's simplicity (Paper and Think Kit and Innovation Engine).
I use Paper a lot, btw, and expect to use the new tools as well - just as I was straying, trying out alternatives that have guided drawing and layers. (Paper still doesn't have layers.)
So I'm stoked to check out the new features.
I really hate their pencil utensil. It's super broad & good I guess if you're painting, but if you're doing any sort of detail work - you're screwed.
I like the shape: it feels good in the hand just like a carpenter's pencil. The tip is pretty squishy and so isn't useful for precision work, and it wears quickly. I use it a couple of times a week and maybe charge it once a month. The specs say it's pressure sensitive, but I wouldn't know it by how it performs. Best features are probably the eraser function and that it enables palm rejection. The walnut has held up well, but I don't think it's worth a price premium.
I think it's a nice fit for the Paper app. If you like the app, you might like the stylus. I find that I like using the app with the stylus more than I do with my fingers. If you're planning to use it with other apps, the Pencil may not be the best choice.
Someone in the video mentioned using "advanced statistical algorithms" then the video showed her drawing a squiggly line graph. The video didn't show interop between her algorithms and the graph. Does it interop? I'd be happy if it did.
In practice, there is a huge difference between a true pressure sensitive stylus, i.e. a wacom stylus, with, say 1024 real levels of sensitivity, versus this more kludgy solution. The Wacom solution is far closer to real media performance. Paper, when used with Pencil seems to support 2 size variables. The first (mentioned above) is based on the new iOS 8 size of the rubber tip deal. The second size variant is based on the velocity that you use to draw your line. The faster you draw, the fatter the line gets. Amusingly, this is somewhat backwards of the way a real artist would use a brush loaded with, say, India ink (like an inker would use). In that scenario, the faster you move your brush, the thinner your line is (generally -- artists can vary this greatly with practice and technique)
Anyway, this Paper and Pencil deal has vastly improved since the first version. The tracking, the connection to the Pencil -- all have improved dramatically. Highly recommended for iPad artists and non-artists.
One thing to note is that a newer iPad will be much better at tracking than an older one (obviously!).