Gwilco

Pinky on a Stick

A frankly wonderful article by Bret Victor titled A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design made me think about something I was recently compelled to buy: an iPad stylus.

Of course, Steve Jobs has something to say about that:

“If you see a stylus, they blew it”

He’s rightly asking what the hell you’d need one for.

In the article above, Bret Victor defines a tool as something that addresses a human need by amplifying human capability, e.g. a hammer focuses raw human power onto a single point without you having to maim yourself.

So what’s a stylus for? It’s not for pointing, as fingers do that much better, and it’s not for writing, as many of us can type far faster than we can scrawl. The stylus does something particular: it enhances human precision.

That’s why there are so many kinds of stylus: just as a pencil is a stylus with graphite on the end, a scalpel is a stylus with a blade on the end. And as the medical profession greatly benefits from surgeons not plunging their hands into soft, warm flesh, the visual arts benefit from the precision of the stylus too.

It’s also why Steve Jobs is right: most people don’t need a stylus with their iPad. However, there are some people stand to benefit from a good stylus a lot.

Calligraphy - Bismillah

Try recreating this with a finger without going completely insane. Something like this is not only possible thanks to the precision a stylus offers, but also due to the shape of the stylus itself. You could recreate it with bezier curves, but it wouldn’t be nearly as efficient or pleasurable.

We mustn’t fall prey to the idea of an omnipotent finger. There are things it is ideal for, and things that it’s not. There are a few New Yorker covers which have been made entirely on an iPhone. While very interesting and obviously having a lot of thought put into them, and firmly kicking the “consumption, not creation” meme in the butt, they look fingerpainted and primitive: shapes are loose and wobbly, and lines have no variation. This is an artist being held back.

Which is what you’d expect if you only have visual feedback to work with, already marred by a finger sitting on top of where you need to look most: the stroke. Drawing needs tactile feedback, and the sensitivity of a stylus responding to pressure, angle, and drag.

Which is why iPad styluses (stylii?) aren’t what they could be… yet.

Since buying a Wacom Bamboo stylus, I’ve enjoyed drawing on the iPad far more. The nib is smaller than a finger, and I’m used to drawing with a stylus, so my drawing noticeably benefits from it. It’s got a nice build and good weight: it’s a good purchase, but it’s essentially a pinky on a stick. It makes me dream of what drawing on the iPad could be.

A bluetooth stylus with pressure sensitivity would already be a game-changer. It would need specific softwate to work with, but that’s already the case with tablets and desktop software today. Throw in exchangeable nibs, angle sensitivity and before you know it your iPad is a Wacom Cintiq (starting at £800!) that you can carry around with you. There’s no doubt that Wacom is already working on something like this.

Right?

⚐ 6 notes

gwilym posted this