Wacom has introduced the new Intuos Creative Stylus, a pressure-sensitive digital pen for sketching, drawing and painting on an iPad.
the Intuos Creative Stylus allows the ad agency creative to do a quick concept drawing on the train, or the art student to sketch out an idea before class. As iPads are used more and more for developing ideas and experimenting with concepts, the new stylus fills a gap in the marketplace. It works seamlessly with the iPad and a series of creative apps, providing an authentic experience for whenever inspiration strikes.
One of the many compatible iPad apps is Wacom’s own digital notebook app, Bamboo Paper. The new version available now has been optimized for the Creative Stylus and offers great new tools that allow being even more expressive and getting more out of one’s creativity. This is also confirmed by Mario Klingemann, code artist and CTO at Psykosoft who developed the innovative Psykopaint application: “The Intuos Creative Stylus enables us to explore a new level of innovative painting techniques on the iPad that we could never achieve with touch alone.”
Providing the power to produce professional results on an iPad, the Intuos Creative Stylus’s advanced technology comes in form of a best-in-class pen experience and pressure sensitivity of 2048 pressure levels. This means that it can reproduce the feel and artistic control of traditional brushes and markers, so it’s ideal for sketching, illustrating and image editing. It is also highly responsive, even reacting to light strokes, while rejecting unintentional touches when used with compatible creative apps that integrate Wacom’s industry-leading technology. Bluetooth 4.0 Smart technology ensures seamless connection to the latest iPad devices.
Designed for the iPad 3, 4 and Mini, the Intuos Creative Stylus is compatible with popular creative apps such as Autodesk SketchBook Pro for iPad, ArtRage (by Ambient Design), Bamboo Paper, ProCreate (by Savage Interactive) and Psykopaint. “It’s great to finally see the trusted Wacom Intuos brand enter the creative mobile landscape. We’re very excited to announce that ProCreate supports the new Intuos Creative Stylus and we can’t wait to see what artists achieve with these two powerful mobile tools,” says James Cuda, co-founder of Savage Interactive and developer of ProCreate for iPad.
The Intuos Creative Stylus is designed with a brushed aluminium housing in two color versions – black and blue/black – and ergonomically shaped thanks to the iconic flared tip, which makes it particularly comfortable when used for many hours. Additionally, artists can save time with the convenient shortcut buttons.
Highlighting its mobile credentials further, a thin but powerful AAAA battery ensures days of constant use. The Creative Stylus comes with a convenient case that holds the stylus, spare battery and two replacement nibs.
“iPad users are often on the lookout for new and improved tools that can offer an authentic experience,” says Hartmut Woerrlein, head of Global Product Management at Wacom. “We’ve had lots of customer requests for a pen solution that adapts pressure-sensitivity to the iPad, as this is something they’re used to when working with our pen tablets. It’s also a great thing that Wacom offers an iPad app that is fully compatible with our new Creative Stylus. As the pioneer in pen technology, we’ve used our extensive experience to develop the Intuos Creative Stylus and we’re excited to see what artists achieve with it.”
Pricing and Availability
The Intuos Creative Stylus ($99 USD) will be available at the beginning of October from Best Buy.
Source: Wacom Technology Services, Corp.
I will purchase this item, Wacom makes great creative tools.
Wow..i might get an iPad cuz of this.. but as much as u want a mini, i would probably go for the full screen iPad
I was considering the mini.
Not anymore. Customized iPad in 8 weeks.
Yay! About time, this is exactly the sort of stylus the Pad has been waiting for.
All we need now are the photo-editing apps to adopt it for painting masks, etc.
Exactly! These guys where only waiting to make sure to sell enough of their other tablets (especially to be able to push forward their new ones), before making money with this pen.
Tip is too fat
whittle it down with a pocket knife.
I believe I am seeing 5 different tip sizes to choose from inside its carrying case.
Apologies, I am in error. The kit comes with 2 replacement ‘nibs’ with room for 5. One size only.
https://store.wacom.com/us/en/product/CS500PK0/
Thanks.
Implied, but not specifically stated…
http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/
Hey, check it out! The page you linked has a specific icon that says ‘PALM REJECTION’ ! ! !
I think that implies there is no trouble from resting one’s palm on the iPad. YES!
That feature is usually a switchable preference in some apps
I wonder how they got past the problem of the palm resting on the screen? I’ve tried to write with other stylus’ and the biggest problem I’ve had has been when resting my palm on the screen (the stylus becomes inoperable). This is an interesting idea, but until digital ink is baked into the iPad, I don’t think this product will make writing on the iPad any better than cheaper alternatives. Still worth a look though.
Palm Rejection. Many drawing apps have their own implementations already. It usually consists of blocking out an area under the right or left side so touches aren’t recognized. If I had to guess (I haven’t had a chance to look at wacom’s site yet) I would think they implemented some sort of floating area that follows the pen and attempts to block out the area your hand would be.
I think this can easily be addressed. The software can comprehend that a large contact area is your palm or the fat part of your hand, and merely ignore it. Many illustrators I know who work with Wacom tablets to draw or paint are well used to not making contact with anything but the stylus anyway on an Intuous tablet.
I am confident that Wacom anticipated your concerns already. Good question, one that was thought about long ago.
Unbelievable. How the hell can anybody be so critical without even checking it out, let alone having it in hand.
Hairlines aren’t a problem, unless your painting skills only cover picket fences, and unless you paint with your palms, that is taken care of as we’ll!
Cripes sake! Some of you should look before you leap.
It has 2048 levels of pressure sensitivity. No doubt that allows for very thin lines with minimal pressure and big fat lines when mashing it into the screen. That’s a BIG innovation for tablet pens. Check out the ‘Specifications’ tab here:
https://store.wacom.com/us/en/product/CS500PK0/
Here’s a zoom into the tree house picture for better detail:
That’s all I can find for demo pictures so far.
I bought the “Wacom inkling” when it came out and thought it was a product that held very good promise…the software was crude clunky and not very developed at all.
Unfortunately, as good as some Wacom products are, the company doesn’t have long game plans and does not do any justice to it’s other product as such. They never developed the Inkling which could really be a killer product.
Wacom needs to integrate and merge all their technologies, tweak their software features and hone in on software development .
They lag and don’t innovate fast and broad enough .
Exactly.
Frustrating isn’t it.
For those that care to see what it is all about: http://intuoscreativestylus.wacom.com/en/
Check the video
Color me excited. (Actually, you can use the stylus to draw me as excited. There. I feel better now.)
During an after dinner walk last night with my incredible wife, who has spent nearly 30 years working with a stylus and Photoshop (as well as Freehand, RIP and more recently, Illustrator) designing graphics and textiles for the surf industry (and more recently, her own line of Hawaiian and surf-themed iPhone and iPad cases – visit http://www.hawaiiancases.com – you’ll be blown away), we talked about the new stylus and its potential.
Drawing on a Wacom Intuous or Bamboo tablet has been invaluable. But it’s meant adjusting to having to view the Mac’s screen while drawing on a tablet surface that did not allow you to see what you were doing. Wacom correctly addressed this with an iPad-like tablet with a screen some years back. But it was very expensive, and the software was lacking. The second that the iPad was announced, among other things, I immediately thought of its possibilities for being a drawing surface.
Frankly, I have not yet been satisfied that Wacom and software developers have fulfilled the promise. Yes, Adobe has ported some apps to let you use the iPad and your Mac work in combination to craw on it. But the apps have been more of a sketch-level attempt. Frankly, I think Adobe is worried about making a real professional solution for the iPad that would compete with Illustrator and Photoshop, for which they charge a handsome (now annual subscription) fee. Okay, I get it. Adobe is in the business of making money. And selling a cheap app would not do.
So as we walked last night, I wondered if anyone at Adobe could remove the rod from their posterior for a moment and think outside the box. Why not make it so that there are real professional quality software tools for the iPad that could be part of their CC suite, that could either offer illustrators a professional level drawing/painting tool for the iPad in conjunction with the Wacom stylus?
Further, I will go on record as saying I HATE illustrator. It’s an ancient application, built atop a rigid CAD software base. It’s anything but intuitive, harder to use than it needs to be. Illustrators I know often start with pencil and paper, scan and trace their sketches into Illustrator to ease their pain. Even then, the streamline/trace function of Illustrator flat-out sucks.
My hope is that Adobe realizes this. I would really love to see Adobe start over and create a new vector app for the iPad from the ground up that takes advantage of the iPad’s and iOS’s best capabilities with touch. It would be fantastic to have an easy to use, flexible yet very capable app for illustration and painting that does not require the user to think in terms of having to steer and edit vectors in the traditional way.
What if via Bluetooth, the input on the iPad app could feed directly into Photoshop/Illustrator/new app much like a Wacom tablet does now? Or, could an Adobe-built app be powerful enough on its own on an iPad to give users professional-level drawing/vector/painting tools so that they could draw anywhere, save their work locally or via the cloud (the service of your choice) and automatically share it with your Mac (and desktop Adobe applications)?
If Adobe doesn’t build it, and prefers to defend their status quo, I can only pray that some bright young men or women create a great app from scratch to do this, and beat Adobe at its own game. If I were Wacom, realizing that trying to compete hardware-wise with the iPad could be a fool’s errand, I wonder if the company could get more heavily in the software game, either by creating a more robust iPad drawing and painting app that is file-type compatible with Adobe apps, or work with someone who can help them create a professional strength illustration app for the iPad, not just a mere sketching tool.
No matter what, Wacom has done something brilliant. While I am sure that Wacom would love to make big profits on tablets, an affordable stylus that pros and amateurs alike will want to use on their iPads could generate a lot of revenue. I salute them. Imagine the possibilities.
When Ghandi died, he left a legacy behind of change and advancement of freedom. But among his few worldly possessions were his glasses, his loincloth, rice bowl and his pencil and paper. When you think about it, the iPad has become today’s paper – the writing and drawing pad, the newspaper we read, the screen on which we view movies, TV and video chat. Something so simple as a stylus (which inside is highly complex) can become today’s de facto pencil. The paper and pencil have changed the world, delivering countless thoughts and ideas. Looking forward, imagine what the iPad and stylus can do to change the world.
We do live in interesting times.