Wacom Cintiq vs Ipad Pro and Pencil
For pressure-sensitive input to SA and other programs I use a 21” Wacom Cintiq monitor. But I couldn’t resist ordering the new Ipad Pro plus Apple Pencil--rumored to have similar abilities--when they became available last November. Finally, after 7 long weeks of waiting, the Pencil has arrived, so here’s a very preliminary comparison of the two systems as used with SA.
To begin, in practice the 12.9” Ipad Pro screen doesn’t seem that much smaller than the Cintiq 21” layout, since if you start with a normal, non-fullscreen SA layout that includes presets etc. on the monitor, the actual image areas are similar. Also, you use an ioS helper app on the Ipad called Astropad (astropad.com), which gives you a window into an area on your Mac monitor whose size you can choose, so whatever magnification you want is available.
I tested both systems on a range of pressure-sensitive SA presets, including those in the paint synth. ‘Wacom Specialty’ collection. Close comparisons are easy because the image on the Cintiq monitor can itself be chosen as the area for input on the Astropad-enabled Ipad, so a variable-pressure Wacom pen stroke can immediately be followed by an equally variable Apple Pencil stroke in an adjacent area.
I must admit to some initial disappointments, though some could have been expected. First, the ‘feel’ of the Pencil on the Pro surface has been praised in the press for its being just like drawing with a regular pencil on paper. Well, it probably does have more ‘tooth’ than other styluses on smaller, completely smooth ipads, but it feels ‘glassier’ to me than the familiar drag of a Wacom pen on the Cintiq monitor. Also the Wacom pen has an almost inaudible ‘gritty’ sound that I expect when dragged, whereas the apple Pencil is silent once applied--also a bit disconcerting at first.
The apple Pencil has also been praised in the press for having zero time lag between pressing down and the mark appearing. However, though that’s so for native ioS apps such as Adobe Sketch, Astropad does cause a brief time-lag because of its wi-fi connection to the distinct Mac system it is tracking--it shows as an initial purple streak before the brushstroke appears, even if you try to minimize the lag with an extra USB-to Lightning connector. (But you get used to it fairly quickly).
What could have been expected was that you can’t precisely reproduce Wacom pen effects with the Pencil--because of course the SA software etc. were written to respond to Wacom commands, whereas apparently Astropad commands are of some more specialized kind. (I did contact the Astropad team earlier, and suggested that Wacom emulation might be a good way to go, but apparently special features of the Pencil that had to be supported make that impractical).
But in any case, the Pencil/Pro combination works well enough to be very effective with SA in situations, such as a portable setup, where a Cintiq isn’t usable. I hope that others will report on their reactions as well, now that the Pencil is finally becoming more readily available.
Cheers, John
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