Adonit ships new Pixel stylus to compete with Apple Pencil

AppleInsider

Stylus maker Adonit on Tuesday launched its latest model, the Pixel, advancing its own technology and responding to new competition provided by Apple Pencil.

One of the most important improvements is predictive touch, which should boost accuracy and reduce latency, two of the main perks of choosing Apple's stylus. The Pixel also has 2,048 levels of pressure sensitivity, offset correction, and palm rejection in supported apps. Full feature support must be implemented by app developers using a provided SDK -- compatible apps so far include titles like Astropad and Autodesk SketchBook.

One distinguishing design trait is the 1.9-millimeter "Pixelpoint" tip, which is said to offer "paper-like" drag. Another is a set of shortcut buttons for erasing, undo, and redo actions. To preserve battery life, the stylus turns on when it's picked up, and shuts off when it's put down.

Perhaps the main advantage of the Pixel over the Pencil is that Adonit's stylus can be used with any Bluetooth 4.0-compatible iOS device, whereas the Pencil will only pair with an iPad Pro. When an app doesn't offer support, the Pixel should still operate as a "dumb" stylus.

The Pixel goes on sale today in black or bronze at a price of $79.99, about $19 cheaper than the Pencil.

cali

Apple Pencil competitor(Apple is doomed) but you still need an iPad Pro to use it.

It becomes a dumb stylus when not supported, so I don't expect support outside iPad Pro.

gatorguy

cali said:

Apple Pencil competitor(Apple is doomed) but you still need an iPad Pro to use it.

It becomes a dumb stylus when not supported, so I don't expect support outside iPad Pro.

Per the article "Adonit's stylus can be used with any Bluetooth 4.0-compatible iOS device", not just the Pro. 

davidmalcolm

I owned an Adonit Jot Touch, and which was supposed to be pixel perfect. It wasn't. The Apple Pencil was soooo much more accurate it was like going from trying to draw with a track pad to a Wacom. To be honest, I think the Pencil is even better than my Intuos. I can't wait for Affinity Designer and Photo to become available for the iPad Pro. (Though right now Procreate is handling really well. But the Affinity Apps on Mac are amazing.) Part of me wants Adonit to succeed. But I don't think they're ever going to get to the point of being a legit competitor with Apple. I suspect this fall they'll introduce an iPad Pro mini. Eventually there will be no iPad that doesn't support Pencil. At which point Adonit will end up becoming the stylus you buy for an Android tablet that didn't come with it. (Does Adonit even work with Android?) I feel bad or them, but they never found a way to really do a stellar job on the iPad.

gatorguy

davidmalcolm said:

I owned an Adonit Jot Touch...
Eventually there will be no iPad that doesn't support Pencil. At which point Adonit will end up becoming the stylus you buy for an Android tablet that didn't come with it. (Does Adonit even work with Android?) 

Easy enough to look. http://www.adonit.net/jot/

yojimbo007

And were all those added feature so hard for apple to have figure out? 

robin huber

I see this as a good thing. The more new software and peripherals made for iOS the better. 

esquirecats

I have purchased so many styluses for my iPads over the years. (Because I draw and take notes directly onto documents as part of my job.) While they have gotten better, they all share a common flaw, something outside of their control: they're only as good as the resolution of the capacitance sensing screen allows.

I can say already that Pixel will not compare to the accuracy of the Apple Pencil. The Apple Pencil does not use the capacitance screen for the tip's location, instead it uses an additional layer only available in the iPad Pro models. It's why you can write notes in your usual handwriting, when any other stylus have trouble even with large, obvious letter shapes. Drawing in one's usual style was basically impossible on an iPad before the Pro+Pencil combination. (Instead it was a lot of zooming in to add details which I'd normally draw freehand.) 

Prior to the Apple Pencil I had given up on drawing on iPads, the capacitance screen was engineered for gui elements and fingertips, not a 1mm wide stylus tip. (In a world where we usually draw with 0.25-0.50mm mechanical pencils.)

pscooter63

But-but-but- There's no eraser!  What an abject failure!!
/s

edited May 2016

bestkeptsecret

pscooter63 said:

But-but-but- There's no eraser!  What an abject failure!!
/s

I know you're being sarcastic, but the article notes that there is a shortcut button for erasing.

irnchriz

A genuine option if you use supported devices on non pro iPads.

zoidbergge

I picked one of these up hoping it would be good for some light sketching and note taking. Don't waste your money. The parallax issue and lag issue are still HUGE. If you don't have a Pro, I suggest Pencil by 53. This stylus MIGHT be worth $25, but certainly not the $80 they're charging.