Astropad, the iOS app that lets you turn your iPad into a professional tablet for Mac, is out today with new enhancements for iPad Pro and Apple Pencil users. The app already supported native resolution on the 12.9″ tablet as well as basic Apple Pencil support, and today’s free update focuses on specific improvements to Pro plus Pencil features to make the most of the new hardware and create a first class experience.
If you’re unfamiliar with Astropad, the iPad app pairs with a Mac version, allowing you to draw and sketch on your tablet display and control what you do in Mac software like Photoshop. The experience is similar to connecting a Wacom tablet to a Mac for creating the digital sketch pad experience, but using the iPad you already own offers benefits like wireless connectivity and Apple Pencil support.
With the latest version of Astropad, it can now recognize Apple Pencil’s tilt feature which the app turns into accurate brush simulations on the Mac. Apple Pencil, of course, supports pressure sensitivity, and Astropad is now using a custom pressure curve to make use of that. The update also adds advanced stroke tuning with Apple Pencil so you only see what you intend to draw and not accidental marks.
Astropad has also cranked up image quality within the app so your projects will appear crisper on the larger iPad Pro display. And the update includes additional fine tuning that reduces latency between the iPad and Mac that machines with dual graphics cards will benefit from the most.
The free update to Astropad is rolling out now on the App Store. New customers can pick up the graphics tablet app for $19.99. The new features require the latest iPad and Mac versions to work. Learn more about Astropad for iPad Pro and Apple Pencil here.
Check out the latest version of Astropad in action below:
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Anyone know what drawing stand he’s using? Looks really nice …
It’s the Twelve South ParcSlope: https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/parcslope
The stand he’s using is the ParcSlope, from Twelve South. I use one with my MacBook, and love it.
https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/parcslope
Yup, it’s the ParcSlope from Twelve South https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/parcslope
Is this available on iPad Pro only? Can’t wait for Apple to release a regular-screen-sized iPad Air 3 with support for Apple Pencil.
Astropad is available on all of the iPads. However, as the Apple Pencil is only available on the iPad Pro it will only work on that currently. I highly doubt that Apple is going to provide support for it on the iPad Air 3 when it gets announced around March. Think about it, besides the size what would differentiate the iPad Pro from the iPad Air 3 if they both do the same exact thing?
The power I believe would. I highly doubt they would put the A9x chip in the ipad air. And would most likely put the A9 chip in but give it three/four cores. I believe adding the pencil support to the air 3 would validate the pro in a lot of ways as the direction there going and would finally begin to distinguish the ipad line up from the iphone lineup.
Why wouldn’t they put the A9X in the iPad Air 3? They already have the A8X in the iPad Air 2 and they usually update the processor with each new model release.
They wont put A9X into the Air 3 because of the size of the chip. The teardown revealed it’s a huge chip.
Also the speaker design, given those chambers take up a lot of space that the Air won’t have.
I can see them adding support. iPad sales were struggling up until recently. It doesn’t seem in their interest to sabotage the Mini and Air simply to help boost the Pro. If customers want those features, make them available to the entire family and sales will improve or dump those two products if the pro is where the focus is (which isn’t likely). The iPad Pros large display and more powerful CPU still makes it an attractive option for its target market regardless of whether the Air supports pencil.
the size is enough
So cool to use Photoshop on the iPad Pro. Unfortunately, I’m more using Lightroom and have found Astropad to not be very convenient for developing photos. It’s great for drawing in PS though.
I think it’s the ParcSlope, from Twelve South.
https://www.twelvesouth.com/product/parcslope
I use a MacBook Pro with Parallels running Windows 10 – I use an iPad Pro 256 (9.75) so my question is will this reproduce the drawing in CorelDraw the way that Wacom does or will it only work with Mac applications?