Styli and the Adonit Jot Script Evernote Edition
/Styluses have been a curiosity of mine since the iPad arrived. On January 27, 2010, when Steve Jobs announced the iPad, he famously made the case for not needing a stylus because we are born with pointing devices—fingers. I whole heartedly agreed with him from a human computer interface point of view, multi-touch is the most natural and intuitive way to interact with a device. However, there are times that the average index finger (16 - 20 mm in size (Dandekar, Raju & Srinivasan, 2003)) is too large to manipulate an item adequately, which creates the need for a tool. On a tablet the need for a tool arises when one wishes to handwrite or illustrate. It is possible to do both with a finger tip, but the results are fairly crude for most.
Styli
The iPad has a capacitive touchscreen and relies on a finger’s capacitance. In short, it works by detecting the conductivity of the skin. Thus, styluses for the iPad must be designed to mimic this capacitance to function on its touchscreen. Most styluses have relied on a 6 mm rubber nib such as the Wacom Bamboo Stylus Alpha ($20). It works well as a finger replacement, but is still large for handwriting compared to a 1.0 mm medium point ballpoint pen or a 0.7 mm fine point pen. In addition, the most rubber nibs feel squishy and imprecise when attempting to write or draw. The Adonit Jot Script ($75) is different, having a 1.9 mm metal tip that is firm and feels much like a ballpoint pen. It works by reflecting the capacitance signature of the screen and adds Bluetooth LE and an accelerometer to increase accuracy. This gives the user a much higher sense of precision. However, unlike the average rubber tipped capacitive stylus such as the Wacom, the Jot Script must be powered by a AAA Lithium battery.
Use
For comparison, the Wacom Bamboo Stylus works as a finger replacement in any application where the Adonit Jot Script, designed specifically for writing and drawing, is currently supported in four applications: GoodNotes, Noteshelf, Penultimate, and ZoomNotes. As previously mentioned, for writing or drawing the rubber nib of the Wacom stylus feels squishy and imprecise. Additionally, when new it is grippy on the screen. This grippy nature of rubber decreases over time, but it causes a lot of drag that one has to compensate for until it ages. The Adonit Jot Script has the inverse characteristics. It is much like a large ballpoint pen and suffers from a complete lack of drag/resistance which forces the user to compensate for absence of friction. Imagine attempting to write with a ballpoint pen on glass, that is essentially what one experiences when using the Jot Script. However, unlike a ballpoint pen which would not apply ink due to the lack of friction, the Jot Script records every movement. This causes it to be a bit unwieldy during initial use until one grows more familiar with controlling the stylus in the absence of friction. The lack of friction continued to be an issue for this reviewer. Light friction would be extremely useful to aid in the control of the point when writing or drawing.
Conclusion
The Adonit Jot Script is nicely shaped and balanced and feels like a quality pen in the hand—demonstrating that it was designed with purpose to meet the specific tasks of handwriting and drawing on the iPad. The design and intent is appealing—very appealing. However, it does not perform and leaves the user in frustration. Frustration with the lack of fine control due to the absence of friction. Plus, in this reviewers experience, frustration with the bluetooth losing connection repeatedly which became infuriating over time. The connection issue is shared by many and thus can not be shrugged away by an isolated defective part. It is this reviewer’s hope that Adonit will get the connection issue resolved and change the tip to add a light drag on the screen to give better control. In conclusion, I cannot recommend the Adonit Jot Script Evernote Edition, but I do look forward to the next iteration.
For Artists, other styluses of note are the Pencil by FiftyThree ($49), the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus ($99) and the Adonit Jot Touch 4 ($89). Both Pencil by FiftyThree and Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus use a 6 mm rubber nib with FiftyThree claiming that Pencil has been friction-tuned. The Adonit Jot Touch 4 and the Wacom offer pressure sensitivity. Currently, I have not reviewed any of these but they are designed primarily for and targeted at the art production market and not handwriting/note taking.
References
Dandekar, K; Raju, BI; Srinivasan, MA; (2003) 3-D finite-element models of human and monkey fingertips to investigate the mechanics of tactile sense. J BIOMECH ENG-T ASME , 125 (5) 682 - 691. 10.1115/1.1613673. Retrieved January 26, 2014 from: http://www.rle.mit.edu/touchlab/publications/2003_009.pdf
