
In Defense Of The Stylus - aaronbrethorst
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/11/in-defense-of-the-stylus/
======
snowwrestler
About 10 years ago I was working for a consultant and ran a research project
on pen-based computing.

We learned that most people who were happy with pen-based computers had gotten
them at a steep discount. They felt that the products had shortcomings but
that was ok because they were so cheap.

The only two exceptions--pen-based computing products that had found
significant success at their MSRP--were Wacom and Palm/Handspring.

The key to the mystery was handwriting recognition. 100% recognition is
impossible, even for humans. But while we accept human misses, there is pretty
much no tolerance for misses in a computing interface. With a miss, the value
of the pen input (speed and natural feel) is lost in the need to correct.

Wacom succeeds because it does not even try to do handwriting recognition.

Palm/Handspring succeeded by inventing new motions for per-letter entry that
people had to learn (called Graffiti). This reversed the user expectation: if
the recognition failed, many users would assume it was their own fault for not
doing the Graffiti entry properly. They wouldn't blame the machine, so their
opinion of its value did not suffer.

Styluses are still hugely popular for animators, artists, and some graphic
designers. Wacom is still going strong. But any computer that relies on a
stylus for text entry is probably doomed to fail.

------
wickedchicken
At a company I used to work at, one of the elite hackers used an old Wacom as
a mouse exclusively. Wanting to try it out, I dove in and dropped $200 on an
Intuos 4 small. Combined with a Das Ultimate Silent, I have a desktop input
system that rivals pretty much anything. Using a stylus for desktop computing
lets you move things around with rapid speed and precision since the cursor
maps directly to what your arm is doing. Scrolling involves a tiny bit more
work (although the Intuos has a scroll wheel that works decently well).
Another neat thing is the ability to instantly open MyPaint and jot down notes
when I need it. It doesn't hurt that my entire desk is jet black :).

Going from a stylus back to a touchpad feels like going from pens to finger
paint. Mice feel clunky as well. Try it out!

------
jerf
I've had a DS now for a number of years, as have many people, and I observe
that I've done an enormous number of things with it that would not have been
possible with my big fingers. To the extent nobody sees a use for styli, is
that because they are really useless, or because right now every program you
use has been optimized for the fact that you're just sort of jabbing at the
screen?

By no means should a cell phone require one, but there are vistas opened by
styli that we may want to explore after the novelty of "holy cow, tablets!
they finally work!" has worn off.

------
thesash
While I agree that the current generation of touch screens are rather
superficial, I sincerely doubt that the future of interaction looks anything
like a stylus.

For artists and designers, the stylus will be used for many years to come, but
for casual, everyday use, it simply isn't user friendly. While it may be
natural to _draw_ or _write_ on a screen with a stylus, jabbing at buttons on
a screen with a stylus is no more intuitive or natural than jabbing at a
screen with a finger, and in many use cases (scrolling, zooming, panning) is
much less natural. The case for the stylus becomes even weaker in the face of
technology like Siri, which elegantly solves the problem of text input.

The Bret Victor "Rant" mentioned in the article makes the case for exploring
more dynamic, tactile, interactive experiences, decidedly _not_ limited to one
mode of input like the stylus. I, for one, hope for a future that is much more
ambitious than the stylus, with new forms of interaction that combine hands,
voice, and beyond. Things like this
[http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/PneumaticDis...](http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/PneumaticDisplays)
and this
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=x...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xFIRmnRHNUM)
that truly push the boundaries of human computer interaction.

------
dnquark
The lack of adoption of stylus-based input is very disappointing. I'm always
floating in random scraps of paper with notes, derivations, etc. I've always
found note-taking, especially when math is involved, much more natural with a
pen than with a keyboard. The article does a good job of outlining why that
is. I'm not alone; just think of the likely penetration rate of Moleskines
among HN readers.

On the other hand, it's ridiculous that the only way to digitize these notes
is by scanning, or typing them in, or using linux-unfriendly Livescribe pens
that require special paper. For centuries we've interacted with documents
using styluses. For doing math, for marking up papers, for scribbling notes in
the margins, and for countless other activities it is simply _the_ right tool
for the job. People like Steve Jobs declared unilateral war on styluses
because they were being used to design suboptimal interfaces. Jobs had a
point, but in rejecting the stylus outright, he threw the baby out with the
bathwater.

~~~
rayiner
I too use pencil and paper when I really need to "think", but I think for most
things a stylus is the wrong sort of input for what you want to do with a
portable device.

For consumption tasks, browsing the web, etc, a touch interface is far
preferable. For those tasks where touch isn't sufficient, a stylus isn't at
all better. A stylus just doesn't work without the tactile response of paper
(which the textured Wacom tablets can offer but a portable device can't).

~~~
dnquark
That hasn't been my experience (I've been using a tablet PC for the last 3
years). With a precise digitizer and good software, stylus-on-screen writing
isn't very different from that of pencil on paper. The convenience of
permanence/editability/easy sharing vastly outweighs somewhat inferior tactile
feel.

------
rafski
Jobs understood that stylus was a psychological barrier, additional interface
between user and screen.

Direct touch gave the biofeedback needed to make operating the device
personal. Your touch makes things happen, rather than you touching it with an
8 inch pole.

It seems an irrelevant detail to a logical mind but this was key element to
iPhone's success.

There is this good PBS documentary on psychology of marketing. If you don't
have the time for the whole thing, fast forward to 0:48 and watch for one
minute—it is very representative of the marketing mindset I am talking about.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahw5ODR2Sgs>

~~~
backprojection
Depends on what kind of work you're doing.

I'm a grad student in math. If I'm taking notes for a class, I prefer to have
my laptop and LaTeX the notes on the fly.

If I'm working on my research, I find working with pen and paper is a
psychological help: it's a good interface for working on math. The only
problem is that pen and paper is a bad system generally, for a couple of
reasons:

1) most of the notes ends up being crap/scratch work, it'd be really nice to
be able to copy and paste the good stuff out easily.

2) Paper is heavy, I always have to decide which of my notes to carry around.

3) It's easy to loose your notes.

I'd love to have a tablet with a stylus good enough to write mathematics with.

------
dporan
Real, shipping stylus-based computers -- not just mockups or concepts like
Alan Kay's 1968 Dynabook -- go back to at least the late 1980s, with the
GRiDPAD:

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/188223/the_long_fail_a_brief_...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/188223/the_long_fail_a_brief_history_of_unsuccessful_tablet_computers.html)

Maybe the lack of success has been due to poor implementation, but I wonder
whether styluses are just inherently problematic:

1\. Truly reliable handwriting recognition always seems to be just over the
horizon, and I wonder whether it always will be. Honestly, I often can't read
my own handwriting. Sure, you can store handwriting as "ink," aka a bitmap,
but that's like choosing a fax as your file format.

2\. Switching from stylus to finger to (possibly) keyboard is awkward. You
need someplace to put the stylus, and it makes one-handed operation pretty
difficult.

That said, I actually think I'd enjoy having a stylus for input sometimes. I
hope that someone eventually figures out how to put all the pieces together.
(Too bad that Microsoft Courier didn't make it.)

~~~
devindotcom
I've actually been pleasantly surprised by the recognition in Windows 7 and 8.
But it needs to be more flexible - who wants to write in a little field? Note-
taking should stay rich, it should transcribe in the background, make the text
searchable, and keep the layout and such in a bit of simple hidden html or the
like.

But yeah switching is a pain. and the interaction vocabulary has to be
rewritten for stylus input.

~~~
andrewjshults
Have you tried OneNote? It's the one program that really highlights the
benefits of a (pressure sensitive) stylus based tablet. To this date, it's one
of the things I miss about my old Toshiba M200. OneNote allows for freeform
handwriting, audio recording and transcribes both to make them searchable and
copyable. When writing papers and such in college it was great to be able to
search for a phrase in either my notes or the lecture and get the full
context. The Windows 7 upgrade made the handwriting recognition was rather
impressive as well.

------
forgottenpaswrd
Mr Jobs dedicated their last days of his life to draw and ketchup things on
paper on the hospital.

Does the reporter honestly think that he hated the stylus?. Of course not, he
just realized that it was not practical at the time, it was not practical to
carry pounds of extra weight for using stylus as you need a backplane active
matrix that consumes battery all the time.

In the video you see Atmel people drawing and the enormous lag it has, this
was unacceptable for Jobs of course.

I made my own homebrew software for the DS lite that used the stylus, for
instant(no perceptible lag)sketching, with antialiasing and 3d. It worked very
well, but after a month of using it, the screen wore out because the screen is
resistive and plastic. A little expensive note pad!!

~~~
thanos2014
hi :) Is it possible to share the app?

------
msutherl
This is an interesting project to develop external devices that allow new
forms of input to existing capacitive touch screens:
<http://www.spike5000.com/>

------
dgurney
My main problem with the stylus is that it's so easy to lose; who wants to
carry around a separate part with their device?

That said, imagine if styluses (styli?) were mass produced and available as
ubiquitously and cheaply as pencils. Lose one? No problem, there's another one
on the table over there.

In that case, I can see styluses catching on big time, and as noted in the
article, their precision would give them huge inherent advantages over
fingers.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The nokia n800 had a little triangular stylus with a holder built into the
device. So nothing extra to carry around. It also wouldn't be too tricky to
attach the stylus to the device with a wire.

~~~
sjs
Attaching it with a wire limits your movements and has the potential to get
tangled. Where does it go when the stylus is tucked away? If it retracts then
does it have a button to make it retract, or does it retract automatically
causing constant tension while using it?

Stylus slots are not new. All the iPaq-like PDAs had them as well, and people
still complained about losing them. I never lost mine but it was a relatively
common complaint. (I still have it in fact, tucked away in a drawer in my
"smartphone" from 2004[1])

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Blue_Angel>

~~~
wickedchicken
The best system was the Samsung Omnia. You attached the stylus to your keys
(it telescoped so was quite small when stored). I keep my keys on me all the
time, so I always had my stylus. The unfortunate part was it looked like a
little thing of mascara which (as a dude) I thought was awkward.

------
tripzilch
> Third, you can see what’s under the stylus. This is essential to artists, of
> course, but it also completes a simple visual feedback loop in which you can
> tell what you’re touching.

When I first got my Wacom drawing tablet, it took me about an hour of trying
out handwriting in GIMP to get used to this. As long as you hover the stylus
only a few millimeters above the tablet, you can even see the mousecursor move
around to where you're pointing (takes a little bit of practice, that).

So, while _nice_ , it's definitely not strictly necessary that seeing what's
"under" the styles happens on the same plane as you're drawing on.

------
6ren
Is it possible to use a stylus on a capacitive touchscreen? (perhaps by
ensuring it has the same capacitance as a finger - a small finger).

I found editing maddening on an iPad because of the inaccuracy. You can roll
your finger to adjust the cursor position, and the magnifying window helps,
but it's not as good as simple cursor keys ( _disclaimer_ I was just trying it
out in an apple store, so there may be ways around this problem that I don't
know of).

~~~
chc
Although they make them, I'm pretty sure capacitative screens don't have the
kind of precision you want from a stylus.

------
holri
The smartphone N900 has a very sensitive touch screen and a stylus. Altough it
would be possible to live without it, it would be a big regression. People
just said ohhh that's so old fashioned. Sinve my phone is not a fashion item
but a work horse, I never understood the irrational fashion the drop of the
stylus by the fashion industry.

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pfraze
You know what I would like? A tablet with a stylus input for one hand, and a
kinect facing up off the left side for the other. I'd write with my right, and
hover my left to make small gestures that manipulate the screen space. Drop
the stylus, both hands are making gestures.

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SoftwareMaven
I'm dying for an accurate stylus for my iPad. I do too many notes and visual
mockups that upi epwant more precise that the big rubber blobs give. I'd be
willing to pay $50 for this if it lasts and works as advertised.

No luck so far!

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wavephorm
Apple filed a patent a while back for a ballpoint stylus for the iPad. I think
we'll be seeing the stylus make a big comeback.

