Alternative Apple Pencils

[mike2874]

My wife likes to use coloring apps on her iPad mini 5 and I would like to get her an Apple Gen 1 or Alternative Pencil. Here‘s my question... do you need the tilt & pressure sensitivity of an Apple Pencil for coloring or will an Apple Pencil Alternative work just fine?

So basically it’s between an Apple Pencil Gen 1 vs many cheaper alternatives... I don’t trust my wife not to lose it so the cheaper the better.

 

[scifan57]

Apple sells the Logitech Crayon in its online store at a price of $89.99 in the Canadian store. Try your local online store for the price that you’ll pay.

 

[mike2874]

Yeah I'm aware of the Logitech but I'm still needing to know if you need Apple's Tilt & Sensitivity feature for coloring apps?

 

[scifan57]

That would likely depend on the colouring app you’re using.

 

[mike2874]

Ok thanks I have no idea what apps my wife uses whatever's free or cheap.

 

[NSquirrel]

I have an old iPad air 2, which is not compatible with the Apple pencil. Instead I use a very cheap stylus pen. Something very similar can be found on Amazon, described as:
‘Rubber Tip Universal STYLUS PEN for ALL Moble Phones Tablet IPAD Apple iphone 3 4 5 Samsung Nokia Blackberry HTC LG MOTOROLA’

Obviously not as good as the Apple pencil, but works for me. Also I have several, so mislaying one is no real problem (just annoying!)

 

[NSquirrel]

After thought- some apps will only work with the Apple pencil, which is a bit limiting on their part. There are many apps that are quite happy with my cheap alternative.

 

[twerppoet]

I can’t think of a single app that requires the Apple Pencil, or any stylus. That includes the best drawing apps. Yes, you will miss out on some advanced features, but the app will work.

The Logitech Crayon does not support pressure sensitivity, but it does support tilt. Whether that will matter to your wife is purely personal. The lines drawn will be just as accurate as the Apple Pencil. It’s terrific for note taking and quick sketches, which is what I used mine for on the iPad Mini.

I’ve played with a few coloring apps, and some support the extra abilities of the Apple Pencil, and some dont’. For the ones that do the extra features are good or bad, depending on how you like to work. If you want consistent shading the pressure sensitive can work against you. If you like a more realistic appearance (something you might get with physical tools) the pressure sensitivity can help. It is not, however, absolutely necessary. There are tool adjustments, that once learned, can help create the more realistic shadings. Just takes a bit of practice and experience.

(note: many coloring apps will let you customize the tilt/pressure features to some extent)

In short, if you’re wife is just casually coloring, I don’t think she is going to care. If she is trying for specific looks, it might matter.

As for the few other styluses that are Apple Pencil compatible, I have not tried them. Most seem to have the same limitations of the Logitech Crayon. They also tend to cost about the same as the Crayon. I did a bit of research, and decided against them, mostly because they all use micro USB to charge instead of Lighting. I don’t want to carry another charger around.

(note: I suspect the reason these styluses don’t have lightning ports is because they are not Apple MFI certified. Another reason to view them with suspicion. Also why they can be a lot cheaper. No quality standards beyond basic safety are being enforced.)

The port is also why when my Logitech Crayon broke, I spent the extra to get the 1st Gen Apple Pencil for my iPad Mini. The Crayon needs to be plugged into the charger (unless you have an adaptor). The Pencil can be plugged into and charge directly from the iPad. That takes away the worry of keeping the stylus charged. It only take a few minutes to charge the Pencil for a couple hours use.

The cheap rubber tipped styluses are just slightly more accurate fingertips. They have all the cost advantages that NSquirrel mentions, but in the end are just a limited as your finger. They do help if you’re tired of rubbing your finger numb; which is certainly an issue with coloring apps.

The in-between active styluses that predated the Apple Pencil are, in my opinion, the worst of two worlds. They are more expensive than the cheap ones, and just enough more accurate to be extremely frustrating when trying to draw. Also their full feature set is limited to the apps that support those features.

 

[twerppoet]

Egad! I was supposed to be going to bed, not tapping away at four times the paragraphs I expected.

 

[NSquirrel]

Quite agree with you, Twerppoet, about the rubber tipped styli, but for me it does what I need. When I move to a nice new iPad (dreams) an Apple pen will be part of the purchase.

I cannot recall which drawing apps I found required the Apple pen; if it was not what I wanted or needed the pen, I binned it. I spent quite a while looking for a suitable alternative to the original Memo app (MyScript Memo, long since discontinued) on my iPad. Simple sketching; importing a picture to do such things as add markups and dimensions; use for sudoku screenshot in newspaper! Memo was (and actually still is) very good. It used to crash regularly, but has not done that for several years, which is fascinating as iOS has changed over the years.

Memo somehow lives on, on both my ipad and iphone but for how long? I just found that Autodesk Sketchbook is now free, so perhaps it is time for me to change. (I think, but probably wrong, that an earlier version of Autodesk required the Apple pen. I see that I certainly tried it.)

 

[mike2874]

Thanks guys for responding!

@ twerppoet how did your Logitech charging port break is this a fragile design flaw? I actually prefer being able to plug in a lightening cable to the Logitech vs how the Apple Pencil Gen 1 charges plugging directly into an iPad thus sticking out the side... my wife would never go for that nor would I. Also the Apple Pencil Gen 1 if I understand correctly doesn't actually shut off so is always discharging the battery when not in use.

I do like the idea of having an on/off switch and an auto off after several minutes so that's why the Logitech and Alternatives would be the best fit for my wife. I'm always thinking what will be the easiest for her and a Pencil that can be charged via Lightening or USB C cable fits the bill since she has an iPad Mini 5 and Pixel 3. Myself I'll be getting the Gen 2 for my iPad Pro 2018 so I don't have to mess with any of that.

I do see some of the Alternatives are now charging with USB C instead of an older connection (Micro USB?) so that's an improvement.

So would you still recommend the Logitech over the other Clones... I do wonder about the former's short battery life? Also the fact that I don't think the Logitech shows how much time is remaining but maybe none do.

I didn't notice until I started looking at the lengths of these pencils up to 8" or so... doesn't that fill a little awkward in hand compared to a pen or pencil? Why so long?

 

[twerppoet]

I did not break the port on the Logitech Crayon. I broke he tip. Not sure how, but the iPad Mini was in the backpack with other stuff, so not a big mystery either. Also, it lasted through more than a year of this abuse, so not that fragile.

Charging through a Lighting cabe sounds natural, and desirable. This is how I thought I’d use my first Apple Pencil. I was wrong. I lost the adaptor dongle first, but soon realized that plugging the pencil into the iPad port may look awkward, but it’s crazy convenient. You don’t leave it there for long. A few minutes if you just need to get something done. Maybe half an hour if you want it fully charged.

The Pencil does shut down after a while if inactivity, but ti turns on when moved. Since it spent a lot of time in my backpack, that means the 1st Gen Pencil was often discharged or nearly so when I took it out.

The Crayon has a small on/off button. It also turns itself off after some unknown time of inactivity. It still occasionally was out of charge when I needed it, because it’s very easy to forget that it needs charging. But I do carry a spare charger in the backpack, so it was an easy fix most of the time. However, I mostly use the iPad Mini to take hand notes, which means I was not always close to an outlet when I needed a charge. In those cases, I did without the Crayon.

If you’re wife does her coloring at home, charging will be a non-issue with the Crayon.

I don’t know of any alternative that uses USB-C, but I have not looked at the offerings for a while. The 1st Gen and Crayon use Lightning, male and female respectively. The 2nd Gen Pencil has no port. It charges inductively on the edge of the 2nd Gen and later iPad Pros. Also the new iPad Air. You can’t charge or pair it with anything else.

I don’t know how long the Logitech’s battery life is. I’ve never used it until it ran out after a full charge. I don’t use it to draw or color (I use the larger iPad Pro when I do those things). Like the Pencil, it does not take long to charge, and can be used for an hour or so after only a few minutes charge.

I would still recommend the Logitech Crayon over the alternatives, mostly because it is Apple MFI certified and I’m reasonably certain of it’s quality. I could change my mind if I saw some thorough reviews of the other devices.

As for the length, and other differences of the third part offerings. I suppose it’s no different than other commodity markets. The manufactures are throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Actually, it was the more visually attractive design of some of them that got me looking in the first place. The stubby orange Logitech (also comes in gray now) looked strange strapped next to my black (fake) leather iPad Mini case. But as I said, the microUSB ports were a turn off.

I think I caught all your questions. Ask again if I missed something important.

 

[twerppoet]

Quite agree with you, Twerppoet, about the rubber tipped styli, but for me it does what I need. When I move to a nice new iPad (dreams) an Apple pen will be part of the purchase.

I cannot recall which drawing apps I found required the Apple pen; if it was not what I wanted or needed the pen, I binned it. I spent quite a while looking for a suitable alternative to the original Memo app (MyScript Memo, long since discontinued) on my iPad. Simple sketching; importing a picture to do such things as add markups and dimensions; use for sudoku screenshot in newspaper! Memo was (and actually still is) very good. It used to crash regularly, but has not done that for several years, which is fascinating as iOS has changed over the years.

Memo somehow lives on, on both my ipad and iphone but for how long? I just found that Autodesk Sketchbook is now free, so perhaps it is time for me to change. (I think, but probably wrong, that an earlier version of Autodesk required the Apple pen. I see that I certainly tried it.)

Well, I was wrong. I do have an app that won’t work without a Pencil or similar stylus. MyScript Nebo, which appears to the successor of MyScript Memo. While you can sketch (to a limited degree) it’s mostly about handwriting recognition. It uses the API’s associated with the Pencil to gather more data about how strokes are made than what is available for touch interaction. Without that it would be far less accurate.

With iPadiOS 14 the Notes app does some of what Nebo and Memo do. Not sure if all of that is available on your model iPad, or how much of it is dependent on the use of Pencil. A lot of that system level handwriting recognition seems to be coming to the big names in note taking: GoodNotes and Notability. Not sure how far. I only have Notability and only use it a couple times a month. I haven’t taken the time to explore what new features were added.

 

[mike2874]

Thanks for your take on everything and why somethings appeal to you and others don’t. My wife besides using coloring apps would probably only use the Notes app. She’s in a wheelchair in a nursing home so she’ll throw her iPad Mini 5 in a saddlebag and off she’ll go to go sew or whatever. If her iPad case has room for a Pencil that’s where she’d keep it or maybe sometimes just throw in her pouch. Guess I’m trying to say not sure if an Apple Pencil Gen 1 wouldn’t be discharging all the time. I think her best bet is the Logitech or one of the clones. I’m hoping to make a decision before Prime Days start and then if none of these are discounted I may wait for BF.

Here’s something I haven’t asked you do you find the Apple Pencil style (& clones) more comfortable to use in hand than the Logitech style?

I don’t know if you would consider this much of a through review but here’s a review on one of the newer clones. Of course there’s always the chance of here today and gone tomorrow.

 

[twerppoet]

Thanks for the video link. I was surprised by the one with the USB-C, but disappointed to see they don’t have tilt. Overall, my opinion is not changed. I’d prefer the Crayon. Not so much because of the tilt, but still for the port. The Mini 5 still has lightning, so even with USB-C you’d need to care another cable to keep it charged.

Given they are about $50, I might pick one up out of curiosity at some point. Just to see how limited they are when it comes to drawing. It might make a decent backup in case of loss or damage to the Pencil.

I have a slight preference for the feel of the Apple Pencil, but do not find the Logitech Crayon uncomfortable. It’s not enough for me to factor into the buying decision. At least not for notes. If I did a lot of drawing, I might feel different.

One thing about the 1st Gen Apple Pencil, if you are going to get one also get a cap retainer for it. Losing the cap is probably the most common and annoying part of owning one.