398 days

Rosa Golijan

A decent iPad stylus may be on its way

Wacom, one of the largest and most popular makers of graphics tablets, has decided to get into the iPad stylus business and that's exciting news. Why? Because it means that a decent iPad stylus may be on its way.

The trouble with most of the capacitive tablet stylus accessories on the market right now is that they are bulky, thick-tipped — a large tip is an unfortunate necessity when it comes to many capacitive display types — and awkward to handle. Wacom's many years of graphics tablet and digital pen making experience will hopefully put an end to such annoyances though.

According to Wacom, it's got at least one of the major issues covered with the Bamboo Stylus being announced today:

The tip of the stylus is 25 percent narrower (6mm vs. 8mm) in diameter than some of the other most popular solutions on the market today.

The stylus is described as having "satin-textured metal body and balanced weighting" which makes us hope that it will also be as comfortable to hold as some of the digital pens used with Wacom's own graphics tablets.

You might be wondering why you should care about whether or not a stylus is comfortable in the first place though — after all, your finger tips control your iPad just fine, thank you — but there are plenty of benefits to such an accessory. For example, a stylus can give you a slight bit of additional control when it comes to drawing apps, a more natural feel for note-taking and annotating tasks, and a way to handle a capacitive device without taking off your gloves in the winter. (That last example alone is what makes me want to buy a dozen of these accessories every time I travel somewhere chilly.)

The Bamboo Stylus will be priced at $29.99 and become available mid-May. At that time you'll be able to find it in many major brick-and-mortar electronics outlets, Wacom's online store and Amazon.

Related stories:

• Can't afford Photoshop? Rent it
• A 'real' Photoshop app is coming to the iPad
• New Photoshop apps let iPads run the show

Rosa Golijan writes about tech here and there. She's a bit obsessed with Twitter, loves to be liked on Facebook, and finally has hope that there'll be a decent iPad stylus available soon.