- #Astropad mini install
- #Astropad mini pro
- #Astropad mini Bluetooth
- #Astropad mini professional
- #Astropad mini mac
#Astropad mini professional
So…can Astropad replace a professional Wacom tablet?įor pure drawing and painting Astropad is a viable alternative to a Wacom tablet. If most of your work involves precise object manipulation or page layout, you might still prefer a Wacom. Astropad has a list of recommended styluses on their web site.Īn iPad stylus with a fat tip (like this 53 Pencil) is great for freehand drawings and paintings, but can make it hard to target the exact handle or icon you want to click or drag in Astropad. To get a Wacom-like combination of fine-tipped precision, responsiveness, and pressure sensitivity you may have to spend around $100 on a stylus such as the Adonit Jot Touch. If a stylus is designed for painting it may have a fat marker-like tip, but that can block your view of details on the screen that you’re trying to aim for, such as handles on vector objects or minuscule panel icons which were designed for the tiny tip of a mouse pointer. Cheap styluses aren’t pressure-sensitive. The stylus you use has a major impact on how much you enjoy Astropad. If you want precise control over the entire area of a large desktop monitor, using a mouse or a conventional graphics tablet will work better than using only Astropad.
#Astropad mini mac
To position the Mac pointer with Astropad before clicking or dragging, you have to watch the stylus tip’s position over the iPad screen before touching down. Any time you touch down on the iPad screen you’re going to tap it, which creates a click on the Mac screen. But that doesn’t work with Astropad I think it’s because iOS doesn’t provide a way to “hover” the pointer over screen objects. You might assume you can precisely position the pointer by watching the Mac screen as you move the stylus across the iPad, as you would with a mouse or Wacom tablet. The white ring is for zooming and panning the Astropad view, and for displaying its sidebar. The image on the left shows the Astropad sidebar, which is hidden in the image on the right. On my Mac I’ve hidden Photoshop panels with the Tab key to maximize the visible painting area, seen here in Astropad on my iPad mini 2. It helps that the Astropad sidebar on the iPad provides a few buttons that you can map to Mac shortcut keys. To get at the areas of the Mac user interface that are outside the area shown on the iPad, I keep my other hand over my Mac laptop’s trackpad and keyboard so I can use them when needed. I like to use Astropad with my usual full-sized Mac workspaces, with Astropad zoomed into the area where I want to draw or paint.
#Astropad mini pro
Having to choose among these compromises isn’t Astropad’s fault: they’re a natural consequence of trying to handle a large screen image on a much smaller display. It’s less of a problem with a larger iPad that’s closer to the size of the Mac screen, so the bigger display of the upcoming iPad Pro should benefit Astropad. If you leave the Mac workspace maximized but zoom Astropad to show just the part of the Mac screen where you want to draw or paint, menus and panels may end up beyond the edge of the iPad screen. I can create a small Photoshop workspace (left) sized for my iPad screen, and zoom Astropad to display that area on my iPad at a more stylus-friendly magnification (right).
#Astropad mini Bluetooth
In Stylus mode Astropad expects you to connect a Bluetooth stylus, and if the stylus is capable of pressure sensitivity that Astropad recognizes, you’ll be able to take advantage of it in Mac programs where pressure sensitivity is enabled for the selected tool, such as a brush in Adobe Photoshop. But there’s no pressure sensitivity in Finger mode. In Finger mode Bluetooth isn’t used, Astropad only gets input from the touchscreen of the iPad or iPhone so you can draw using your finger or a simple compatible stylus. To minimize the lag between drawing a stroke and seeing it appear on the screen, connect using the cable option.Īstropad has two modes: Finger and Stylus. The two Astropad apps can talk to each over wifi, or through a standard Lightning-to-USB cable connecting your iOS device to your Mac.
#Astropad mini install
To set up Astropad you install the iOS app on your iPhone or iPad, and you also install a free Astropad application on your Mac. Astropad works more like a Cintiq it mirrors your Mac display to your iPad or iPhone display so you can draw directly on the image you’re looking at. The other type of Wacom tablet, the Cintiq, has a display built into the tablet. With the more common type, you use the tablet on your desk while watching the computer screen. The version for the iPhone is called Astropad Mini when I talk about the iPad in this review it also applies to using an iPhone with Astropad Mini.īefore we look at Astropad it’s important to distinguish the two general types of Wacom tablets. With an app called Astropad you can use an iPad or iPhone as a graphics tablet for a Mac. Walk into a graphic design or photography studio and you’ll probably see a graphics tablet on the desk.
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