Ok, so...anyone have any experience with this pen? I can see that practical application for note taking, but how does it do with sketching or other creative uses?

greyday wrote:Have you ever tried to draw on a tablet? High end art tablets are pricey, the average tablet (includig the iPad) is a simplified touch screen computer, nothing more.

Yes, I have an iPad. I use it to take handwritten notes in lectures and draw molecules everyday. I also play the popular game "Draw Something" on my iPad. :p Very accurate to me.

Spending another $50-100 on an extension of your iPad to take notes/draw (which your tablet can already do efficiently) seems a little overkill.

I can't speak for the accuracy of this product, but I doubt it'll be accurate enough for an artist.

ThunderThighs wrote:It would be greatly appreciated if comments of scorn, rage, hate, betrayal, departures, and disappointment could be added to last month's thread on scorn, rage, hate, betrayal, departures, and disappointment. Rest assured, they will be read. THANK YOU!

But we are scorned and outraged. We hate the betrayal and the departure from classic woot is a disappointment!

shortman wrote:I want one that works with my android phone and that is compatible with the Draw Something app.

A4 cannot work with Android phone but iPhone/iPad/Computer. Please pay attention to A3 from aPenUSA which can support Bluetooth connection with Android phone and Android Tablet.

efun wrote:A4 cannot work with Android phone but iPhone/iPad/Computer. Please pay attention to A3 from aPenUSA which can support Bluetooth connection with Android phone and Android Tablet.

But does it work with Apps that are available on Ipod and Ipad 2? My wife is looking for something for notetaking and I wouldn't mind something for Draw Something. Thus, it may be a win for me.

BTW) Why is ThunderThighs so prevalent in policing the thread today? I see a lot of posts disappearing. It'd be one thing if they were moved to a thread in a general complaint area and some reminders were given but to delete them completely smacks of too much control. It's certainly damaged my calm.

sadly, this is an apple-only accessory, and I was hoping to use this to digitize my notes in engineering classes on my android tablet.

I do, however, own an ipod touch (4th gen). Does anyone know if this *could* record/download to my touch? it's a bit pricey but I'm hoping if it's good quality it might be worth it.

does this mean that the wireless digital pen also has a regular old ink cartridge inside it? I was hoping for something that could be used as a stylus as well, it would be great if it could do both

efun wrote:A4 cannot work with Android phone but iPhone/iPad/Computer. Please pay attention to A3 from aPenUSA which can support Bluetooth connection with Android phone and Android Tablet.

whoops! didn't quite pay attention to this post all the way through- thanks for the mention of an android solution!

Waker1 wrote:But does it work with Apps that are available on Ipod and Ipad 2? My wife is looking for something for notetaking and I wouldn't mind something for Draw Something. Thus, it may be a win for me.

BTW) Why is ThunderThighs so prevalent in policing the thread today? I see a lot of posts disappearing. It'd be one thing if they were moved to a thread in a general complaint area and some reminders were given but to delete them completely smacks of too much control. It's certainly damaged my calm.

The available app names iNoteHD for iPad and iPad2, you can download it from app store and test it.

I'm seconding an earlier comment. How useful is this for actually doing drawings? I'm no great artist or anything, but I'd like to be able to do drawings that I can edit on my computer without having to worry about scanning and all that other crap. (I'm hoping this will make me feel like a real artist! :D)

How good is it for that kind of thing? I've been meaning to get a Wacom tablet for a while, but those things always look so crappy for the price... is this a decent alternative?

ThunderThighs wrote:
Also, see the big Detour sign above pointing to another thread. I left the posts up for a few hours but they don't add anything to the product discussion.

Well, I'm glad you removed my rather useless posts, just about as useless as this device (if you own a smart-phone). Evernote with OCR essentially makes this a last ditch effort at the market, sort of like mini-disks (when MP3 players came on the market).

P.s. Shadow Dragoon, the reason Wacom tablets can be really expensive is because of the accuracy they offer. Keep in mind that iPads and iPhones were never designed for anything more precise than a finger.

Edit: in short: no. if you want a decent alternative to wacom, buy a good scanner and get used to Photoshop/Illustrator

smalltwig wrote:Well, I'm glad you removed my rather useless posts, just about as useless as this device (if you own a smart-phone). Evernote with OCR essentially makes this a last ditch effort at the market, sort of like mini-disks (when MP3 players came on the market).

P.s. Shadow Dragoon, the reason Wacom tablets can be really expensive is because of the accuracy they offer. Keep in mind that iPads and iPhones were never designed for anything more precise than a finger.

I totally agree that as a note-taking tool it may be somewhat unnecessary (though to be able to take physical notes and archive them digitall instantly is kinda cool), but I'm still curious about the artistic applications. Basically my biggest disappointment in owning an ipad is that I still need my wacom tablet, or a sketch pad and scanner, it seems silly.

And absolutely, nothing beats Wacom for level of accuracy (they offer a stylus for around $200 similar to this one, but I assume much better). I just want to know if this is a glorified standard tablet pen or more like an Aiptek tablet equivalent (which would TOTALLY be worth $60, especially since if some details are too fine, you still have the original sketch to scan)...

And to answer the question above, yes, the pen works as a, well, pen. ;)

greedy wrote: I just want to know if this is a glorified standard tablet pen or more like an Aiptek tablet equivalent (which would TOTALLY be worth $60, especially since if some details are too fine, you still have the original sketch to scan)...

Without getting too technical, the answer to your question is leaning towards glorified tablet pen. When this pen was put into production, it was targeted at college students taking notes in classes, with some upgraded features making it a plausible artistic utility. However, unless you are drawing basic shapes (circles, squares, triangles, etc), it would not be able to produce the results nessiary for free-hand sketches, or even cartoons for that matter.

How does this compare to a wacom tablet for sketching?

k3lit0 wrote:How does this compare to a wacom tablet for sketching?

it doesn't.

Edit: allow me to elaborate: the wireless pen uses a single based approach. Imagine you take a gun and fire it at a target. Rather than simply interpret the aim of the gun, Wacom tablets interpret the target and the aim. Therefore, you are able to use your "results" to "sight-in" the gun, making it more accurate.

However, if you're trying to make a circle, for example, the offset trajectory of the bullet won't matter. It'll be a circle either way, Anything more complex, and you may run into trouble ;)

smalltwig wrote:Without getting too technical, the answer to your question is leaning towards glorified tablet pen. When this pen was put into production, it was targeted at college students taking notes in classes, with some upgraded features making it a plausible artistic utility. However, unless you are drawing basic shapes (circles, squares, triangles, etc), it would not be able to produce the results nessiary for free-hand sketches, or even cartoons for that matter.

THANK you. I was trying to find any kind of art-oriented review of this thing online and couldn't find a darned thing...

Now I sort of feel bad for being the reason the thread got cleaned up just to find I don't want the product (thanks for listening and helping, though, TT! ).

EDIT: Aww, meh, I decided to give it a shot. I'm not that great an artist and do a lot of livetrace-style work, so I figured I'd give it a shot (besides, I had a credit I keep forgetting to use, so it was a little cheaper). At the least this may let me know if, overall, I want to eventually buy a better grade pen (like the Inkling). Or who knows, it could work for my needs! Or I'm deluding myself!

How similar is this to the Livescribe pen, because I was thinking of getting one, but now I might be looking at the Apen...
I mean I know the Livescribe has the Piano Feature

ThunderThighs wrote:I don't have any way to move posts. There was a request to trim so that it was easier to find posts about the product. This is a new product for Woot so the discussion will be useful to other Wooters.

Also, see the big Detour sign above pointing to another thread. I left the posts up for a few hours but they don't add anything to the product discussion.

The link to the "new" thread takes me to the Community --> Woots page.

smalltwig wrote:it doesn't.

Edit: allow me to elaborate: the wireless pen uses a single based approach. Imagine you take a gun and fire it at a target. Rather than simply interpret the aim of the gun, Wacom tablets interpret the target and the aim. Therefore, you are able to use your "results" to "sight-in" the gun, making it more accurate.

However, if you're trying to make a circle, for example, the offset trajectory of the bullet won't matter. It'll be a circle either way, Anything more complex, and you may run into trouble ;)

Alright, I'll be passing on this then. Thanks for the input!

ThunderThighs wrote:I don't have any way to move posts. There was a request to trim so that it was easier to find posts about the product. This is a new product for Woot so the discussion will be useful to other Wooters.

Also, see the big Detour sign above pointing to another thread. I left the posts up for a few hours but they don't add anything to the product discussion.

I tried to follow your detour sign and I hurt my neck beyond repair

Yeah I think I am officially fed up with Woot! Things just haven't been the same the past few years.

I didn't even get an email back from a few weeks ago about a package that I never received!!!!

Bailed out last night and checking in this am. Is the Woot-Off over? No Bunnies Ogling Carrots again? My Wootalyzer is stuck showing no movement at all. Wondering if the system is functioning today after the server problems yesterday. Things seem very quiet here.

Hope all you folks in Texas are high and dry. Stay safe.

helibobber wrote:Bailed out last night and checking in this am. Is the Woot-Off over? No Bunnies Ogling Carrots again? My Wootalyzer is stuck showing no movement at all. Wondering if the system is functioning today after the server problems yesterday. Things seem very quiet here.

Read the description again.

As for the Bunnies Ogling Carrots they are not guaranteed every woot-off, in fact, I miss when they were rarely offered. I believe this is one of the primary reasons why it has declined as of late. Also remember that not this Sunday but next Sunday is April 1 so a Bunnies Ogling Carrots will likely appear that day.

I own an iPad 2 and use it extensively for class room note taking in an engineering program. Using a stylus and NoteTakerHD was adequate, but still a little clumsy.
Picked up this pen on a whim during the last woot-off and found it to be useful. From what I can tell, it will plug into iOS devices, Macs and PCs (sorry, no android). I've only tested it on the iPhone and iPad. It's interaction with the iPad seems to be limited to the iPen application built for it. It pulls stored pages from the device memory as pictures, which are stored in the iPad photos app. The live interaction seems odd and fairly useless.
The independent recording mode does work well. It clearly and accurately picks up all my pen strokes, provided I don't lean a hand between the pen and the receiver. It is much easier to draw graphs, circuit diagrams and pictures of rotating machines on paper with a pen than it was on the iPad screen directly with a stylus. Not being able to erase anything is a bit of a pain, and I've had to adapt my note taking style a bit. Lots of cross-outs for corrections.

Is it worth ~$50? It was for me. Having all my notes in one place that is easily and quickly browsed without carrying 3 binders around is great.

There's no subtitle to the product image snarkily saying that the iPad isn't included! You done goofed, woot!

Does this work with a Acme Garden Plow?

whatsamattaU wrote:


Product website:
http://apenusa.com/productdetail.php?product_id=4

Even a bright shiny video:

w w w wait, so, let me get this straight.. everything I write or draw is going to go directly to my computer?

I may need to watch that video again - I'm not quite sure I understand what goes where..

Forget about the product for a minute... I want to hear about ThunderThigh's adventures in babysitting last night! :D

-=C=-

Well, crap. I bought it now, but just realized that it may be difficult for me to use, being a lefty. Any experiences out there with left handed people?

So...this is suppose to help you digitize your note, but you still have to write on a piece of paper to get that functionality? Why not just re-read the paper notes at that point?

mu4poo wrote:w w w wait, so, let me get this straight.. everything I write or draw is going to go directly to my computer?

I may need to watch that video again - I'm not quite sure I understand what goes where..

(Apen Employee) - Anything you write or draw is stored on the receiver for you to sync with your PC or "M a c" later. Or you can hook it up to your iOs devise, with the free app what you write or draw on paper is real time written on your iOs devise...much more accurate over a capacitive pen or even finger(which gets sore). My favorite feature is, in class I can take my notes then use the OCR software to convert my doctor-esq handwritten notes to digital text..then I save my notes into a word document.

This is also better than a wacom tablet pen since you need a pc with you while using...this is wireless to work all you need is the pen and receiver. Have FUN WOOOTT

ThunderThighs wrote:Are you an insider with the Apen company?

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/29/e-funs-apen-a3-stylus-brings-digitized-scribbles-to-android-bl/

Judging from the fact that it's E FUN's press release, I would say...yes.

Side note...still love woot. Woot woot!

Here is an article from Wired which explains how it works a bit better than the video.
Apparently you can store up to 100 pages on the pen and download it later OR have it instantly go to your device.