Collusion - iPad pen productivity solved (opens in new tab)

The video still shows a lot of lag between when the stylus touches the glass and the pixels in the app show the pen trail. This needs to be heavily optimized or else it will make their hardware a lot of engineering work for nothing and users won't be happy. At this stage, from the video, it looks to have similar latency as other existing iPad sketch apps and those have no hardware dongle or stylus (and cost $100 less.)

I would rather use this on an $80 android tablet than a $500 iPad. I'd be a lot more likely to take it with me everywhere if dropping it wasn't so costly.

Come to think of it, I'd rather use an android with a custom ROM that turned it into dedicated writing/drawing device.

Edit: watching this video also made me think of how much better math textbooks could be on dedicated writing tablets.

I'm going back to school to finish up a math degree, so I've recently been reading a lot of math textbooks. An interactive version on a dedicated tablet would be amazing.

Think about it--animated examples, working out problems right there on the page, writing a function and then tapping it to automatically graph it.

It seems odd that they would state that one of their cofounders "brings a degree in electronics and computing from M.I.T." when he in fact went to Manukau Institute of Technology.

Hard to know how far this will go to solving what people want in this type of product. The lag is pretty clear in the video - don't underestimate how much this will frustrate you in reality. Watch the scene where the student is writing very carefully just to form simple letters in a short word.

In my experience, two things matter with styluses on the iPad - precision and responsiveness.

With a view to replacing all the scraps of notes and sketches I have lying around, I bought a stylus recommended by an Industrial Designer friend and gave it a crack on my iPad: http://adonit.net/product/jot-pro/ ($45 including shipping to Australia)

I've used that stylus in some sketching app I can't remember and Penultimate (which has some palm avoidance settings that are somewhat but not completely effective). The stylus itself is well made and the little tip piece works well enough. For rough wireframe sketches and largeish notes, it all works fairly well.

But if you want to annotate your drawings by hand, I think you may find it frustrating. Writing text is pretty weak. My stylus sits largely unused and I'm sketching on paper as much as ever.

In stylus demos, ignore any moments where they circle part of a map, or underline something, or sign their name. Looks lovely, but none of that is especially hard with a cheap stylus and a sketching app, nor will most people be doing a whole lot of it.

Pay special attention to the moments where they try to write in any small detail and watch for the thinness, quality of the lettering and responsiveness to the pen. Did you see the collaborative drawing of the Sydney Opera House? For almost everyone, that's what the drawings will probably look like - a bit of a rough mess.

The collaborative features might appeal to others, but at no point in my work/home life am I usually sharing a drawing space with a colleague. I'm rarely excited at the idea of someone messing with my garden layout drawings or idea wireframes! If I'm dealing with wireframes for a client project, it's usually not on an iPad.

If you're looking for a tablet with a highly accurate stylus (made by Wacom) buy the Galaxy Note 10.1.

I use an iPad with Penultimate and a Wacom Bamboo Stylus every day. Works great. I don't need this.

The name Collusion elicits negative connotations and my initial reading of the title led me to think that there was come wrongdoing on Kickstarter's part. I really would reconsider the name of the name of the company / product, unless this is the intended effect.

This looks to be exactly like another iPad stylus on Kickstarter called the iPen [1]. It's funding was successful in December.

[1] http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1225098940/ipen-the-firs...

I had a play with this and it's essentially a two dollar stylus that can also emit high frequency audio based on pressure, with the iPad attachment having a couple of mics in it to receive audio. This enables the stylus to transmit pressure levels as inaudible sounds, resulting in the ability to draw thin and thick lines.

The software was ok, but the biggest problem is still that typical stylus lag on iOS. Not much you can do about that due to iOS restrictions. It's early days for Collusion so i'm sure they'll come up with something.

Neat product, but I think they lose a bit of credibility with this quote:

"nobody's nailed how to make the iPad a compelling every day productivity tool"

Really? Also, $139 seems like a bit high, but I could be wrong.

Seems like two different products - the app and the pen. I don't see how the app couldn't be created without the pen or the pen created without the app.

BUT YOUR HAND CAN'T REST ON THE SCREEN :(

I am probably somewhere in the target market for this (as someone who works in architecture), but as nice is it is technically and as good as the implementation might be, I'm not sure it would be very useful to me. I barely use a stylus as is (only for detailed work in photoshop) and most of the other situations for using this I'd actually prefer pen and paper (physical copies are easy to sort, trash and store, I'd rather not look at a screen all day, etc.)....

[OT] Why is it that I knew he was a fellow Australian the second the video popped up and without volume? The brain is a crazy thing.

From Collusion.

RE: The Pen Hardware. A few details (beats guessing eh?), we're working in partnership with Byzero of Korea with respect to the pen and receiver, and we are getting excellent results optimising hardware and software.

RE: Real world lag 'issues'as apposed to 1/2 speed video issues: We've publicly tested Collusion with about 100 people with a VERY early POC release - the same software as used in the video (which is now 3+ months old) very few commented on lag as being an issue - and that was with no serious attempt at lag optimisation on our software. As you can see some of these kind folk have come to our defence on this forum (thanks fellas). We are extremely anal about squeezing every last drop of performance out of our software and iOS for release to make using a pen on the iPad as good as it can be. We're confident that we're getting it right, and look forward to our next open invitation test catchup to show people first hand how Collusion is evolving, and yes we'll shove a video camera in there, and post links here:)

To those who have a problem with our name, we have dedicated a special FAQ just for you. See http://collusionapp.com/faq/#a1

Guys (that is an Australianism that includes all the female posters here too) - we recon we have the pen thing in hand - was that a pun (assume for a second it is)... there is a LOT of brainpower here (hacker news), please turn your attention to other things we are working on... please - its seriously cool stuff - if you think Collusion is just a note taking squiggly drawing app - look a little deeper.

I'll say this the pen is simply and enabling technology, a gateway to far far more interesting stuff. We know people fixate on the pen, and thats fine, but we think people once they have it, will stick will Collusion for what it does.

Final note, pen input on tablet is as important as a keyboard or mouse to a PC: Really important till the point where it 'just works' then hardly noticed thereafter. We've hardly noticed the pen for a while now;) You dont use your computer for the keyboard, and we've not built Collusion for the pen.

There are some big ideas in Collusion - we've updated our Kistarter page text to hint at them a bit more strongly. Please have a read.

This looks exactly like the functionality my Compaq TC1000 tablet had back in 2002, thanks to Windows Journal. Microsoft even allowed you to search through your handwritten notes, as it was doing fuzzy handwriting recognition on your scribbles (which would never hav been accurate enough for actual recognition, but for purposes of "find me a scribble that could be me writing the word "hello" it was downright epic).

Come on, whatever you do only the resistive screen or active styluses can make iPad usable for handwriting -- the first would kill this "slidiness" and glass surface which seems a core selling factor for this stuff, the second would require a wired stylus or a battery-draining wireless powering. Ergo, if you wish pen productivity, buy an old tablet PC.

It's Collusion the same as iPen by Cregle? http://www.cregle.com/ipen and their Kickstarter page http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ipen/ipen-the-first-acti...

A dongle? I understand why it's necessary for the pressure sensitivity and being able to draw fine lines, but it seems like a drag. I hope they release the app with support for regular touch input, it looks good.

That's some gorgeous writing interpolation. How high is the detection resolution / Hz?

jobs would hate it.