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iPad Pro: which pencil would you recommend?


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Hi Kopernikus and Welcome to the Forums,

 

At the moment we only support the Apple Pencil within the app.  We may look into providing support for 3rd party styluses and a later date.

 

Hopefully if someone has had a good experience using a 3rd party stylus and Affinity they will reply here.

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Buying an iPad Pro (which is far from cheap) and not buying Apple Pencil would be a fatal error, imo.  Apple Pencil is among the best drawing devices created to date (and I am a total Windows/PC fan!), for several tested reasons (too long to explain here). So, you made the right choice, imo.

 

I'm a professional illustrator, and the other styluses have tried hard to create a good experience in drawing with the iPads... Absolutely none comes even close to an Apple Pencil. Heck, in certain - key for me- aspects, Apple Pencil is way better than every Wacom implementation. Just that the tablet-screen size, software-OS issues (iOS) makes still a wacom + whatever the pen-display + and a powerful pc/mac, a better combination for full time professionals. But if there was already (if there's ever gonna be one... :S ) a 19 ", 22" or bigger tablet/pen-display monitor with the Apple Pencil and iPad Pro (large tablet, there's not even a 16" size! ) system , prepared for Apple Pencil, it could easily (IMO) beat any wacom + pc/mac combination. Right now, a Cintiq 27 QHD (98% Adobe RGB) + any powerful computer (to deal with that resolution! not every machine can, neither every card has display port, etc) beats anything else, in the pricey high end, only considering pro quality as a factor.  So, if to decide among Apple Pencil or other stylus, even being a 100$ device, the decision is extremely easy. :)

 

 

 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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Other styluses do work, till a (very) limited extent for drawing matters. There's a main issue with the nib area size (I mean, the actual affected pixels by the nib) which as far as I know, get you the best situation with the Apple Pencil (the accuracy for example for line art), but also, much faster refresh rate on the pencil tracking, and I'm sure there's not any other device able of such tilt sensitivity (this specific aspect, unmatched in the whole market, no matter what brand or platform). Plus, from what I've read, the screen grid, the system to track the brush strokes, etc, has been designed for Apple Pencil, I mean, optimized for it. In comparison to a wacom device, and even more, any cintiq alternative, there's the evident advantage of zero (or to a practical level, is zero) parallax, better tilt, and general more natural feel. This latest part is way more important than it sounds. Even so, IMO, it all gets severely damaged due to being only a 12,9 inches screen. Small size drives to less accuracy, and mostly, not so great for large, detailed compositions, frequent work for clients. In the wacom advantages, there are many, too, though. Be it Wacom, or XP-Pen, Huion, Yiynova, etc, they have this possibility of actually seeing the cursor (big thing for many, I'm trained first as a traditional artist, decades ago, so, no issue), also, the fact that with the iPad Pro+Pencil you can"t "hover" where are you going to draw (I don't do this much)  , as the Pencil technology it seems works by direct contact only (wacom and alternatives allow some distance), and the major issue of the iOS limits in color calibration (lack of options, tho its sRGB and new profile are rock solid) and availability of pro software (even while there's a few of very good quality, and Affinity comes very handy here, it indeed supports CMYK on the iPad)

 

 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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  • 4 months later...
1 hour ago, JakeTse said:

I didn't know that there are other stylus except the Apple Pencil. I thought it the only one for the iPad models.

 

Since you can use your finger, it follows that you can use any capacitive stylus ;) but you won’t get the same fine control or range of features. I recently purchased these for use with my iPad Air 2.

Alfred spacer.png
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for Windows • Windows 10 Home/Pro
Affinity Designer/Photo/Publisher 2 for iPad • iPadOS 17.4.1 (iPad 7th gen)

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Adonit make a similar capacitive stylus to the one Alfred linked to, which until the Apple Pencil was released, was considered one of the better fine line capacitive pencils. However, once you have used an Apple Pencil with the iPad Pro there is no going back. :)

M1 IPad Air 10.9/256GB   lpadOS 17.1.1 Apple Pencil (2nd gen).
Affinity Photo 1.10.5 Affinity Design 1.10.5 
Affinity Publisher 2, Affinity Designer 2, Affinity Photo 2 and betas.

Official Online iPad Help documents (multi-lingual) here: https://affinity.https://affinity.help/ 

 

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  • 7 months later...

you have no other choice ,you can only use apple pencil that costs about $100 . 

I've seen a lot of artists use the iPad pro with the apple pencil and I've contiplated many times if I should use the same but I can't justify the money. Especially since the stylus alone is so expensive.

I actually opted to go with the XP-Pen Artist 12 ( https://www.xp-pen.com/goods/show/id/380.html )  . Has a great feeling stylus , decent pressure, and I only spent around $250 USD for the whole setup.
The thing is fast, responsive and it works great for me.  

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