Digital artists know that there’s no substitution for a graphics tablet when trying to draw on your Mac, except maybe the iPad Pro and Pencil.
Astropad co-founder Matt Ronge thinks his company’s $20 app, when combined with an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, can match and even exceed the current champ of the tablet world, the Wacon Cintiq.
“iPad Pro is an amazing drawing platform but iOS is far too limited for the professional artist,” says Ronge. “So we wanted a way where we could get the best of both worlds, the power and flexibility of the Mac coupled with the touch interface of the iPad.”
This post contains affiliate links. Cult of Mac may earn a commission when you use our links to buy items.
Other artists have praised the iPad Pro and Pencil combination, saying it blows away the competition.
Astropad, though, takes it a step further, letting you draw on your iPad Pro with the Pencil using any app on your Mac (even Photoshop) via the magic of your iPad Pro. That’s some slick digital magic right there.
Here’s a quick preview.
The app’s been out for a while, letting artists draw on their Macs with regular iPads and even iPad Pro, but the latest update adds serious support for the iPad Pro screen size, along with the game-changing Apple Pencil. The way it works is by having the iPad mirror and control what’s happening on the Mac. Astropad’s developers had to make their own screen sharing tech, though, since the existing tech (like AirPlay) has a poor image quality and high latency.
“Neither of which are acceptable for a professional artist,” says Ronge. “So we spent over a year creating our custom tech called Liquid that is both low latency and is very high quality. This is what sets us apart from others that have tried to build something like Astropad.”
In the new version of the app, there’s advanced stroke-tuning to remove stray marks and support for tilt with Pencil, letting you simulate brushes more accurately. There’s also a special pressure sensitivity curve for the Apple Pencil that Astropad has tuned to take better advantage of the peripheral, and the team has even improved the image quality on your iPad so whatever you’re working on is in crisp, clean high resolution.
A Wacom tablet needs a wired connection to your Mac, requires you to learn its own set of pen gestures, doesn’t let you draw right on your image, and can cost $1000 or more. Astropad is $20, totally wireless, and uses the Pencil features you already know and love.
Astropad already sees 60 percent of its new users and 50 percent of currently active users on iPad Pro, so this addition should make things a lot easier for users both new and old.
