I now have spent more hours taking notes and sketching with my iPad Pro 9.7 + pencil combo (read the earlier post). Things are still not perfect.
Taking notes
The big issue is instant availability of your canvas. Keep the screen on continuously and you drain your battery in less than an hour. Do auto-power off and you find your self do this for every single scribble you want to make 1) press home button 2) touch id 3) touch canvas to activate the writing surface. The latter is probably an issue in the Evernote Penultimate app, which has 2 modes: One where you view notes, and one where you can edit them.
Sketching ideas
- The 9.7" screen is to small for sketching big, bold concepts, I need more space. (But then I don’t want to carry an iPad Pro 12" around). You actually need 2 devices.
- Current apps don’t support erasing very well. You have to go into a menu, change the pencil to an eraser, erase, then switch it back again. Maybe Apple can put a sensor in the back of the pencil and make it an eraser, or could enable the use of multiple pencils in the same app. My creative process is rather paper intensive. I use a huge pile of old paper: make a bold sketch, toss it away, make another one, and another one, until I iterate to a chart in 10 loops or so. Even the pretty app Paper by 53 does not accommodate this workflow.
There is hope though. Most of these issues are solvable, and some even via software. We will get there in the end.
Image from WikiPedia
