New stylus arrives for Aussie digital artists offering wood, graphite, gold

The pencil is coming back, with a return to form from the thing that let you fill out forms, or just write and draw as you please. App developer FiftyThree is leading the charge with a Bluetooth “Pencil” made for its popular app “Paper”.

It seems like the perfect harmony: paper goes with pencil, and that’s something we’re all familiar with, but previously if you wanted to draw with the app “Paper” on the iPad, you probably had to rely on a broad-tipped stylus or your finger, neither of which feel like a pencil and don’t provide that tactile paper-like experience, especially since the iPad is topped with glass.

But that could well change, as artists are about to be sold a new stylus that endeavours to feel just like a pencil, and a big one at that.

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It’s even called the “Pencil”, and is being made by the people that made the Paper app on the iPad, with the idea of a stylus that feels closer to that of a pencil resulting in an accessory that works in much the same way.

“Paper became one of the most popular sketchbook and note­-taking apps for iPad because it allows everyone to effortlessly express their ideas,” said Georg Petschnigg, CEO and Co­Founder of FiftyThree, the developers of Paper.

“We believe that Pencil and Paper are the best tools for not just for artists, but teachers, students and business professionals who need to easily organise their ideas digitally.”

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FiftyThree’s stylus doesn’t appear to be just another broad-tipped rubber-ended passive stylus, with this one taking materials commonly associated with drawing, writing, and art, and blending them with a Bluetooth connection, a battery capable of providing a month of use with charging over USB, and a tip that can been tuned to provide some friction when used on a screen, making it semi-resistant, sort of like real paper.

The stylus isn’t think like other styluses either, offering unibody designs made of solid materials to make the pencil feel more like that of other real-life drawing implements.

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For instance, there are two original models and one extra one for the launch in Australia, with a graphite model made from one piece of aluminium with a black anodised finish (like graphite looks), a walnut model made from a single piece of first-grade walnut, with these two making up the original models.

The special edition model will be one made from gold, which we suspect is aluminium with an anodised gold finish.

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Pricing for the FiftyThree thick stylus does come in at a higher price than its Paper app, which is free, with the graphite Pencil costing $79.99 in Australia, while the walnut and gold editions will arrive at $89.99 each, with the Pencil available at Apple stores and online.