I’ve owned an iPad for a few weeks now, and even though it runs the same iOS as the iPhone and it is probably fair to call it an iPhone (or more precisely, an iPod touch) with a larger screen, I find myself doing completely different things with my iPhone and iPad. On my iPhone, I keep up with e-mail and attachments, I listen to music and podcasts, I read Twitter or play a casual game when I have a spare moment, and I always keep it with me in a pocket. On my iPad, I’m not the biggest fan of the Mail client (I hate that when you close one message, it automatically opens and marks as read another message, even if I’m not ready to deal with that message yet) and I don’t have any of my music or podcasts loaded (that is what my iPhone is for). My iPad isn’t with me all the time, but when I want to spend significant time reading something like a case, a website, a book, etc., I always prefer the iPad over the iPhone.
Indeed, as a litigator who spends a lot of time preparing motions and appellate briefs, I have to read cases all of the time. While I can certainly read cases on my computer, I prefer to step back from the computer and sit back in my chair to concentrate on a case. In the past, that meant printing out a case to read and highlight it, which resulted in an accumulation of paper. But for the last few weeks, I’ve been downloading cases from Westlaw or Lexis as PDF files and then reading the cases on my iPad with GoodReader. I’ll post a review at some point in the future with my full thoughts on GoodReader, but for now I will just say that it is a great PDF reader that also allows you to highlight PDF files — plus I’ll note that right now, it is on sale for just a buck.
You can certainly highlight in GoodReader with your finger, but after so many years of holding a yellow highlighter in my hand, it seems so much more natural to highlight text in GoodReader with a stylus. And of course, this is another difference between the iPhone and the iPad. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at Macworld 2007, he made a point to say that unlike other mobile devices of the day, the iPhone would NOT require a stylus because Apple wanted to make a “leapfrog product” that would “reinvent the phone.” Jobs explained:
Now, how are we gonna communicate with this? We don’t wanna carry around a mouse, right? So what are we gonna do? Oh, a stylus, right? We’re gonna use a stylus? No. No. Who wants a stylus? You have to get them and put them away, you loose them — yuck! Nobody wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus. We’re gonna use the best pointing device in the world. We’re gonna use the pointing device that we’re all born with. We’re born with ten of them. We’re gonna use our fingers. We’re gonna touch this with our fingers. And we have invented a new technology called Multi-Touch. Which is phenomenal. It works like magic. You don’t need a stylus. It’s far more accurate than any touch display that’s ever been shipped. It ignores unintended touches, it’s super smart. And you can do multi-finger gestures on it. And boy, have we patented it!
I think that Jobs was right on target with regards to using a stylus with a smartphone like the iPhone. I used a Palm Treo 650 for many years that required a stylus, and I don’t miss the stylus at all on my iPhone. Touch interface with your finger is the way to go on a smartphone. But on the iPad, the screen is so large, like a legal pad, it just seems to make sense to use something the size of a pen — especially when doing tasks that are traditionally done with a pen, like highlighting cases or writing handwritten notes on a page (which I’ve been doing with Note Taker HD and Penultimate, two other apps I will review in the future after I’ve spent more time with them).
Excuse that very long introduction to this review, but that is what led me to search for a good stylus for my iPad. The only stylus I remember hearing about in the past was the Pogo Sketch stylus from Ten One Design, which has gotten very good reviews. However, a colleague in my office recommended that I check out the BoxWave Capacitive iPad Stylus. These two styli (styluses?) are inexpensive, so I bought them both to check them out. Picking the best stylus — like picking the best pen — is a personal decision, but for me the clear winner is the BoxWave product.
Advantages of both
Both products are useful for the same reason. They feel much like a pen in your hand. The BoxWave is about 4.25 inches long, and the Pogo Sketch is about a half an inch longer. Either length felt long enough for me. When you are taking notes on an iPad or drawing, using your finger can seem silly. You feel like you are a kid finger-painting — and the handwriting often looks like it was the work of a young child. A stylus feels better and works much better. Even when you are just flicking through screens, sometimes it feels nicer to do that with a stylus.
With a stylus, you don’t leave streaks and smudges on your iPad screen like you do when you touch it with a finger. You can also be more precise in touching a specific part of a screen with a stylus than with a finger, and you can see more of the screen with a stylus because your hand isn’t blocking part of the screen as much.
I’m told that on a cold winter day when you are wearing gloves, you need a stylus to touch an iPhone or iPad screen. (I live in New Orleans, so I don’t really understand these strange words you are using: winter? gloves?) I’m also told that if you are a female with long nails, having a stylus can be very helpful. So I suppose that if you are a frigid woman … um, I probably shouldn’t go there.
Both of these products have a clip on the side, making it easy to carry the stylus around. I often put the stylus in a shirt pocket, just like a pen, plus you can clip it to many iPad cases.
Thanks for the tip
The key to a good stylus is a good tip, and this is one of the reasons that I prefer the BoxWave. The Pogo Sketch tip is soft with somewhat of a spongy feel. When I am writing on my iPad screen, it seems to have more resistance and thus causes more fatigue when using it for a long time. The BoxWave stylus has a soft rubber dome tip that glides along the face of the iPad much more smoothly. I also find that I need to apply more pressure when using the Pogo Sketch than the BoxWave, which also increases hand fatigue over time. In the following picture, the BoxWave (black) is on the left, and the Pogo Sketch (silver) is on the right (click picture to zoom in):
How does it feel
Another important feature for a stylus is how does it feel in your hand. I will admit that this is also very subjective, but I think that this is another major advantage of the BoxWave. Both of these products weigh next to nothing, but the Pogo Sketch is thinner and lighter than the BoxWave, and as a result has a cheap feel to it. In my opinion, the Pogo Sketch is just too thin and light. The BoxWave feels sturdier and the size feels more right in my hand.
A little off the top
Both products have a hole at the top that allow you to attach something very small like a string or a very thin key chain. The BoxWave actually comes with a thin key chain type circle attached to the top with a plastic device that can fit in your headphone port on the iPad or iPhone. The idea is that this is a way to connect the stylus to your iPad so that you don’t lose it. But then as you are walking around with the iPad, the stylus swings back and forth. I very quickly removed the string, which is simple to do, and have never once had the desire to replace it.
If you think that you might want to attach the stylus to your headphone jack, I suppose this is an advantage of the BoxWave. But since it just got in the way for me, I don’t see this as an advantage of either product.
Colors
Both products come in a variety of colors. You can get the BoxWave in Jet Black (what I got), Metalic Silver, Crimson Red or Lunar Blue. You can get the Pogo Sketch in Silver (what I got), Hot Pink, Cactus or Burnt Orange.
The price is right
One nice thing about both products is that they are inexpensive. The Pogo Sketch retails for $14.95 but is currently only $7.85 at Amazon. The BoxWave retails for $24.95 but is currently only $15.00 at Amazon. If you are unsure of which one to get, you don’t have to be Daddy Warbucks to do what I did and just buy them both. In fact, I like the BoxWave so much that bought another one to keep at home. That way, I don’t have to worry about carrying the stylus back and forth to work every day, and don’t have to kick myself when I want to use the stylus at home but left it on my desk at work.
Conclusion
If you use an iPad, even if it never occurred to you that you might use a stylus, I encourage you to try one. I don’t use it all the time of course — the iPad works great with fingers for most tasks — but when I am drawing, highlighting, or just want to be more precise, having a stylus is really great. For many tasks, it feels much more natural to use a pen-like object to interact with the large iPad screen.
For what it is worth, when my kids use my iPad with a drawing program like Adobe Ideas, they also like to use a stylus.
Unless you wear gloves a lot, I doubt you need a stylus for your iPhone, but I will admit that now that I have a stylus, I have used it on occasion with my iPhone just to try something different.
I prefer the BoxWave Capacitive iPad Stylus over the Ten One Design Pogo Sketch stylus because of the tip, the shape and the weight, and I suspect that most of you would too, but the Pogo Sketch is still a nice product and is even cheaper. Either product makes a very nice, and very inexpensive, addition to an iPad, especially if you are using your iPad to highlight text, take handwritten notes or draw.
Click here for the BoxWave Capacitive iPad Stylus on Amazon ($15.00)
Click here for the Ten One Design Pogo Sketch Stylus on Amazon ($7.85)
Other products mentioned:
Click here to get GoodReader for iPad ($0.99): 
Click here to get Note Taker HD for iPad ($4.99):
Click here to get Penultimate for iPad ($3.99):
Click here to get Adobe Ideas for iPhone or iPad (free):
