Apple Patents Graphics Pen for iPad & Capacitive Touchscreen Devices

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The iPad is surely an intuitive tool to use, especially with its touchscreen and the OS specifically designed for touch computing. However, using your fingers might not necessarily be accurate enough for graphics editing. But a new Apple patent might change that.

Apple has recently been granted a patent by the USPTO for a stylus design that can sufficiently manipulate capacitive touchscreens traditionally designed for finger input. Being that fingers are wider than the point of a typical stylus, a capacitive touchscreen will require sensitive points that are far and wide enough. However, when a regular stylus is used, the touchscreen might not register the input properly.

Apple’s patent for a stylus will involve a conductive element at the end of the stylus, such that the touchscreen will properly sense where exactly it is on the surface. The design also allows the stylus and touchscreen to sense different levels of pressure and angles. The patent also introduces concepts of using different twisting and turning gestures to control the functionality of the pen (such as selecting brush width, stroke, shading, eraser functionality, and the like.

This means that the user–an artist, perhaps–can have better control over the drawing. Apple also claims that the system can be used for other applications, such as gaming, in that the pen can be used similar to a joystick.

This development might mean that Apple is targeting getting into the graphics tablet market, in direct competition with tablet makers like Wacom. The additional functionality that a tablet computer in acting as a graphics tablet input is an interesting application for tablets like the iPad and its other contemporaries like Androd-based tablets.

Image via patentlyapple