Adobe Ink stylus and Slide ruler aim to replace your sketch pad with an iPad (video)

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Adobe has long dominated the business of providing software tools for creative professionals — but it has always shied away from hardware. Today that changes with the roll-out of two new accessories designed to play into the surging demand for mobile digital tools. Adobe Ink is a cleverly-designed version of an Adonit Bluetooth-enabled stylus, and Adobe Slide is a unique “digital ruler” that works with Adobe’s new iPad applications, Sketch and Line.
I was fortunate enough to have Ink, Slide, and pre-release software to use for a couple weeks prior to launch. I’m a huge fan of pen-based computing, so it didn’t take much to convince me that, as a more precise way to write or draw, Ink would be a useful addition to the iPad. While it is technically not a true active stylus, Ink’s pen tip does use some electronics, allowing its small tip to trick the iPad into thinking that it is a full “finger” touch. Ink connects over Bluetooth to allow its button to work, and enable it to support personalization. Ink connects to your Creative Cloud account, so you can store your favorite color palettes online and have them for use wherever you have your Ink.
At first I was a little skeptical of Adobe’s mini-ruler, called Slide. After all, what’s wrong with using a standard ruler when needed? I quickly became a believer. First, Slide is designed so that you don’t actually draw along the ruler itself. Instead, it causes the tablet to display a traceable line or shape on the screen near the ruler, that you can ink in. That way you don’t accidentally push the ruler while you are drawing (a danger on a slick touch display), and also means that Ink isn’t limited to drawing straight lines. It comes with quite a large library of pre-defined shapes and stamps — including everything from a French curve to a nearly complete set of Herman-Miller furniture templates. Currently only Adobe can create new shapes and stamps, but eventually it expects to have developer support for the capability.
It’s a little hard to get your head around how all this works from just a description, so here I am working with Ink and Slide on my drawing table:

Adobe Line and Sketch: Companion software for Ink and Slide

Since Ink and Slide are unique hardware, and Adobe hasn’t shipped its developer kit for them yet, using them to their full capability means using one of Adobe’s two new drawing applications for the iPad — Line and Sketch. Adobe has been continuing to tweak their interfaces and add features right up until release, so I’m not going to try to give you an exhaustive list, but basically they are very smart applications that provide an elegant interface for basic drawing. One nice feature of Line that it shares with its much bigger brother Illustrator, is an ability to project perspective grids for easy perspective drawing. Fortunately both applications are free to download so you can try them out yourself. They require a Creative Cloud membership — but even the free level is sufficient, so you don’t need to spend any money. Line even offers a software version of the Slide ruler capability, so you can experiment with it before you decide whether to shell out money for the hardware version.

Alternative solutions for digital drawing

Ink and Slide sell for $200, and require an iPad. As cool as they are, they’re not the only way to do digital sketching with cool tools. Autodesk’s Sketchbook application works with active stylus devices, and provides a fairly complete set of drafting tools, even including a software ruler. Ambient Design’s ArtRage far outshines Adobe’s fairly simple applications in features, and also has a very slick software ruler that can be extended and rotated — complete with a realistic set of pixel and inch markings. Of course, if you want to go the whole hog you can always get a Windows tablet with active stylus like the Surface Pro 3 or Cintiq Companion. Finally, for those who are dragging their heels about drawing digitally, the Livescribe 3 allows you to draw on its proprietary paper while it automatically digitizes your ink onto your iOS device.
If you’re addicted to your iPad for any kind of serious sketching or technical drawing, and have thought about purchasing an after-market stylus, Adobe Ink and Slide is certainly a more powerful, if more expensive, alternative. Adobe is cautious about future plans for its budding hardware initiative, saying only that it will gauge market response and future demand before deciding whether to add support for additional platforms or commit to more products in its Creative Hardware line.