Handwriting on the iPad

http://youtube.com/watch?v=rIwscGQuEZc
Hello everybody! It’s me again. It’s been 2 weeks since my last video, and I had somerequests to do more. I’ve reached 4000 views on my Jot Script review, which is really surprising,so to thank you, I’m going to do one video today. This time I want to focus on handwriting. To do so, I’m going to start with four different apps. The first one is Memo, it’s a bit different from the others, because it has handwriting recognition. This means that the app doesn’t spend much energy trying to make your handwriting lookgood, because you’ll probably use the text version of what you write. This app doesn’tconnect to the Script, so what you see now is the iPad with Bluetooth off. You don’thave palm rejection, but instead, you can see you have this grey area you can use torest your palm. It goes down as I write, it’s really nicely done. So when I’m done writing,this is the intersecting part: this app is going to turn what I wrote into text. Youcan do that either for free is you have an internet connexion, or you can purchase theoffline service. I really don’t have a nice handwriting, but you can see that the resultis almost perfect, Memo just missed one word, and it was arguably not really well written. Next, let’s move on to Notes Plus. I don’t use this app on a daily basis, but it hasnice features, maybe too many feature. The one I like as far as handwriting goes is thepen I’m using right now, which looks really nice, I think. At least, it’s good for text;but not for math, and that’s why I don’t use it to study. So we’re in the same configurationas previously which is the Jot Scrip is on, but not connected to the app, so Bluetooth is still offon the iPad. This time, I write using the zoom window most apps have, so I can restmy hand on the area under this window. As I write, you see the window is moving aroundthe page to let me write with no interruptions. As you can see it looks pretty good. By the way,you can check some samples I made using these different apps, you can check the link onthe video description. One last thing about Notes Plus: the handwriting recognition Ishowed you on Memo is available inside Notes Plus as an in-app purchase. So if you’re convincedby the handwriting recognition of Memo but you want to use it in a real note taking app,you can do that in Notes Plus. So I think that’s another really nice feature of thisapp. As many of you know, the Jot Script is originally meant to be used with Penultimate. So thistime, I’m going to connect the stylus to the app, after turning on Bluetooth on my iPad. It’s really easy, you just have to turn the Script on, basically. Then, you have builtin palm rejection, for example. So you can choose to write directly on the page, thewhole page, or, you can use Penultimate very peculiar zoom mode, they call it drift modeI think. I don’t really enjoy this mode but I guess it’s just a matter of getting usedto it. But, since I can’t control the speed of the window, I can have some problems. Forexample in french, we have a lot of accents, some time I’d like to put them after I wrotethe whole word, but since the words are moving by themselves, sometimes it’s just too lateand the whole word is gone. So I’m not really convinced by this mode but maybe some peoplecan find it interesting. At least it’s different from what other apps use. Now I’d like totalk about the offset between the tip of the stylus and what I write on the screen. Keepin mind that, because the camera is very low, you wil have a bad idea of the vertical offset,which means that you’ll see a vertical offset on the video even if it is not there. To giveyou a sense of both horizontal and vertical offset, I’m going to put the camera in twodifferent places. First, on the side of the iPad, so horizontal and vertical are switchedon the video. As you can see, it look ok, there is no big horizontal offset on the video,which correspond to the vertical offset on the page. If I try to write a horizontal line,it is really straight, even if the Script makes an angle with the screen, it is stillacceptable, there’s not big offset here. Next, I put the camera on top of the iPad, so horizontaland vertical are the same on the video and on the iPad. If the pen is orthogonal to theiPad, it is still ok. But when you begin to tilt it, you’ll see an increasing offset,and the problem is to me, this offset is in the opposite direction of what you’d expect. To really demonstrate that I’m actually drawing a straight line I put the Smart Covert andyou can see that as I tilt the pen, in either direction, you can see this offset appearing. So, I really want to insist on the fact that this doesn’t happen as much when the Scriptis disconnected, which means it’s related to the SDK. That’s good, because you can improvethe SDK aven after the pen is made, and that’s what Adonit is constantly doing. So, to conclude, I go back to my favorite, you already know about it, it’s GoodNotes. GoodNotes has a very powerful built-in palm rejection technology that works with any styluses,including passive ones. So, it allows me to work with the Script disconnected, avoidingat the same time the offset you just saw, because, again, this offset mostly happenswhen the Jot Script is connected to the app, but it is painless when the iPad and the stylusaren’t paired, you can’t even see this offset, it’s very small. But, you know, most of thetime, I don’t even need palm rejection because I have this gray area under the zoom window,where I can rest my hand without writing anything on the page. Don’t forget you can try GoodNotesfor free, and stay tuned for the new big update of the app. It’s coming in december. Well, I would like to thank every one who watched this video, I hope you find it interesting. I’m sure it raises new questions, so don’t hesitate to ask me anything you want in thecomments. Don’t forget to check out my other videos, and, it would mean a lot to me ifyou could share and like this video. Even better, maybe you can subscribe to my channeland, well, who knows, if these videos have enough success, I will consider very seriouslydoing more of them. So, thank you for your support, and happy handwriting on the iPad!