Thoughts on the Cregle iPen, five months later
It’s now been 5 months since I posted the review of the Cregle iPen. The pen accessory started its life on Kickstarter, where the project creators literally lied their way to successful funding. They’ve continued to lie and treat customers like crap ever since, still listing some apps as “coming soon (…) in the next few weeks,” more than half a year since they first started throwing those promises around. The competitor Collusion is on its way too, and will hopefully do a better job of keeping the product up to date after release. In the mean while, I still have my iPen, and I’m still using it.
I’ve used the iPen off an on for the last five months, but mostly off since I haven’t been in the position of needing to take notes. Now I once again am, however, and I’ve gotten to try the iPen in a more everyday capacity. Despite the company behind it being the devil itself, my initial thought that the iPen isn’t half bad still stands.
It definitely has issues, and having recently tried the Galaxy Note 10.1, a third party add-on like the iPen simple can’t compare. The biggest issue is that the sensor tracks a point that’s about a centimeter further up the the tip of the pen, so that you have to constantly calibrate the pen for the angle you’re holding it at. A true digital pen, like the one on the Note 10.1, doesn’t have this issue. The iPen is also severely limited by the number of apps it can be used with, which isn’t very high.
Still, it works in the note taking app I use, GoodNotes. When calibrated properly, it’s very accurate, and I personally think it’s quite a bit more convenient than using a normal stylus, even if the app you’re using has a magnification mode to compensate for inaccuracy. I don’t regret buying it, even if the current app support is likely as good as it will ever be, but that fact does mean that I won’t recommend that anyone else buys one at this point in time.
