Fifty-Three launches Pencil stylus for iPad

Fifty-Three Pencil (image 001)

Steve Jobs once said, “If you see a stylus, they blew it” in regard to tablets which depend on the stylus as their primary means of input. That hasn’t stopped the accessory industry from engineering dozens upon dozens differently shaped and sized styluses for use with popular tablet brands, Apple’s iPad included.

Fifty-Three, the people who brought you the popular Paper drawing app, Apple’s 2012 iPad App of the Year Editor’s Choice, have been hard at work developing its upcoming Pencil stylus for quite some time. Last month, the gizmo surfaced in an FCC filing. Starting today, the $60 Bluetooth-enabled Pencil goes on sale…

Here’s the pitch:

Great tools inspire great ideas. Pencil is the most natural and expressive tool for getting ideas on Paper. Advanced technology meets beautiful design to keep you in the flow, without needing to switch tools. With Erase, Blend, and adaptive Palm Rejection, Pencil puts creative possibility in your hands.

The Pencil works with Paper for iPad and taps power-sipping Bluetooth 4.0 technology to communication with the application.

The device mimics the appearance of a traditional carpenter’s pencil. It’s made from walnut from sustainable forests (a graphite brushed aluminum variant is available, too) and requires no calibration or setup other than pairing with the Paper app. Both the tip and eraser sensors are plated in 14kt gold for accurate reaction, the company says.

Check out the promo video.

The software is clever enough to reject spray input from your palm and you can even flip it to precisely carve away parts of your drawing using a built-in eraser, without switching tools. Pencil’s built-in battery is good for up to a month of “normal use” on a single charge. To charge the device, just connect it to any bus-powered USB port.

The brown walnut variant with magnetic snap is $59.95. The graphite version with brushed aluminum unibody construction is ten bucks cheaper. Both are introductory prices, good for a limited time.

After testing out the Pencil, Wired called it the best iPad stylus available.

If you don’t fancy yourself drawing on a screen, Fifty-Three partnered with Moleskin to print out your Paper content on a 15-page foldout book on sustainable matte paper in exchange for $40.

More information about the Pencil is available on the Fifty-Three website.

Image top of post via Gizmodo.