Astropad Ipa
Astropad is an interesting app that does a few things, namely It turns your iPad into a graphic tablet. Think of it like using those Wacom wired tablets with your computer and monitor It mirrors whatever that's shown on your monitor onto the iPad. Astropad, created by ex-Apple engineers Matt Ronge and Giovanni Donelli, consists of a pair of apps – one for your iPad and one for your Mac – that enables you use your iPad with a pressure-sensitive stylus (or your finger if you prefer) and draw directly onto Photoshop – or any other app you might prefer –.
ContentsWhat you will need to use Astropad Standard
Downloading and Installing the Apps
Accessibility in macOS Mojave and newer
Screen Recording in macOS Catalina and newer
USB and Wireless Connection
What you will need to use Astropad Standard
- Mac with OS 10.11 El Capitan or newer
- iPad Mini 2 (2013+), iPad Pro (2016+), iPad 5th generation (2017+), or iPad Air (2013+) with iPadOS 9.1 or later
- Apple Pencil
- Creative software on your Mac
For input and drawing, you can use your finger along with Apple Pencil. Mac and iPad can be connected by either USB cable or wirelessly with Wi-Fi.
Downloading and Installing Apps
Download the iPad App
Astropad Standard’s iPad app can be purchased on your iPad through the App Store, or by going to astropad.com/app
Download the Mac Companion App
After purchasing the iPad App, go to our Astropad Standard downloads page to download our free Mac companion app.
– Extract the .zip file and save the Mac app in “Applications” or your preferred download location.
*For convenience, you can keep the Mac App in your dock. Click and hold on the Astropad icon, and go up to “Options”, then select “Keep in Dock”.
Open Both iPad and Mac Apps
On your Mac, open the Astropad Mac App.
– Click “Setup”
On your iPad, open the Astropad Standard iPad App.
– Tap “Get Started”
Instructions for setup and connection will appear on screen. When both apps are opened and past setup, tap “Next”.
If you are running macOS Mojave 10.14 or newer
Unlike previous macOS versions, you will need to enable Accessibility to use Astropad Standard in macOS Mojave 10.14 or newer. There will be a message that prompts during initial setup with steps to Enable Accessibility from your Mac’s System Preferences.
You can also activate this manually by going to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy tab. Select Accessibility in the left side menu, then check the box next to Astropad Standard’s icon. If you don’t see Astropad Standard’s icon available, click the “+” button and directly add the application.
If you experience no pressure sensitivity with drawing / input, you may need to check whether the accompanied creative software in use requires this or a similar permissions under the Privacy tab.
If you are running macOS Catalina 10.15 or newer
Along with the enable Accessibility that was introduced with macOS Mojave, a new permission has been added. Screen Recording needs to be enabled to allow Astropad Standard to access the content on your screen. Astropad Standard does not record the contents of your screen.
There will be a message that prompts during initial setup, with steps to enable this from your Mac’s Systems Preferences.
USB and Wireless Connection
To use Astropad Standard, your iPad and Mac need to be connected by either USB or Wi-Fi connection.
To connect by USB:
Using your iPad’s corresponding USB cable (30-pin to USB, or Lightning to USB), connect iPad to your Mac.
To connect by Wi-Fi:
Make sure both Mac and iPad are on the same wireless network. If both iPad and Mac are on the same network with a good signal, they will connect automatically.
– Try Manual Wi-Fi Connection if you’re unable to connect automatically.
At the connection screen, click “Connect info” and a new window is shown with connection options. Click “Wi-Fi Manual Connect”, and a QR code opens on your Mac’s screen for your iPad to scan.
Take your iPad, making sure the Camera is “Enabled” for Astropad Standard, and allow it to scan the QR code. It will disappear entirely when you’re connected.
A few days ago, I received an invitation to review a new iPad drawing app called the Astropad. So I spent an hour or two using it and it's quite impressive.
Astropad is an interesting app that does a few things, namely
- It turns your iPad into a graphic tablet. Think of it like using those Wacom wired tablets with your computer and monitor
- It mirrors whatever that's shown on your monitor onto the iPad. E.g. You can use the full version of Photoshop or whatever drawing app
- You can use selected pressure-sensitive stylus with it
With Astropad, you can now use full versions of drawing applications that are usually restricted for use on desktops. For example, you'll be able to use the full Photoshop with all its features, e.g. commands, effects, brushes, plugins. It's amazing. It's as if you're running the desktop Photoshop on your iPad!
You can also think of Astropad as turning your iPad into a Wacom Cintiq, or other pen display tablet monitors. I am not kidding you!
Check out this trailer video from Astropad:
Performance of the app exceeds my expectations but there are also some bugs. They are mentioned further below.
What do you need?
Astropad comes with two apps, one for the iPad and one for the Mac. These two apps will connect to each other and make the iPad mirror the Mac's desktop.
That connection can be either through wi-fi (slow) or cable (fast). If you don't want any lag, use the USB cable.
Setup
Setup is guided and simple to follow along.
You'll be asked to setup your stylus first. Astropad current supports pressure-sensitive styluses from Wacom, Adonit and Hex3 Jaja. It's good to see that the cute Pencil from FiftyThree will be supported in the future also.
Update 19 Feb 2015: Previously I had said that Wacom Creative Stylus 2 doesn't work. Well, it works now.
Bluetooth is required to use the stylus.
This is the screen that explains the different areas of the workspace. I'll elaborate on the workspace below.
To be able to see your computer desktop, you need to be running both Astropad iPad and Mac apps at the same time.
After all the setup, you'll see the workspace above. The shortcut toolbar is on the left by default, but you can drag them to the right (good for left-handed users).
Let's go through what the buttons on the toolbar do, from top to bottom:
- Indication of whether your iPad is connect via wifi or cable to your computer
- Switch to drawing with finger or stylus
- Customizable shortcut buttons, such as for increasing brush sizes, engaging Eraser, Brush tool, Undo, Zoom
- Settings button
- Keyboard buttons for Shift, Control, Option and Command
- Switch to Drawing mode or Screen Mapping mode.
By the way, there's a circular disc (A) that allows you to switch from Drawing mode and Screen Mapping mode. Screen Mapping mode allows you to map what you see on your monitor onto the iPad.
Say you're using a large 27-inch monitor, and you might just want to map the top left area onto the iPad. You pinch and zoom with your fingers to determine the area. Very easy to do.
Or you can also map the whole desktop (fullscreen) onto your iPad, but then everything will look smaller of course since you're mapping your large monitor screen onto the small iPad screen.
The customisable shortcut buttons are mapped to keyboard buttons actually. For example when you click the Brush button, you're actually clicking the B keyboard button. You can change keyboard button associated via settings on the Mac's Astropad app. Stylus button can also be mapped to keyboard buttons or functions.
On Astropad iPad app, there are only three settings, to adjust the screen brightness, choose whether or not you want to show a magenta-coloured line preview (useful when system lags) and the amount of lag when drawing.
Performance
I'm using a Mac Pro connected to the iPad Air with a lightning-USB cable and there's very minimal lag while drawing. Even when there's lag, you'll still see your strokes coming out in the form of magenta-coloured lines.
Those magenta preview lines are fantastic and make you feel as though there's no lag while drawing.
Astropad supports palm rejection technology. With the right stylus, you can lay your palm on screen and the iPad will only register what you draw with the stylus. The palm rejection technology in this app works way better than Wacom's own Bamboo Paper app — shame on you Wacom!
Disconnection with the stylus is rare. I can't say the same thing with the Wacom Bamboo Paper's frequent disconnection — shame on you Wacom again!
The image quality of the mirroring is excellent. What you see on the iPad is as sharp as what you see on the Mac's monitor. However, if you're mirroring with wifi, then the image quality is not as good and there's some lag on the iPad trying to catch up with what the Mac is showing. In short, use a cable connection.
Colours are duller on the iPad though. I wonder if there's colour profile mis-match, or that the iPad screen quality is not as good.
Bugs
The app is not perfect though. I've met with some bugs.
My system is running OS 10.10.2 and Adobe CS5.
Pressure sensitivity feature doesn't work well for me.
On Photoshop CS5, I cannot get the pressure sensitivity feature of the Wacom Creative Stylus to work automatically. As a workaround, I had to plug in my Wacom Intuos tablet, use the Intuos stylus to touch the drawing surface before the pressure sensitivity can work.
It's the same process for Illustrator CS5.
And then when I switch back to Photoshop, the pressure sensitivity feature fails again.
By the way, how sensitive the pressure sensitivity depends on the stylus and not the app.
Fun stuff
Remember earlier when I said you can turn your iPad into a Cintiq?
You just have to set the Astropad Mac app to run upon startup under System Preferences. That's assuming you have not password screen setup upon login.
Astropad Ipad Air
Video review
Here's my review and a little tutorial on how it works.
Should you buy it?
It cost US$49, not exactly cheap compared to typical app prices.
Astropad Ipad Pro
This app is good if you've always wanted to use full desktop drawing applications on your iPad. It's also good if you're thinking of buying a budget graphics tablet and now you can use this instead.
The downside is current stylus technology for pressure sensitivity, especially for the iPad, is nowhere as perfect as the stylus from wired drawing tablets.
Astropad Ipad Free
Overall, if you need the functionality that Astropad provides, I would say go buy it because it's a well designed and thought out app.
Astropad Ipad
You can download Astropad at https://astropad.com/
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