Life with the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil

for artists and developers on the go

Matej ‘Retro’ Jan

Published in

Practical Pixels

14 min readJun 7, 2017

Part 1: Life before the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil

One year ago, my graphic tablet finally broke down. It was a Wacom Intuos 2, an ancient piece of technology from 2003 that served me half my life.

I had the smallest model, measuring at 9×8" (and an active area of just 5×4"). Rudimentary, but highly portable.

I’m a developer and artist and my Intuos has been my faithful friend in creating digital paintings and pixel art illustrations over the years.

Some of the artworks from my Wacom years.

In 2010, the iPad was introduced and it too would become my faithful companion.

I made my first iOS game on it …

… I used it when learning to draw with pencils …

… I even made a series of small 32×32 pixel artworks on it. My fingers were too fat for anything more detailed.

A few years later I upgraded to the 3rd generation iPad and apart from some sad moments …

… it again served me well, developing my second iOS game on it.

Dream of Pixels running on the 3rd generation iPad alongside my first iPad running Monkey Labour.

It has also seen some new digital artworks, both in combination with the Intuos and my fat fingers.

To say that I’m a fan of the iPad, the Intuos, and the iMac, is an understatement.

By the time my Wacom broke down in 2016, the 2012 iPad was quite underpowered to run the latest iOS, so it was ripe for an upgrade as well.

Faced with a dilemma, whether to buy a new Wacom or invest into an iPad Pro to replace both my graphic tablet and the old iPad, I decided to put all my eggs in one basket.

I didn’t find any articles such as this one, so it was all based on pure hope that the iPad Pro—together with Apple Pencil—could perform as well as a Wacom. You have to understand, Wacom is THE brand professionals use for digital drawing. It gained my complete trust in the 13 years the Intuos 2 served me. Choosing to go with Apple was a big leap of faith, but it paid off in ways I didn’t even imagine.

I had three goals with buying the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil:

Replace my old iPad.
Replace my digital drawing tablet.
Replace my physical notepads and sketchbooks.

In 2016 I started working full-time on my own business, Retronator. For the first time in my life I wasn’t tied to a specific place, so I decided to travel around the world while developing Pixel Art Academy, my adventure game for learning how to draw.

Living out of a suitcase meant my drawing supplies had to give. No more sketchbooks, no more gazillions of pens and pencils, no more graph paper notepads. iPad would have to replace it all.

Part 2: Life with the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil

As of yesterday, iPad Pro comes in two sizes: 10.5-inch and 12.9-inch. The 10.5 replaced the 9.7, but even with the new lineup, going for the bigger one is a no-brainer for me. This photo sums it up the best:

At almost 13", the big iPad is an exact replacement of big-format print magazines. This brings me to goal number 1: replacing my old iPad.

Let’s break it down.

Goal 1.1: Reading

I use my iPad as a reading device. The Kindle app brings me the whole Amazon library and iBooks does the same for Apple’s offering, as well as anything I have in PDF format.

My Kindle collection (left) and my Retro Gaming bookshelf in iBooks (right). I have plenty of other shelves too.

While Kindle and Apple Books dynamically adjust the text to fit your device, PDFs (and apps that replicate print magazines such as Edge) don’t offer the same luxury. However, on a 13" iPad you don’t really care, because you can read everything at exactly the same size as the original, no pinching and zooming necessary.

With its high definition retina display (at 264 pixels per inch), it’s a complete replacement of print. As years move on, interactive covers, hyperlinks, and search will be considered everyday enhancements.

This is not the future, this is today.

In horizontal mode it’s also my favorite comic reader.

All the comic books in the world at my fingertips, anywhere I go.

Goal 1.2: Playing games

A 13" portable console? Yes please.

Sonic the Hedghehog, The Shivah: Kosher Edition, Another World and The Sandbox Evolution.

OK, as editor of Retronator Magazine I may not be up to date on the latest games, but if it can run Minecraft (which is more demanding than the pixelated textures have you believe) it has enough horsepower in my book.

And that’s a trailer from 2015 when the Pro wasn’t even a thing.

Who knows when you might get stuck in the middle of a tropical rainstorm and all you can do is play Maniac Mansion inside of Day of the Tentacle inside of your iPad.

Goal 1.3: Watching video

Netflix, HBO, YouTube, Vimeo, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, you name it.

And I have far from every app out there.

It’s like having a real display. Since its aspect ratio is 4:3, the letterboxing is quite substantial (or cropping, if you decide to go all in), but it’s miles away from squinting at an iPhone.

Letterboxing. But that’s why you want the biggest model.

Goal 1.4: Getting shit done

I rarely fold out the Smart Keyboard, but sometimes typing feels like the right thing to do when inspiration strikes as you pass a gazebo by a lake by a park because you can.

The Smart Keyboard is definitely my worst investment out of the setup as the onscreen keyboard is big enough to easily dashing out the occasional paragraph. I travel with my MacBook Pro at an arm’s reach so a real computer always wins when it comes to typing.

You might put much more miles on it yourself. It’s a great keyboard for its form (albeit a bit heavy), I just don’t have a need for it often enough.

Since we’re talking iOS, productivity apps are optimized for touch, so getting shit done is not really about typing.

Getting a mix out in Traktor DJ is a pleasure.

Wonderwall and Guerilla Radio mashup. It’s like song sex.

You can interview one of the first LucasArts employees while recording the audio of the interview while taking notes with Apple Pencil … (but now I’m getting ahead of myself).

For the result of the interview, read my (Not) a Thimbleweed Park review in Retronator Magazine.

I don’t multitask, but if you want to glance at your notes AND watch a Twitch stream at the same time, you can.

Maybe that should go into the NOT getting shit done section.

Finding that perfect selfie (before you shaved your beard) becomes easy enough as you can glance over a couple hundred thumbnails at a time.

Or thousands at a time …

I’m sure you can find some naked ladies in there with so many pixels in the screen (I need references for my art classes and … uh … other things).

And if you’re really stuck with doing work that is better suited for a computer, having enough real estate to see your whole balance sheet in Google Sheets and still have 2/3 of the screen unused will make your times away from the big screen manageable.

It makes sense that goal number one was easily squished. iPad Pro is an iPad, so all your iPad stuff is as good as before, except bigger, and smoother.

Goal 2: Replacing my digital drawing tablet

This is where things got real cool for me.

Not only did my iPad Pro replace my Wacom Intuos 2, having a screen you can draw on is the equivalent of a Wacom Cintiq, not the Intuos.

Wacom Cintiq 13HD, as used by perfect marketing people, captured by perfect cameras.

But iPad Pro is even more than a regular Cintiq. Because it’s a computer in its own right, not just an accessory, it means you can draw and paint on the go even without your main machine (similar to Wacom’s Cintiq Companion and MobileStudio Pro pen computers).

Oh wait, was I drawing this plein-air at Machu Picchu? Yes, yes I was.

For paintings I mostly use ArtRage. This portrait was the first I made using the Apple Pencil as my new stylus.

And I couldn’t not mention Procreate when talking about iOS apps because it’s the king of the field that most digital artists swear by. I haven’t used it enough yet, so here’s a demo artwork from somebody much more experienced than me.

What’s insanely cool about Procreate is that it records a timelapse of your drawing without you even asking for it (there’s no noticeable impact on performance). I’m not the only one who discovered this by accident after-the-fact and got pleasantly surprised by exporting videos of their work.

Eye-hand coordination practice by tracing patterns.

Making pixel art with the Apple Pencil becomes a decent activity even with bigger canvases. The best apps out there are the feature-full, but old and unsupported Sprite Something …

… and the new, touch-optimized and silky-smooth Pixaki (make sure you get the new studio version, not the legacy one).

But wait, you say, Wacom allows you to draw in desktop software such as Photoshop. These iOS apps might be getting better and better, but surely they can’t replace the real powerhouse?

That’s true and there is no need for a replacement! With the iPad Pro you can use Photoshop as much as you can with a Wacom.

Me, pixelarting in Photoshop on my iPad Pro.

What is this magic?!?

It’s called Astropad and it’s your new best friend. It mirrors your mac and makes you iPad a real graphics tablet accessory for your laptop or desktop.

You use the Pencil to control the cursor, while touch gestures pan and zoom (among other things). It’s hard to go back after you get spoiled by this.

Astropad works over wi-fi or USB, but you’ll use it mostly on the cable since the compression becomes a bit aggressive when working wirelessly (it takes a second for the screen to refresh to full-quality). It’s still doable, for those times you NEED to jump into your hammock or something. Over USB it’s perfect though and it squishes goal number two completely.

Goal 3: Replacing notepads and sketchbooks

When other artists try my setup, I only need to show them Apple’s default Notes app. After they make their first stroke they immediately get it: Apple Pencil feels exactly like a pencil.

To be fair, the results look exactly like a pencil while it feels like you’re drawing on glass (just like with a Wacom). What is not like a Wacom is that the gap between the tip of the stylus and the screen is not noticable (in my very short experience with the Cintiq it felt substantial … I’m sure you get used to it, but it’s not an immediate sell).

So the only tradeoff is the lack of the rugged texture of paper, but you gain so much!

First, you have all your writing and drawing supplies always with you.

You have an infinite amount of colors.

You have all the different papers you want: white, grey, black, blue …

… plain, ruled, graph, isometric, storyboard templates, and so on and so on.

I’ll trade the lack of texture for this versatility any time of the day. And if you still miss your real paper, well, who says you can’t do both.

There are things you can’t do with your paper though.

You immediately have a digital file to share on the internet. No more taking photos of your notes. It’s just there, saved, synced to the cloud, and automatically shared with your collaborators (I use Penultimate and Evernote to achieve this).

Not to mention you can still apply your favorite filters when you share things on Instagram (right).

Next, the ultimate feature of digital tools: undo and redo. Made a mistake? No worries, you now have time travel at your disposal.

But what really makes it impossible for me to go back to the analog world is something I didn’t anticipate how cool it is. Do you ever start to write or draw and you run out of space?

It’s never a problem where to begin on the page anymore.

Not to forget copy and paste.

Behold my great fashion design skills!

Since we’re talking things that are impossible on paper: some apps (including Notes on the upcoming iOS 11) have searchable handwriting.

I even record my YouTube tutorials directly on the iPad.

When you have the iPad plugged to your mac, use Quicktime > New Movie Recording to capture straight from the device

I don’t have to say more. iPad Pro and Apple Pencil are not only a complete replacement for drawing, sketching, taking notes, drawing diagrams, designing algorithms; they’re a true evolution of the tools we use to do the job.

Expect your Snapchat/Instagram game to go way up with it.

Oh wait, but there is more. I said the iPad Pro exceeded my expectations. Here’s why:

Bonus goal 4: Secondary display

Astropad can mirror your mac and give you shortcuts and enhanced gesture features, but it’s not the only app you can use to work with your mac.

Besides mirroring, Duet can also extend your desktop. A 13" ipad with its 4:3 aspect ratio fits perfectly next to my 15" MacBook Pro, making it an invaluable addition to my traveling lifestyle.

Coding while immediately seeing results on the second screen is a godsend.

I mean, how often do you have a second monitor when working from a café?

Or a park?!?

None, that’s how often. So far I haven’t seen another crazy person that’s doing this, but I’m never going back.

I loved my 27" iMac and while this is no replacement, it’s pretty darn decent for a traveling lifestyle (now that I think about it, 15"+13"=28"! … but don’t trust my deceiving math skills, the area is still just half of the iMac).

In conclusion

I can’t tell you if an iPad Pro will be what you need in your life, I can just show you my own example of how it enhanced mine. My situation might also be better because I’m getting advantages of being completely inside the Apple ecosystem. Apart from an external hardrive and a GoPro, all the hardware in my backpack bears the Apple logo: MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, iPhone, EarPods, Apple Pencil, a MacBook charger, and two USB lightning cables. That’s also ALL the hardware that I ever have with me. It allows me to do all my design and development work, while fitting into a fraction of a backpack. My iPad Pro gamble paid off and it allows me to easily work from anywhere I want in the world.

… waiting for the rain to pass in Peru …

Well hello there, you’ve reached the end of the article! Thank you for reading. If you’re not used to my writing from Retronator Magazine, the image-heavy journey is pretty much how I run things. I also always include a little outro, which you’re reading right now!

This is the first article in my new publication Practical Pixels (thanks to my Kickstarter backers for suggesting the name!). It will include things from developing Pixel Art Academy, but instead of a development blog (which you can find and support on Patreon), it has articles that share useful things you can apply to your own life. Like buying an iPad Pro (if that’s your thing), but also how to do your own accounting, how I use games in my design work, and even what theories apply to learning on your own.

You’re very welcome to subscribe and I will see you next time.
—Retro