Intaglio Sketchpad for iPhone

Legacy Intaglio
1

I’ve been out of the loop here for a while working on some things. Here’s something new that may interest some of you. I’ve adapted Intaglio for the multi-touch environment and the result, called Intaglio Sketchpad, is now available on iTunes.

It’s been a challenge taking the traditional drawing user interface and making it work in a small screen, touch environment but I’m pretty happy with the result. Sketchpad doesn’t try to do everything a desktop app does but I think it’s substantially more capable than any other vector drawing app for the iPhone or iPod touch. I’m interesting to hear any kind of constructive comments and criticisms.

The link through iTunes is:

itms://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=337562591&mt=8&s=143441

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2

It looks great Nick, but my only critisism at this time, is the price.
It’s too expensive, especially when you consider the bargain price of
£1.79 for Autodesk’s superb SketchBook app (my 4 year old can’t get
enough of that!)

regards,

Tom

On 6 Nov 2009, at 18:52, “Nick” email@hidden wrote:

I’ve been out of the loop here for a while working on some things.
Here’s something new that may interest some of you. I’ve adapted
Intaglio for the multi-touch environment and the result, called
Intaglio Sketchpad, is now available on iTunes.

It’s been a challenge taking the traditional drawing user interface
and making it work in a small screen, touch environment but I’m
pretty happy with the result. Sketchpad doesn’t try to do
everything a desktop app does but I think it’s substantially more
capable than any other vector drawing app for the iPhone or iPod
touch. I’m interesting to hear any kind of constructive comments
and criticisms.

The link through iTunes is:

itms://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=337562591&mt=8&s=143441

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3

I understand your concern. It’s definitely hard to know where to price iPhone productivity apps. Realistically $8 (in the US store) is pretty cheap for a piece of software you’ll actually use. I don’t know if this software will find a niche or not, but hopefully it will be useful enough to support itself. The trick is to find a price that’s low enough to sell a sufficient number of copies and high enough to actually make a living.

I have a copy of Autodesk SketchBook but I don’t think it’s entirely comparable. It’s a fairly simple paint app marketed as an entertainment title. If Autodesk can sell a couple thousand copies a month they may be able to support continued development, and maybe they can do that as an entertainment title. Intaglio Sketchpad is a vector drawing app marketed as a productivity title. FWIW, I’ve considered creating a $1 kids version for entertainment but I’m not sure if it’s “entertaining” enough.

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4

See how it runs. You can always lower the price if need be at a later
date :slight_smile:

I’ve downloaded it, and it is indeed most excellent. I’ll have a play
and get back to you if I see space for improvement.

regards,

Tom

On 6 Nov 2009, at 20:06, “Nick” email@hidden wrote:

I understand your concern. It’s definitely hard to know where to
price iPhone productivity apps. Realistically $8 (in the US store)
is pretty cheap for a piece of software you’ll actually use. I
don’t know if this software will find a niche or not, but hopefully
it will be useful enough to support itself. The trick is to find a
price that’s low enough to sell a sufficient number of copies and
high enough to actually make a living.

I have a copy of Autodesk SketchBook but I don’t think it’s entirely
comparable. It’s a fairly simple paint app marketed as an
entertainment title. If Autodesk can sell a couple thousand copies
a month they may be able to support continued development, and maybe
they can do that as an entertainment title. Intaglio Sketchpad is a
vector drawing app marketed as a productivity title. FWIW, I’ve
considered creating a $1 kids version for entertainment but I’m not
sure if it’s “entertaining” enough.

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5

I think Sketchpad for the iPhone/touch is the best drawing app for this device. Bar none! It is clever, and genuinely, (within the limits of the device), useable. A more advanced version for the new iPad will be very welcome indeed. Intaglio, in all its forms, may well develop into the next Canvas, but hopefully with far better customer relations. As Canvas for Mac is terminally ill, there is a unique opportunity for Intaglio to morph into the best 2D intuitive drawing app world wide. Already with a good “feel”, and showing signs of some passion behind the development, Intaglio should have a very good future in a much ignored segment of the market. There is a very sparsely populated chasm between “Kiddie draw-apps” and CAD. Anyone who can get it right for the Apple hardware range is assured a healthy future.

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6

I have a fossil iPod (I think it system is two full-digits versions behind the current) that I never updated because I jailbreaked it looong ago and fear loosing complex things like the full wikipedia onboard.
Indeed, an Intaglio-like on the iPod would be THE reason I was waiting to switch.

Can you tell me if drawings created in Sketchpad can be saved locally (as pdf too?) and/or self-emailed, so that I can consider I’ll be able to reopen them in Intaglio retaining the vectorial detail?

(I presume the original Intaglio format isn’t supported?)

TIA!
Hervé

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7

Ah yes, but I think that Sketchpad is really going to shine, when Apple’s iPad gets released. However, the oversight of a camera (no pun intended) in iPad, I think is a rather silly omission (considering that the iPhone has a camera, and that Sketchpad uses photos).
On 31 Jan 2010, at 16:11, Hervé S. wrote:

Indeed, an Intaglio-like on the iPod would be THE reason I was waiting to switch.

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8

Sketchpad can export drawings as PDF to a web browser running on a computer on a shared WiFi network. This PDF file can be imported into the desktop version of Intaglio. The original Intaglio format isn’t supported because the iPhone/iTouch can’t perform some of the more sophisticated graphic features available on the Mac (e.g., effects). For the best import/export with the desktop version Sketchpad will probably support SVG in the future, but this isn’t in version 1.0.

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9

Thanks Nick for this detail. Indeed svg would be perfect, and also for exchanges with the PC side.

Do you know if the present drawings can be copied/pasted e. g. into a mail or a note straight inside the ipod/iphone?

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10

The current version runs on an older version of the iPhone OS (2.1 I think) but copy/paste requires version 3.0. The next version will probably require 3.0 or 3.1 and support copy/paste.

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11

Hi Nick,
I bought Sketchpad last night when I searched for diagram tools on the iTunes Store. I also own SketchBook, which I bought last year looking for the same types of apps, but I’ve used it a total of 2 times when I realized it was not meant for how I wanted to use it. However, Sketchpad is almost exactly what I was looking for - extremely straightforward, easy-to-use, and very flexible (the grouping feature and being able to save your own shapes is awesome). It would be the greatest phone-based diagramming tool EVER if these features were added:

a) Persistent connection points for paths and shapes so that moving around a shape that has a path attached to it doesn’t affect the connection points (i.e., lines remain attached to the shapes they were originally attached to).

b) Option to create a bigger canvas (so that it spans beyond the viewport of the iPhone) - I like to put quite a few diagrams and notes on one page. As a workaround, I decrease the font size for every new text element, though that would probably make the exported PDF not very legible.

c) Landscape editing would be great (but not that big of a deal)

d) “Hand grabber” tool, so that you can use it to drag the canvas around with one finger, instead of having to use 2 fingers, since sometimes the zoom level changes as a side effect. This would be especially helpful if you implement my second suggestion (the ability to use a bigger canvas).

e) More UML shapes (though most basic shapes are here the “actor” (stick figure) shape is an important one). Although it’s not hard for people to create their own shape library (great feature, BTW), it would be even easier if these shapes were included.

Your app, though, is by far the most useful, flexible, and easy-to-use diagram app in the store right now, and well worth the 8 bucks. I can tell you devoted energy towards making this app usable and intuitive (which is more than I can say for the majority of iPhone apps). Thanks for making it!

Dallas

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