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Dan Provost, Phil, The Cosmonaut, Tom Gerhardt, iPad, stylus | in Accessories, Design, News
Dan Provost, Phil, The Cosmonaut, Tom Gerhardt, iPad, stylus | in Accessories, Design, News The Cosmonaut: Could this be the Perfect iPad Stylus?
Mon, March 28, 2011 at 1:27 PM
The Cosmonaut is a new design for a Touchscreen stylus from Tom Gerhardt and Dan Provost. These are the two creative individuals that brought us the Glif iPhone 4 mount which has been a huge success.
How is it different?
This stylus looks a lot different (ok, fatter) than any of the previous pen-based styli that we have seen and as the video shows, the design is based on a marker pen to provide more comfortable handling. It looks very effective and anyone who has used a current stylus for a long time will know that it can be quite awkward to hold depending on what you are doing.
Looking at it in some shots it looks a little too large but we think we would really have to try one out in-hand before we could say if it was any better than other styli we have tried.
The Cosmonaut is demoed in the video being used with a variety of apps including Adobe Ideas, Penultimate, SketchBook Pro, Flight Control HD, amongst others.
If you like it Fund it
Like the Glif, The Cosmonaut is a Kickstarter project, which means it is just a protype at the moment and the guys need funding to make a go of it commercially. But this time their model is different.
Instead of setting pledge amounts (usually in pricing bands) they have instead allocated 3000 pledge slots and you can donate any amount you want to.
The caveat being that the project has a funding target of $50,000, so if everyone decides to pay $1 for their pledge they will only get $3000 and miss their target by a long way.
The good news is, with just 186 backers pledging so far (at time of writing) their total is already nearly $3000.
Your Turn
Take a look at the video below (if you are on an iOS device you will need to go to the Kickstarter page as their embeds do not work). If want to see The Cosmonaut make it to production get on over there now and pledge as much as you can afford (around $25 is a 'guide price').
If you have any comments or thoughts about The Cosmonaut (keep them clean please) then let us know in the comments.
Update on Fri, April 1, 2011 at 8:46 PM by
iPad Creative
iPad Creative
Just had the email confirmation that The Cosmonaut Kickstarter project has been funded, just a few days into the project. In fact they had so much interest they have set up, in addition to the quickly filled pay-what-you-like slots, unlimited $25 and $50 funding tiers which gets you 1 or 2 units respectively.
As it is at the moment they have exceeded their $50,000 funding target by a long way, currently just under $87,000, thats pretty impressive we think, but it will be intersting to try it out and of course we will let you know what it is like as soon as we get ours.
Reader Comments (8)
Looks like you may have had a hand in getting them closer to their target, they're at nearly $20,000 since you posted this, less than 12 hours ago!
ICT Tower - wow that's a good day's fundraising, you never know we might have helped, hope so! ^_^
I love the GILF...bought one for my iPhone 4.
I'm not so sure this is worth $25, however. I'd be tempted to go with the Alupen for $28 plus shipping, if I was going to go with a large stylus. Even so, I wish them luck!
Doctor - we love the Glif too but this stylus is not going to be for everyone. It may be fantastic to use but it is hard to tell unless really holding a stylus whether it works and there are no reviews to help out either.
Thanks for your comment.
The prototype looks like a fat black crayon without the paper label lol.
Watching the video of people using the 'rocket' it appeared to be a normal stylus housed within a larger body, which essentially anyone with a normal stylus could add some small bore pipe cladding to recreate this.
I'm all for new products which help enhance or make our tasks easier when using iOS devices, this unfortunately isnt ground breaking or anything other than a fat stylus. I also think the AluPen (another over sized stylus) looks a million times more pro and classy.
I had a look at the Alupen but 38 euros including shipping is a bit too much for me. Will have a look at the Glif.
Thanks for your comments everyone, curiosity got the better of me and I pledged so if it gets funded I will let you know what it's like.
Phil
Problem with most of these styluses (this one included) is that they are too short to draw with for longer than say 15 minutes. The lenght/weight of a wacom stylus would be perfect.