Bamboo Paper – iPad App of the Week
This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.
This week’s App is Bamboo Paper.
Enjoy the ease of your own natural handwriting as you sketch your thoughts on a neat digital paper note book.
Bamboo Paper, a seriously fun new app from Wacom, provides you with the ability to create virtual notebooks for your iPad, letting you share your ideas visually with handwritten notes, sketches or doodles. Paired with the Bamboo Stylus, it turns your iPad into the ultimate paperless communications tool for use at:
- School – map out math and science equations, compose music, create arts and crafts projects, learn proper penmanship, write non-Western language characters (think Chinese, Japanese and Arabic)
- Work – Communicate with charts and graphs, collaborate during brainstorming sessions, sketch a design while on the go
- Home – jot down grocery lists, rough-out landscaping and home improvement designs, entertain kids with coloring and drawing activities at home or in the car
- What else can the Bamboo Paper app do?
- Quickly scan your book by browsing through thumbnail images of your pages
- Share your ideas – send an individual page or an entire book by e-mail
- Present your thoughts to a group – connect your iPad to a projector to show off your sketches and ideas to others at meetings and brainstorm sessions
- Print an individual page or entire book
- Mark important notes by bookmarking individual pages
- Who is Bamboo Paper designed for and what are some key benefits?
- It’s for everyone especially for creative people like you.
- In Short it’s for: note taking, sketching, doodling, inking plus:
- Environmentally friendly – no paper waste
- Free flow thinking
- Capturing thoughts and ideas
- Mind mapping, brainstorming
- Use the app as a journal or for travel notes
- Using it at work for meeting minutes
- Doing homework
Bamboo Paper is designed by Wacom, the company dedicated to creating harmony between technology and you! Millions of Bamboo users worldwide can’t be wrong!
Free
On the surface, Bamboo is a nice simple free drawing app for the iPad. Using your finger you an draw diagrams, make notes and draw doodles. You can then e-mail the page, save it as an image or if you have a compatible printer you can print the page.
Where Bamboo Paper I think will excel is if you use the Bamboo stylus. An ordinary stylus won’t work on the iPad, but a specially designed stylus will. Wacom the people behind the Bamboo Paper App have produced a Bamboo Stylus for the iPad.
Using the Bamboo Stylus further enhances numerous applications designed for the iPad by allowing users to express themselves and personalise their work. The pen brings a more accurate and precise way to take notes in meetings and classroom settings or to sketch out rough ideas while on the go. It gives creative thinkers the opportunity to be expressive and visualise their life.
The authentic and satisfying feel of the pen is achieved through subtle design elements, such as a sophisticated black and silver design with satin-textured metal body, a focus on ergonomic comfort and balanced weighting of the pen. In addition, the fine tip gives the user more detail control.
Ideal for handwriting notes, giving a personal touch when editing documents, drawing, sketching and much more, the Bamboo Stylus enriches the way in which users interact with their iPad. Users can now be even more creative, using it in the way that suits them.
Looks great, but does cost £24.99 however there are other iPad stylus out there and a quick search on Amazon brings up the Pogo Sketch Stylus for just £6.99 (+£3.99 shipping). Alas I haven’t had a chance to use either, but am tempted to buy the Pogo stylus. I think for apps such as Bamboo Paper will be great and even better for art apps such as Sketchbook Pro.
One limitation of the free version of Bamboo Paper is you only get one notebook, however you can buy twenty more notebooks as an in-app purchase for just £1.49.
Bamboo Paper is a really simple app that does very little, which is it’s real strength. If you want to draw diagrams or make notes, then Bamboo Paper is great for that. Looks like it would work even better with a stylus.
I just got the bamboo app too and like it. I’ve ordered myself a pogo sketch stylus just last night and opened this post hoping that you would have already tried a stylus and could give me some advice! The pogo was recommended by Andy Inhakto of Mac world fame, as a ‘nice to hold’ but’ cheap enough to lose’ stylus, the AluPen is most raved about, but more for drawing, i think, obviously designed by an artist, but much more expensive. I mostly wanted something for drawing quick diagrams, doing maths with kids when I’m teaching or annotating PDFs. I’ll let you know how I get on with the pogo!
Got my pogo sketch – I really like it! See examples and comments http://drbadgr.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/768/