Hot off the trails of the news that Apress acquired the publishing rights to Kapsoft’s iPhone Application Sketch Book, comes the new iPhone Stencil.

In Detail

The new Apress Book is has been improved. A new cover. It’s now 1.5x scale (150% of actual size iPhone). Pages have been increased by 25 – that’s 50 more templates. And the pages have been perforated for easy tear out.

The Stencil is also 1.5x scale but includes a 1.0x scale iPhone should you need it. It is made of green plastic, much the same as most stencils you buy at a design store. It also features a nice little ruler on the side. Something extra that I had not anticipated, but find very handy. The stencil itself, features the majority of UIKit elements you will use in sketch design and comes in very handy. While, it is a bit on the larger end, it does fit nicely within the new sketchbook pages for carrying.

The Stencil will cost you $9.99 while the new Apress version of the Sketchbook comes in at $14.99.

Compared against Design Commission’s Stencil

While both stencils are larger scale than the actual iPhone size, the new Kapsoft one is a tad bit bigger. 1.5x the size of the iPhone. Design Comission’s stencil seems to be roughly 1.25x scale.

Kapsoft’s stencil is also cheaper in cost. $9.99 vs $17.95. Though, I’m sure that the material cost plays quite a role in this. Plastic against Stainless Steel.

I do find the Design Commission’s Stencil to be much more portable due to it’s smaller footprint. And the stainless steel material feels a bit more Apple-like and sturdier. Plastic can break easily.

Overall

You really can’t go wrong with either Stencil kit. And you definitely should be sketching designs before jumping into XCode. If you are planning to use the Apress Sketchbook, you’ll want to get the new Kapsoft Stencil due to the matching iPhone scale. Similarly, Design Commission offers both a downloadable PDF template and now a Sketchpad for $7.95 to go with their own Stencil Kit.

Gallery

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The Art Pen

The Art Pen itself has a much bigger tip area than the Grip Pen that comes with the tablet. The Art Pen’s bigger tip area also doesn’t have the user swap-able color rings. One thing to note, the nibs do only fit in one way and they will rotate a bit during use. The nib won’t fall out, so you don’t have to worry about that when swapping nibs.

Even though the drivers for the Intuos4 are a bit old, they were able to successfully identify the Art Pen just fine from the start. Wacom just updated drivers for the new Bamboo Touch series, Graphire and Cintiq tablets for Windows and Mac OSX, but the Intuos set hasn’t been updated yet. As such, I still have to launch the 32-bit Settings for the tablet. Not a big deal.

After using the Art Pen with Corel Painter 11, I have noticed that I don’t have much of a tactile response from the pen during barrel rotation. As such, it’s really useful to have the Enhanced Brush Ghosting setting enabled while you get used to the feeling. It’s quite a bit different than the Grip Pen. After spending a bit of time getting used to it, I was able to turn off the ghosting setting again.

The Pen Stand

The Art Pen stand also has exactly enough slots for all of the Nibs that come with the Art Pen with one nib in the pen itself. It also fits the Professional Kit’s Nib Extractor in the middle spot of the stand just like the one that comes with the tablet and grip pen.

The Nibs

The Art Pen comes with 11 nibs. 1 on the pen itself and 10 replacement nibs. The 10 replacement nibs fit in nicely into the new housing of the Pen stand. The nibs have 1 shaft, just like the ones for all the other pens. This is a change from the Intuos3 Art Pen’s nibs which previously had 2 shafts. The difference being that the 2 shafts on the Intuos3 version, prevented a rotation effect on the nib when rotating the Art Pen.

The Details

The following come in the box:

• 2 Chisel POM Nibs
• 2 Chisel Felt Nibs
• 3 Bullet POM Nibs
• 3 Bullet Felt Nibs
• 1 Pen Stand
• 1 Art Pen with 1 Bullet POM Nib inside

Model #: KP701E
Price: $99.95

Final Thoughts

Although Wacom’s eStore states: “The Intuos4 Art Pen ships with the following accessories: 10 replacement nibs, a nib puller, and a weighted pen stand.” The package does NOT come with a nib puller. There was not one anywhere in the packaging and others from the ConceptArt forums have had the same results.

As for the Art Pen itself, I love it. Barrel rotation is definitely it’s main feature and it does it extremely well. It’s an amazing feature to have. Corel Painter 11 recognized the barrel rotation immediately, and it also works wonderfully with Illustrator using the 6D Art Brushes set or in Photoshop, by using the Wacom Brushes 3. All in all, it’s the one additional pen for the tablet that I need. I have very little use for the classic pen, airbrush pen or inking pen.

The Pictures

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“I happened to be auditing the Stanford iPhone Programming course,” says Kaplan, “and one of the guest speakers discussed how he went about creating his user interface designs. Paper was one option he mentioned. Almost instantly the notebook idea light bulb went off. Other options of various computer programs were mentioned, but it always got back to paper and pencil. Subsequently, I did my own online survey that revealed designers prefer paper 95% of the time.” – theAppleBlog

The sketchbook contains 100 grid pages with an iPhone designed to scale on it. Each page has it’s own header that allows you to put in the name of the app and the name of the screen. The pages are big. There is ton of free space for taking side notes during group sessions and team meetings. The notebook itself is paperback, plastic spiral bound, and can be ordered from Amazon.com for $14.99.

Q & A with Dean Kaplan

1. What are your plans for the future of the sketchbook?
   “There will be a huge exciting announcement concerning the book next week. Stay tuned.”
2. Do you plan on creating a Stencil Kit similar to The Design Commission’s one? Or perhaps making the iPhone on the pages slightly larger to be more compatible with the Stencil Kit?
   “LOL. Are you spying on me? As for size….I guess you are saying size matters. And I’m listening to feedback and it is likely that you “might” see a version that is 1.5X actual very soon. (DC’s stencil is smaller then 1.5x and I don’t think its very useable. )”
3. Have you considered perforated pages for easier tear-off?
   “I’ve heard the perforated request once before. Not likely on that one. As one reviewer told me he like to tear the pages right out of the book and paste them on the frig.)”
4. A folder built-in either the front or back cover for keeping materials given from other team members or clients together?
   “I love that idea. It crossed my mind a few months ago. Likely in a future UBER Sketch Book.”

The Good

• Keeps all your apps and screens together instead of having multiple pieces of paper that can get easily lost.
• Grid pages are very handy for going from sketching to computer rendering.
• To scale iPhone keeps you in the restriction of the small space while also reminding you to beware of your font sizes.
• Cheap. $15! If you’re just getting into iPhone app design, this can definitely help you on your way in keeping your ideas organized.

The Bad

• Not compatible with The Design Commission has created an iPhone Stencil Kit. Different companies, Can’t really complain.
• The to scale iPhone on the page is also a bit harder to draw stuff inside it.
• Since there’s no stencil, you need to keep in mind what you get with the SDK and what needs to be custom made. Thought it’s not that big of a deal.

The Pictures

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Final Thoughts

Right now, I’m using a Moleskine Squared Notebook to do my sketches for iPhone apps and other web related work. It’s much smaller than the iPhone sketchbook, but it does allow me to put other thoughts and ideas inside. For what the purpose it was designed for, the iPhone sketchbook delivers and does so very well. Compatibility with the Stencil Kit would definitely put it over the top. The last things that I would like included in the sketchbook, would be a small folder built in and perforated pages. Those are some very small personal requests though.

Special Note: If you order between September 10th and October 10th you’ll be entered to win ONE free ticket to the Voices That Matter iPhone Developers Conference 2009.

Pros:

• Great introduction to the SDK
• Up to date Source Code for the book on the website
• Book forums for asking questions and interacting
• Great way to get started in iPhone development

Cons:

• No sounds API examples or chapter
• Needs some more XCode help as most developers are learning XCode for the first time.
• Needs a bit more help on debugging iPhone code
• More on device development

Upcoming Apress iPhone Development Books

• iPhone Advanced Projects
• iPhone Cool Projects: Ten Great Development Projects for Your iPhone
• iPhone User Interface Design Projects
• iPhone Games Projects

Other Resources:

• Follow Apress on Twitter
• Apple iPhone Dev Center
• Stanford’s CSP193P iPhone Dev Course – Available on iTunesU podcast.