Without even a single shred of doubt, Apple Pencil turns out to be one really impressive tool for designers. However, if you want to make the best use of this accessory, you’ll really need to have right apps installed on your iPad Pro. Yes, there should be something that can take full advantage of its flexibility and power in true sense of word. Listed here are some of the best iPad Pro Pencil apps that will certainly allow you to test the power of your Apple Pencil.
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5 Best iPad Pro Pencil Apps
Given below are the 5 best iPad Pro Pencil apps that you can try out on your little gadget and take your Apple Pencil to its limits. Let’s start it out with Affinity Photo.
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Affinity Photo
Affinity Photo from Serif has quickly turned into the first-choice alternative to Photoshop for both Windows and Mac users. It’s the amazing tool set of this app, one-off price tag rather than monthly or yearly subscription, and its wonderful overall performance that sets it apart from the rest. Besides, the iPad version of app is equally impressive and Apple used it during the demo of Pencil and the iPad Pro.
Though the app works fine with the earlier models of iPad as well, but it really comes to life when you use it in combination with your iPad Pro as well as Apple Pencil. The app has been designed for using touch features and the hardware of iPad at its best. And, for iPad Pro, the app’s design allows you to benefit from the angle and pressure sensitivity features of your Apple Pencil too. So, whether you have to apply the real time lighting effects or paint with the professional brushes, using Affinity Pro with your Apple Pencil on iPad pro is a treat.
The app also supports PSD and raw files with its professional workflow and allows for complete cross-platform file compatibility.
Requirements: iOS 10.3 or higher
Download Now – $19.99
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Procreate 4
Procreate 4, one of the best iPad Pro Pencil apps, has seen a complete transformation by addition of Apple Pencil. It’s true that the app can be used with your finger, some simple stylus, and even with more complicated third-party styluses such as the one from adonit, but you get the ultimate fluidity with Apple Pencil only.
This is partly due to the fine tip of Apple’s accessory and partly due to its double-speed sampling rate and low latency. Almost flawless palm rejection of Apple Pencil also plays its part in making it the perfect stylus to be used with Procreate 4. However, the joy of using 6B pencil to sketch simply puts all those technicalities into the backdrop.
The app has gone through a serious technological overhaul lately as well which really gives you an even better experience when using it on your iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. It now offers some intuitive menus as well as wet paint features to enhance your experience even further and helps itself to make it to the list of best iPad Pro Pencil apps out there.
Requirements: iOS 10.0 or higher
Download Now – $9.99/£9.99
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Adobe Comp CC
One of the best iPad Pro Pencil Apps, Adobe Comp CC really allows you to make it look like a breeze to mock up and wireframe your designs look. The app works on the idea that instead of drawing those dumb rectangles on your notebook or some horizontal lines indicating where text will appear in the layout, the layouts can be made for real with some intuitive yet simple sketched shapes. You can then use the layouts with Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign app as you need.
Just familiarize with all the available gestures in the app to align, group, etc. and use it to your full advantage. All this can be done with your finger; however, if you want to use Apple Pencil, it will feel more delightful as if you were drawing in your notebook with some magical pencil.
You can use Apple Pencil to draw rectangle shape, for instance, and then slash that with diagonal cross to make it turn into image box. The box can then be populated with stuff from your library on Creative Cloud, for instance. Similarly, you can create a box first and then scrub some horizontal lines inside and you get a text box. You can then manually style it and can even apply styles from the CC libraries.
What makes it one of the best iPad Pro Pencil apps is the fact that it’s really simple, fluid and fast. Pro designers can use the app to work from the wireframes just like they’d with those drawn in the ink in Moleskine. The app can boost your overall productivity, however, and allows you to mockup your designs quickly with real life styles and assets.
Requirements: iOS 9.0 or higher
Download Now – Free
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Paper
Paper is among the best iPad Pro Pencil Apps for some obvious reasons. You can easily fall in love with this wonderful app. When you first look at it, Paper would appear nothing more than a simple app for diagramming and drawing – and it actually is that at its basic level – but there’s a lot more to this wonderful app than this.
You will, however, have to check some support files available online to get better understanding of how Paper can be used as an advanced tool. The apparently simple tools in the app can help you create org charts, graphs, Venn diagrams and much more. Besides, you can duplicate shapes within the app, link them with the lines, and do other similar stuff as well.
Though the app doesn’t really need the precision you get with Apple Pencil, but using the accessory can certainly make your experience better.
Requirements: iOS 8.0 or higher
Download Now – Free
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LiquidText
LiquidText itself is a really handy tool whether you use it with Apple Pencil or not. You can use it for annotating PDFs and reading them. Besides, the app can also work fine with PowerPoint and Word documents as well as with web pages. Designed specifically for active readers, the app allows you to highlight and snip out different sections as you read so that they can be referred to later.
When you add Apple Pencil to it, however, the app turns even faster and shows you exactly how you can use tilt- and pressure-sensitivity of Pencil for mimicking the drawing tools that are available in real world.
As the Pencil is dragged over a certain piece of text, it is selected instantly. And, if you press it harder, it will select a certain part of your document as image. You can drag the Pencil across text while holding it at flattened angle to select the text as well as highlight it.
Requirements: iOS 10.0 or higher
Download Now – Free
So, pick any of these amazing iPad Pro Pencil apps to make full use of your Apple Pencil while using the iPad apps. It’s always a treat to use the accessory on your iPad and you’ll definitely love the experience.