Although Steve Jobs, creator of Apple and iPhone, decreed that on modern smartphones and tablets the pen would be useless, for some it is not so. In the end, the nib on the screen, especially on a tablet, can be useful for using the tablet in a more comfortable way, perhaps leaning on a shelf, using the tablet as if it were a portable PC.
In this article we see the most useful applications to write, draw and touch the touchscreen of an Android smartphone / tablet, an iPhone and iPad with a nib or with the finger (even if the pen remains more and more accurate).
1) Adobe Photoshop Sketch is an extraordinary free application for Android and iPhone that allows you to draw on the screen of your smartphone or tablet using your finger or pen.
It includes various types of tools for drawing with pencil, markers, acrylic paints, pastels, watercolor brushes and many others in order to paint as if you were on a canvas.
1) MyScript (Android and iPhone is an official paid app for writing with a stylus on supported smartphones.
In practice, you no longer write with the touchscreen but with the pen on the screen, manually.
The app, however, costs 8 Euros.
2) Write is a free app only for Android tablets and mobile phones that allows you to write on the screen freehand using a stylus or your finger.
An app like Write will let you take notes easily, as you would a paper notepad and you can also use different schemes, black paper or graph paper.
3) Google Keep, the note-taking app, has a function for writing freehand notes, using your finger on the screen
4) Google Handwriting is the app to replace the phone keypad with one where you can draw characters and punctuation by hand, using your finger.
5) SignEasy: Sign On The Go is the free application for Android and iPhone / iPad to sign a document with your finger or stylus pen on a tablet or smartphone.
SignEasy will make it appear that you have used a real pen to sign and put the date on a document.
6) Docusign is the other great application for signing documents on the screens of Android, Windows 8 and iPhone / Ipad cellphones and tablets that can be used for free for personal use and works in a rather incredible way for its versatility.
I also mentioned this app in the article on how to make an online digital signature for documents and contracts.
7) Infinite Painter is an Android app to draw freehand using your finger or nib on the screen.
It is therefore an application to paint using the tablet as if it were a canvas and the finger like a brush.
8) SketchBook Express is a large and professional Autodesk application (the company that develops popular software such as Autocad) to draw on the screen using your finger or stylus, which you can download and install for free on both Android tablets and on iPhones and iPads ( it had also been included among the best apps to download for free for Android tablets ).
9) For Android only, you can install Papyrus, an app to write freehand with the pen as if the screen were a sheet of paper.
You can also write notes by hand on PDF documents to fill in forms or sign documents.
10) Draw Something is the famous Pictionary style game, where you have to draw by hand and let another guesser.
Draw Something is one of the most downloaded games in the world, both on iPhone / iPad, and on Android smartphones and mobiles
12) StylusKeyboard is finally a free app for Android with which to write using the stylus or the stylus or even the finger which, however, becomes less precise.
The app is integrated on the touch keyboard and allows you to write letters and symbols by hand, also with the possibility of adding gestures to complete whole words.
13) ezPDF Reader PDF multimedia is an app available (not free) on both the Android Store and for iPhone and iPad.
It is an app that opens PDF files and allows you to take notes on it using the stylus pen or your finger.
You can add arrows, circles, text notes and other annotations or comments on the PDF and you can also sign them freehand.
14) Penultimate by Evernote is a beautiful and incredibly functional app capable of transforming the screen of an iPad or iPhone into a sheet on which to draw freehand using a pen or finger.
You can write and draw in color on the screen as you did it on a normal drawing sheet of paper in an easy way.
Freehand drawings and writings are automatically saved to Evernote.
15) FreeNote is an app (Android only) to take notes and notes as you used Evernote, only that you write by hand.
You can easily write notes, add images and use the screen in combination, writing both with the pen / stylus / finger, and with the keyboard.
Each of these apps can really be useful in certain circumstances, to draw or to sign or even to pretend to write by hand on a sheet and use your own unmistakable calligraphy, which is always the most personal thing we have.
