State of the Art: On Touch Screens, Rest Your Finger by Using a Stylus - State of the Art

Well, in that case, thousands of people are happily blowing it every day. The stylus is one of the most popular accessories in the touch-screen age.

Mr. Jobs’s point, of course, was that you don’t need a stylus. Everything on the iPhone and iPad — every button, slider, list item — is designed to be big enough for a fat fingertip. But a stylus can be handy when you’re wearing gloves, you have long nails, or you’re a germophobe.

Then there’s the precision thing. Now, technically, a stylus is no more precise than a finger. Most touch screens these days, including Apple’s, are capacitive screens: they ignore touches by pens, toothpicks and almost anything else not made of flesh. But they require a fairly big contact area (a diameter of four millimeters) to register a touch, so a stylus needs a similarly broad tip.

Even so, a stylus feels more precise. Part of that is visibility: it blocks less of your view. And holding a penlike stick may be more comfortable than maintaining pointing position for hours, especially when drawing and writing. Don’t even think about playing Draw Something without a stylus.

I rounded up 40 styluses from Just Mobile, BoxWave, Griffin, Hand, SuckUK, Hard Candy, Hub, Kensington, Kuel, Logiix, MediaDevil, oStylus, Studio Neat, Targus and Wacom; even then, I’m sure I missed a few. I tested them in art apps like Paper and Sketchbook Pro, in note-taking apps like Penultimate and in everyday navigation on tablets and phones. Next time, I’ll tackle something less labor-intensive, like solving the energy crisis.

Here’s a guide to a panoply of styluses, organized by the problems that their designs address. (Most come in various colors.)

PROBLEM: TOO MUCH BAGGAGE A number of companies offer combo stylus/ink pens. On some, the rubber tip is on the end of the cap. That includes premium, handsome twist-open models: the hexagonal-barreled aluminum AluPen Pro ($33) and the Mont Blanc look-alike Kensington Virtuoso Signature ($23). They’re beautiful, but when you’re using the rubber end, the ink end is pointing at your face — a weird, upside-down feeling.

The perfectly weighted Wacom Bamboo Duo ($36) and shiny, polished Targus Executive Stylus and Pen ($29) don’t have that problem. Their caps click onto the end you’re not using.

The Hard Candy Capacitive iPad Stylus and Pen ($35) and nearly identical Gumdrop ($35) are striking, mirror-finish, double-ended bullets. Pull off one cap for stylus, the other cap for ink. Unfortunately, you don’t know which end is which — and there’s nowhere to stow the cap while you’re working.

PROBLEM: MUSHY RUBBER TIPS Most stylus tips are black, bulbous, mushy rubber bulbs, meant to mimic your fingertip. The choices range from the beautifully weighted Wacom Bamboo ($25), to the blasted-aluminum hexagonal heft of the AluPen ($15), to the bare-bones Amazon.com models labeled “Generic” — three for $1.18.

For a little more money, you can get a nicer stylus with a retractable tip, like the penlike Kuel H12 ($20). Its barrel is made of “Harmless Material Plated Brass.” (Whew!)

The black rubber tips glide nicely across the glass, but they wear or tear over time. And they’re so fat, you feel as if you’re drawing with a sausage.

There are alternatives. On BoxWave’s hollow-feeling EverTouch Capacitive Stylus ($14), the tip is covered with a fine fabric mesh that’s firmer and more secure than rubber. The company says it doesn’t require replacement like rubber, and, as a bonus, actually cleans the screen while you use it.

Nomad’s Compose stylus ($26), meanwhile, is — get this — a paintbrush. Now, the iPad still detects only a single point of contact among the bristles; don’t think you’re going to get brushlike paint strokes (unless you have an app that simulates that effect). Still, artists love the familiar feeling of gently bending bristles.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 3, 2012

The State of the Art column on Thursday, about styluses for use on touch-screen devices, described incorrectly the size of the contact point necessary to register a touch on most touch screens. They require a contact area with a diameter of four millimeters, not four square millimeters.