Wacom Bamboo Paper iPad App (Get it While it's Free!)

Wacom has released its first mobile app, a note-taking and sketching app for the iPad called Bamboo Paper. The app is free until the end of June so grab your copy now if you want to get in on it before they start charging for the app. In this early release it is rather limited, but I expect there will be some feature additions before the price goes up.

In its current state, Bamboo Paper provides a very nice writing experience that is fluid, fast, and comfortable. The app's look and feel is gorgeous, as you would expect from a Wacom product. When you first open Bamboo Paper, you see a large view of a single notebook. At this time, you can only have a single notebook, but I suspect a not-too-distant update will allow the creation of multiple notebooks.

You can tap the name of the book to change its title, and below it, you have three buttons--trash, settings, and export. Under settings, you can choose from four colors for the notebook cover, and three types of paper background--plain, lined, or grid. The export button allows you to email the entire book as a PDF file or print it. The Wacom tab at the top just shows you version information, a link to buy the Bamboo Stylus, and a link to give feedback.

Unfortunately, the app only works in portrait orientation, and personally, I feel this is a considerable shortcoming, especially because the popular Apple Smart Cover only works in landscape orientation when used as a stand for the iPad 2.

Tapping the notebook cover opens the book and brings you to a page of instructions. Everything you need to know about using the app is laid out for you here. You can choose from three pen widths and six colors. You can zoom in and out with a pinch/spread gesture. Your pages can be emailed, saved to photos, or printed (via AirPrint). You can erase, or clear the entire page, and you can bookmark specific pages. Tapping on the page number at the bottom of the page opens a thumbnail view of all your pages, which you can filter to only show the bookmarked pages.

I have not used other inking apps on the iPad, so I can't compare Bamboo Paper to the competition, but even with the limitations, I enjoyed working with it. I don't know if it has any kind of "palm protection" to compensate for resting your hand on the screen while writing, but when I used it, I only got occasional marks when I initially rested my palm on the screen, but it did not interfere with my writing, and the stray marks were easily erased. A few times, my palm resting did trigger the new page button, which was annoying.

Bamboo Paper worked very well with the Bamboo Stylus and other more-traditional stylus pens like those from DAGi and Stylus-R-Us. I didn't like using the Nomad Brush with it, although it is my favorite stylus for working with artistic apps.

All-in-all, Bamboo Paper is a great start for a note-taking app, but there is plenty of room for it to grow. A few of the features I'd like to see added are:

• Rotation for landscape orientation.
• Support for multiple notebooks.
• Ability to change page background on individual pages.
• More line widths, including thick lines for filling in shapes, highlighting, etc.
• More colors, with a full-spectrum color picker and a way to save a set of favorite colors for quick access.
• More gesture-based shortcuts.

Wacom could have kept this a free-but-limited app primarily as an advertising vehicle for their stylus and other products, but even in this early release, they have gone beyond that. And I get the impression they have much more in store for the app. If you have an iPad running iOS 4.2 or later, go ahead and pick up your free copy of Bamboo Paper before the end of June and lets see how this promising app develops!

Also see:
• What's the Best iPad Stylus?
• Graphics Apps for iOS