Draw on your Mac using Apple Pencil and iPad with new Astropad Slate

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Make your iPad and Apple Pencil into a drawing pad for your Mac with Astropad Slate.
Photo: Astropad

Astropad Slate turns an iPad and Apple Pencil into a drawing tablet for a Mac.

There’s no need to purchase a basic Wacom tablet or a similar accessory when the iPad and pen you already own can be used to draw into desktop creative application.

Astropad Slate simulates a Wacom

“The idea for Slate came about in 2022 when Apple announced new iPads with Apple Pencil hover. It got us thinking about the traditional no-screen pen tablets that so many artists start their creative journeys with. We set out to bring that same experience to iPad,” said Astropad.

The company’s newly launched Slate application allows the user to control the cursor on their Mac with Apple Pencil and touch gestures, like pinch to zoom. Think of it as turning the iPad into a very large trackpad.

Of course, it supports Apple Pencil hover on newer iPads, and simulated hover on older iPads.

And Astropad Slate can turn handwriting on the iPad into typed text on the Mac.

If the application sounds familiar, it was announced in fall 2023, and has been in beta testing since then. It had over 8,200 users during the four-month beta.

Available now

Astropad Slate launched Thursday on the App Store. It comes with a one-time purchase of $19.99 — no subscription required.

There are versions for the desktop and the tablet, and birth are required. The iPad must be running iPadOS 15 or later, while the Mac needs macOS Big Sur 11 or later.

For more information, visit the developer’s website.

The software is from the same company that developed Astropad Studio and Luna Display — other tools to allow iPad and Mac to interoperate.