Jaadu VNC maybe? It's a remote screen sharing (and controlling!) application for the iPhone, and I've heard they're coming out with an iPad version. I know I'm planning on experimenting with it in terms of digital art applications. With programs like photoshop, there will probably be some lag. But that might not be as bad using the Vine-Jaadu server, which supposedly allows for a faster refresh rate than using the Mac OS screen sharing feature.
In a nutshell... no. At least not until some future version of the iPad. The key for the wacom tablet is that it's pressure sensitive (actually, the pen is pressure sensitive). The iPad works via capacitive touch. These are two very different technologies. You'd have to add some technology to the ipad that could sense how hard you're pressing. Such things do exist, but my guess is that we won't see it anytime soon in an ipad.
But the Wacom tablet is pressure sensitive, and designed for a pen. The iPad is neither.You need very fine pressure sensitivity to make a line drawn on a computer look anything like a line drawn with a pencil.
Because of that I don't think you could ever get the kind of subtle effects in your lines drawing on an iPad that you can drawing on even the cheapest Wacom tablet. Paint programs on the iPhone are kind of smudgy watercolor looking things, which work well, but lack strong drawn lines.
So if you mean will the iPad develop into something that could replace even a cheap drawing tablet, no. If you mean can the iPad develop into something that you can draw on, it already is.
Why would you want to connect it to a Mac to use as a tablet? Wouldn't it be better to have a streamlined version of Photoshop for the iPad itself, so you can look directly down at where you're drawing? That's what I want.
I think we have cause to hope that this may not be the case. Ten One Design successfully made a program called Inklet that registers pressure sensitivity with the Pogo Sketch on a Macbook trackpad. Not sure how it works, but the pressure sensitivity is definitely there. I wrote about it here. The company is working on something for the iPad, though they're not telling what yet.
ETA: Now, because the Pogo Sketch is blunt and nubby, I know it isn't going to have the same accuracy as writing with a Wacom stylus, probably. Just wanted to point out that we don't need to rule out pressure sensitivity for the iPad, at least not if 3rd party developers can help it. I really think they'll do it! There's way too much demand for it for them to ignore it.
Not really. On a Wacom tablet, it's the pen that is pressure sensitive. The tablet surface itself just has the pen support EMR layer.How do they implement pressure sensitivity on a pressure insensitive device? Some clever area algorithm should be at play I would think.
I agree, especially given the motor-coordination advantages of being able to see your work in real-time on the surface of the pad.I think people overestimate the importance of pressure sensitivity in well designed art software.
The Pogo stylus is designed for the iPhone UI, which is itself designed around a human finger. A different stylus would be necessary for artwork purposes.
With proper software support, I can see many users of the Bamboo line or older Intuos/Graphire products buying an iPad just for use as an art tablet, especially since it can double as a sketch book and a demo portfolio totally independent of a computer.