Pogo Stylus gives iPhone the finger

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Monday, 03 December 2007 21:55

Your IT - Mobility

If you wished your iPhone could be used with a stylus, whether you’ve got long fingernails, fat fingers, because you like to wear gloves in winter, or because you simply want a stylus, Pogo have jumped in with the first stylus that works on the iPhone's screen.
When Steve Jobs announced at the January 2007 Macworld that the iPhone wouldn’t come with a stylus and would be exclusively finger-tip controlled, some wished the stylus hadn’t died and that one could somehow still be made to work on the iPhone’s screen.

Now, nearly a year later, Ten One Design LLC have unveiled the US $24.95 Pogo Stylus with matching clip that clips onto the back of the iPhone and the iPod Touch, with sales seemingly only currently available from the Ten One Pogo site with delivery through the mail.

Quite how the Pogo manages to simulate the input needed from a live finger isn’t explained at Pogo’s site, the creators say that the soft and durable tip of the stylus has been “engineered using a patent-pending technology to simulate the touch of a finger on the Multi-Touch display”.

They readily admit that it isn’t a ‘real’ answer but is instead 'management speak for a trade secret' which they’re not yet willing to divulge, undoubtedly lest competitors figure it out and start churning out copies.  

Ten One Design say that the Pogo stylus is ideal for tapping the on-screen keyboard letters for SMS messages, Notes, email, entering URLs, or any other use of the keyboard, and is ‘precision-formed to the perfect size for keyboard keys’.

The stylus is also said to be great for playing iPhone and iPod Touch games, navigating photos, lists and web pages, letting you pan, scroll, select menus and make a selection, and zoom by double-tapping, with multi-touch zooming not possible with only ‘one’ finger.

The tip can also be used to ‘buff away’ an ‘accidental finger smudge’.

The Pogo’s body is constructed using a lightweight aluminum alloy, with an anodised finish in three colours of black, silver or gunmetal.

How successful the Pogo Stylus will be, and how soon competitors will figure out how to offer a similar stylus is yet unknown, although there’s no doubt the stylus will appeal to some users out there.

Some women I've shown the iPhone to have had long or long-ish fingernails that have made using the iPhone's screen more difficult that it should be, especially when other touch screen devices usually have no problem with the input from a fingernail, so clearly there is a market for a stylus that makes using the iPhone and iPod Touch easier - I wouldn't mind trying one out myself!

Ten One Design also make PogoNotes software, which is a free and web-based notes application for the iPhone or computers running Safari or Firefox, which can also be shared for viewing by other friends using the PogoNotes service.