Astropad

1. Astropad.com/mac
2. Astropad Studio For Windows Download
3. Astropad Blue
4. Astropad Standard
5. Astropad App
6. Astropad Download

how we run astropad as a fully remote company

• Astropad will be your graphic design tablet for your Mac! Draw directly, with no compression, in Photoshop from your iPad. This tool allows you to connect your Mac and your iPad together to create the perfect working space!
• Astropad Studio allows you to replace your traditional graphics or drawing tablet with your iPad. The software connects your iPad to your favorite desktop apps for a seamless drawing experience. Luna Display is a hardware solution that transforms your iPad into a wireless second screen for your desktop.

Remote work is on the rise and it’s definitely a trend that’s here to stay. At Astropad, our company revolves around remote work — not only do we build products for remote workers, but also we’ve been a remote team ourselves since 2013. Along our journey, we’ve experienced the highs and lows (and everything in-between) when it comes to working from home. Through years of trial and error, we’ve established best practices that have propelled us from talented individuals working in different cities to a high-functioning, collaborative team.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll discuss the basics for setting your team up for success: essential software and hardware tools, tips for collaboration, how to successfully onboard new staff, benefits we offer to our team, company retreat logistics, and common struggles we’ve run into. Now, let’s get into it!

Astropad Studio is our award-wining drawing software that turns your iPad into a fully customizable drawing tablet. We first launched Astropad for Mac in 2015; now, we’re bringing Astropad to the Windows creative community. Our beta is still a work in progress, but we’re excited to hear what you think of it!

hardware • software

Getting yourself set up with the right tools is essential for successful remote work. Essential tools for the Astropad team include a laptop, iPad, and internet. Other tools have the power to elevate your desk into a highly-advanced and efficient workspace. Take a look at some of the top tools we recommend for the ideal workspace.

communication

meeting structure • communication guidelines

No team works without effective communication. The importance of strong communication increases with a remote team. In order to prioritize communication, we’ve implemented a number of guidelines to help ease the burden of connecting with teammates over the internet.

workspace setup • building a routine

A question we often get asked is how we stay productive while working from home. The answer depends! Everyone is different, and there are many methods to establish a good work routine when you’re remote. Being open to experimentation is the best way to find what works best for you. Here are some ideas for you to consider.

hiring, onboarding,
& benefits

interviewing • onboarding • core hours • coworking spaces

Many companies will agree that hiring can be complex and time-consuming, and onboarding new employees is often no different. But the same care and organization that go into screening and interviewing people should also be implemented when it’s time for the selected candidate to start. Benefits are also critical for remote employees – including ones that relate to the nature of remote work.

travel logistics • scheduling • post-retreat

While we pride ourselves in our ability to work remote, we also greatly value physical time together. Every six months, we host one-week-long team retreats where everyone gets together to brainstorm, get to know one another better, and have fun as a company. These retreats also serve as a way for us to collaborate together on big projects that might be more difficult to accomplish completely online. Our company retreats also offer us a break from the usual work grind and a chance to bond over meals and conversation.

The Hurdles of Remote Work

At Astropad, we approach remote work with an experimental attitude. We periodically check in with staff for remote work feedback because we know the process can always be improved.

Battling feelings of isolation

While everyone is different, we still see similarities in the struggles remote workers face. Working remotely can make you feel isolated, lonely, and even depressed. At Astropad, we support team members in combatting these very valid feelings in whichever way suits them — whether it be through seeking help at work, taking more frequent breaks, joining a gym, going to therapy, using a meditation app, or something else entirely. To help out, we also put together a self-care guide specifically for the remote work community.

Showing tangible productivity

We’ve also noticed that if you sign off for the day without something tangible to show for yourself, you might feel like you aren’t working hard enough. Some have expressed that they worry others on the team may think they are slacking off if they don’t have project updates to share. Overall, we know that in an office setting, people see you at your desk and that translates to getting work done. Because no one is watching you work from home, it’s easy for self-doubt to creep in and to worry about whether you are underperforming or meeting expectations.

Celebrating as a team

Lastly, there’s no organic way to celebrate team wins. Sure, you can jump on a video call to celebrate or post a congratulatory post on the company Slack channel, but it doesn’t feel the same as celebrating in person. When we get together for our biannual retreats, we make a point of celebrating the team victories from the last six months.

We’re still navigating these struggles and hope to find new solutions to test in an effort to move beyond them. Until then, we’re paying close attention and frequently coming up with novel ways to smooth out the kinks.

What’s Your Take?

We know that we’re not the only company that’s remote-first. We are also aware that many freelancers do this all on their own without the support of a business backing them. What solutions have you found? What are some issues you face working from home? Share your tips and ideas with us on our social media!

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Astropad.com/mac

At a Glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Nearly imperceptible lag when drawing, especially when connected via USB
• Magic Gestures and easy screen manipulation controls

Cons

Astropad Studio For Windows Download

• Yearly fee is pricey for people who use the tool infrequently
• Slight redrawing lag when repositioning active area in the default Retina mode

Our Verdict

Best Prices Today

As a longtime Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom user, I periodically consider buying a digitizer, such as a Wacom tablet, to better take advantage of editing with brushes and other tools that work with pen-based input. I know photographers and artists who swear by them, but it would be a significant expense for my comparatively modest editing needs.

It turns out, though, I already have an excellent pen-based touchscreen device: an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil. More often than not, it’s usually on my desk at home or in my bag at a coffee shop.

Astropad Studio ($79.99 per year) turns that iPad Pro into a digitizer. Most Wacom tablets incorporate a pen-sensitive surface that transmits strokes and taps over a wire. If you want to spend at least $800, the Wacom Cintiq provides a touch-sensitive screen on which to work. (Wacom tablets that don’t incorporate a screen start at around $60.)

Astropad Studio does the same on the iPad Pro you already own, wired or wirelessly. The company also sells Astropad Standard, which works with non-Pro iPad models and costs $29.99 as a one-time purchase.

The Astropad Studio app runs on the iPad Pro and communicates with a sister application on the Mac. When connected—via a Lightning-to-USB cable or with both devices on the same Wi-Fi network—the iPad Pro displays a portion of the Mac’s screen, which you can control using your fingers or an Apple Pencil.

How much you see depends on your screen resolution. When set to 100 percent view, the iOS app reveals only a section, necessitating some window resizing. You can also view the entire Mac screen on the iPad by holding Astropad’s main button and tapping the Fullscreen button, but that means you’re not working 1:1 with the app you’re controlling, which may not be as accurate when drawing. Switching between views and repositioning the active area is simple and quick, however.

It’s important to note that Astropad Studio isn’t limited to specific applications, nor does it require plug-ins or other hooks. The Pencil becomes your mouse pointer, with the ability to pass along Pencil-specific gesture data as needed.

If you’re using Astropad Studio and the iPad Pro as a digitizer, you’ll probably have one hand poised over your keyboard and the other using the iPad. However, you can also control everything from the iPad using an onscreen keyboard, shortcut keys (Command, Option, Shift, Control) that are easily displayed, and quick access to basic commands such as Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, and Paste. Those are the defaults; you can set up any menu item in that space.

Astropad Blue

Further customization is possible through Magic Gestures, actions that involve both finger touches and Pencil drawing. Annoyed that you can’t flip the Apple Pencil over and erase? (Even years out of school where I rarely touch a real pencil, that’s a behavior that will probably never go away.) Activate a tool’s erase function by holding one finger on the screen and drawing with the Pencil. Or touch two fingers on the screen and tap with the pencil to right-click and bring up the contextual menu. You can configure Magic Gestures for other actions, too.

Astropad Standard

All of those features are welcome, but the top consideration with a setup like this is performance. On a 10.5-inch iPad Pro, connected via USB to my late 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, the app reported a 2 millisecond response time. On my home Wi-Fi network, running at 5GHz using an Eero system, that time was 4-5 milliseconds. In both situations while I attempted some quick sketching, there didn’t appear to be any noticeable lag.

Astropad App

Moving the active area around does introduce a slight delay while the screen re-renders; it displays a low-resolution proxy for a second and then the higher-resolution version kicks in. A setting to display a non-Retina version of the screen solves this, as long as you don’t mind a softer image (which mostly manifests itself in software interface items and text).

Bottom line

Astropad Download

Overall, Astropad Studio is an impressive way to incorporate pen input into Mac drawing or image editing. The $80 yearly subscription price feels a bit steep for my personal editing needs, but if you do this kind of work more regularly, it’s entirely justified.