Stylus

Stylus is an input device meant to be used on a touch screen to maneuver through the menus. It is similar to a mouse in functionality. Taps, scroll, pan and zoom and other such intelligent touchpad gestures can be mimicked by a stylus. In addition to that users can write or draw on their tablets or other devices having touch screens much like they scribble on paper. Styluses reigned the earth in the millennium of resistive touch screens. State of the art touch screens today, however, are capacitive and thus have eliminated the need to use a stylus. Although capacitive touch screens do not mandate their users to use a stylus they don’t bar its use either! Oftentimes it is more comfortable to have one handy when it comes to writing or drawing/sketching on such a device. Peradventure the habits of the society we have been brought up in have seeped deep into the caverns of our minds, indenting it with indelible grooves! Students generations and generations hence may altogether find our obsession with a ‘pen’ like device counter-intuitive and rather worth a ridicule or two! Using their fingers as the primary input device could have become second nature to them as is working with pens and pencils for us! After all it’s a matter of preference and of becoming accustomed to the prevailing norms; just to fit in with the rest if the jigsaw puzzle! Enough of speculative digression, let’s head back to our own very technical realm – the kingdom of nerds like you and me!

Working principle of device:

Early resistive touch screens required the application of excessive pressure to produce the required effect on the screen. Thus any object that presses hard against the screen could be used but stylus was and is still one’s best bet.

Capacitive touch screens have transformed the way in which we interact with our devices. Instead of relying on the application of physical pressure, these screen detect the change in the electrical field around the screen. The screen is electrically charged and the touch of our fingers will cause the already established field to alter in a specific pre-defined manner. This change is then noted by the underlying circuitry and the touch is detected and processed further for final output. Therefore, the tip of the stylus must be made of a conducting material (to allow the transmission of the electric field) and should be soft at that (to avoid any unintentional damage to the screen by an unscrupulous user).

Device installation and standard configuration: Styluses needn’t be installed. In fact, they are not even connected to the device receiving the input. The only task on the face of this earth that a stylus accomplishes is to provide input to the touch screen by either altering the electrical field around it or by applying physical pressure to the screen itself. These phenomena being physical in nature do not need to simulated into their virtual equivalents. Hence no driver, installation or setup – physical or virtual, whatsoever - is in place.

Cost: Styluses are dirt cheap! Most of them cost below Rs. 500.

Market share of different models (Standard companies only):

Many local companies manufacture styluses and most of them are compatible with almost all kinds of touch screens. Many a times the manufacturer of the tablet/smartphone ship their own styluses along.