10 best stylus apps and S Pen apps for Android

The stylus has a cult following on Android. There aren’t a ton of people that use them, but the ones that do love it. The development of stylus apps is at a bit of a standstill right now. Still, there are some great stylus apps out there for them. Let’s take a look at the best stylus apps and S Pen apps for Android.

Adobe Family

Price: Free

The Adobe family has excellent apps for using a stylus. Some of these apps include Adobe Photoshop Sketch, Illustrator Draw, and other creative apps. Other resourceful apps include document scanner, Adobe Fill & Sign, and other business-oriented apps. These are all excellent apps for stylus and S Pen users. They get frequent updates, work fairly well, and most of each app is free. They also integrate well with their desktop counterparts. Thus, if you use Adobe Lightroom on mobile, you can easily make it work with the desktop version as well. However, that does require an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

Autodesk Inc.

Price: Free with in-app purchases

AutoDesk is a popular developer of various creative and professional apps. They have good compatibility with a stylus. The Sketchbook and AutoCAD series of apps are both very useful and powerful applications for designers and artists. The Sketchbook series of apps has also done well on mobile. All these apps include advanced tools, professional-level appeal, and even some fun, quirky features. For instance, AutoCAD 360 lets you orient yourself around your drawing using your GPS. The Autodesk collection has well over a dozen apps for you to check out.

Bamboo Paper

Price: Free /In-app purchases ($0.99 – $5.65 per item)

Bamboo Paper is a drawing and note-taking app from Wacom, a leader in the stylus market. The app turns your phone or tablet into a notebook. You can create various pages, organize them into folders, and write or draw whatever you want. You can also create custom color palettes for your drawings and add photos to your notes, and there is support for Inkspace Plus features if you use them. Still, the app is far from perfect. There seem to be occasional bugs, especially when loading saved images.

DocuSign

Price: Free /In-app purchases ($9.99 – $299.99 per item)

DocuSign is a popular app for PDF forms. It lets you sign and share forms. The app complies with the eSign Act, so documents are legally binding. You can also send unsigned documents to other people and have them sign them. You can use PDF, Word, Excel, and even some types of images as your medium. There are well over half a dozen subscription options.

Gboard

Price: Free

Gboard is one of several good keyboard apps. This one also includes a handwriting input option. You can use your stylus to write your messages. The app then converts it to text and inputs it wherever needed. It works in notes, text messages, searches, and wherever else you can type. It’s a bit of an old-school, niche function, but some people enjoy the act of writing out missives. It’s a simple, elegant solution that fans of the stylus might appreciate.

INKredible

Price: Free /In-app purchases ($1.49 – $4.49 per item)

INKredible is a remarkable drawing and writing app. Its defining features include a palm and wrist rejection feature on Android, ensuring that you have a seamless and natural writing experience. The UI is simple and easy to understand. It also adapts to any resolution, whether for printing or display. While the app isn’t perfect, it’s a good option to use. Best of all, it’s completely free to try, offering an unparalleled drawing experience on your tablet.

LectureNotes

Price: Free /In-app purchases ($5.99 per item)

LectureNotes was once, is currently, and likely always will be the hallmark of a great stylus app. It offers a bunch of features, including image importing, stylus support, notebook export (for sharing) to your device, Evernote, and OneNote, advanced organization features, and more. If you install Lecture Videos and Lecture Recordings, you can also insert video and audio recordings into your notebooks right alongside your notes. It’s extremely powerful and popular. There are also additional plugins that cost extra money. They add more functionality.

MyScript Calculator 2

Price: $2.99

MyScript Calculator 2 is probably the best calculator for stylus and S-Pen fans. You literally write out the equation you want to solve. The app uses OCR to translate it into the equation and then solves it for you. This is mostly good for middle school, high school, and university-level math. However, once you get above trigonometry, the app starts to struggle a lot. Frankly, it’s just fun to watch this app work. You can even copy and paste the solutions (and problems) from this app to other apps without any problems. $2.99 is a steal for an app like this. There are no additional ads or in-app purchases.

RoughAnimator

Price: $5.99

RoughAnimator is an animation app that lets you animate actual moving pictures. The way it works is that you draw something, then add a frame and change things up a bit. Once you’re done, you have a little animated movie. This is one of the few apps capable of doing this. It has specific features for stylus users and direct S Pen support. You can export animation to QuickTime video, GIF, or an image sequence as well. It’s a surprisingly good app despite its lack of popularity. It’s one of those stylus apps that’s worth a shot.

PENUP by Samsung

Price: Free

When it comes to S Pen support, there isn’t a company out there that does it better than its creator, Samsung. Every note device comes packed with a variety of apps that make full use of the S Pen’s features and integration. There are apps for note-taking, GIF-making, and other productivity and creativity-based apps that let you play with the S Pen as it was intended. We recommend that before replacing any of them, you take a good look at them. Most of their features are either difficult to find on the open market or downright impossible. They are just excellent stylus apps.

If we missed any of the best stylus apps or S Pen apps, tell us about them in the comments.