Astropad released today a free public beta of their upcoming app; Slate.

Slate allows you to transform your iPad into a non-screen tablet (like a Wacom Intuos) or a trackpad for your Mac.

All you need to do is to download the app (which is free, for now) for both the iPad and Mac and connect them via Wi-Fi, Peer-to-Peer networking or cable.

I tested out, still beta of course, so not many expectations right now.

As a trackpad it works fairly well, you can use one finger to control the mouse cursor, tap the screen with one finger to click, two fingers to scroll, etc. Essentially, a trackpad.

As a non-screen tablet, well, it kinda works, but not as good as I expected (again, it's beta). Apparently, there's no support for pen tilt. I also couldn't find a way to adjust the pressure curve of the Apple Pencil. I guess if you only need to do line art, that's fine.

Overall, I quite like the idea behind Slate, and giving Astropad history, they'll add more features overtime, which is nice.

Looking forward for this one.