Stylus, evolved: Evernote upgrades handwritten note app Penultimate for its custom stylus

It’s been a long time coming, but Evernote has finally managed to marry its digital note-taking tools with traditional handwriting.

A month after introducing the Adonit Jot Script Evernote Edition stylus, unique for its fine pen-like 1.9 millimeter tip, Evernote announced today that it has updated its Penultimate app with new features to support its new gadget.

Evernote calls the Jot Script the “first true precision-point stylus on the market” (though I’m sure Microsoft would take issue with that statement, since its Surface Pro stylus is also incredibly fine). It’s available for $75 on the Evernote store, and it will begin shipping around November 11.

Most styluses (stylii?) feature tips of around 6 millimeters, which makes writing with them much more awkward than a typical pen. Evernote claims that the Jot Script’s finer tip makes for a more traditional handwriting experience. The pen also supports Bluetooth 4.0, though it’s unclear how Evernote will take advantage of that technology. Technically, sensing the pen’s tip on the screen should be enough for handwriting recognition.

The news comes just after Livescribe unveiled its latest smart pen, which packs in a capacitive stylus on one end for digital note taking (in addition to storing your standard handwritten notes). An Evernote representative tells us that the Jot Script news doesn’t change its relationship with Livescribe, which allows its latest pens to send notes to Evernote.

So why would you spend $75 on a fancy stylus? The major updates to Penultimate, a note-taking app that Evernote bought last year, could be incredibly enticing if you take a lot of hand-written notes. Evernote has upgraded the app to support zooming (just pinch to zoom into a specific section of a note), and the screen also “drifts” with you as you write in zoomed mode, so you don’t have to readjust the screen for longer notes. The company has also added wrist protection to the app, so that it won’t register your wrist as you’re using the stylus.

As the video above shows, there’s still a slight delay when using the Adonit Evernote stylus, but that’s unavoidable when you’ve got a layer of glass between your hand and a writing surface. While most people don’t need to worry about digital hand writing — most likely type faster than they write — Evernote’s stylus and Penultimate app could be a good solution for students and professions where you need to jot down things like diagrams and formulas.

I’ll be taking a look at the Adonit Jot Script soon, so look out for full impressions later on VentureBeat.