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Provides: Writing/drawing tablet functionality on your MacBook multi-touch trackpad
Format: Download
Developer: Ten One Design
Minimum System Requirements: MacBook with multitouch (or a Wacom tablet), Mac OS X Snow Leopard, Pogo Sketch (or similar soft-tip touch device
Price: $6.95
Availability: Now
Version Reviewed: 1.4

This is certainly an odd little program. Its complete reason for being is to increase the functionality of Ten One Design’s Pogo Sketch, a soft-tip touch device designed mainly for iPhone use. Why would you want such a pen? Well, so you can use your iPhone while wearing gloves, to prevent your screen from getting greasy, for increased precision when typing, and so on. But Autograph has nothing to do with the iPhone. Rather, this application turns the Pogo Sketch into a MacBook peripheral.

Launching the app reveals a small gray box.

Using the Pogo Sketch, you can now doodle on your MacBook multi-touch trackpad. Draw a little picture, if you like, but the main selling point here is the ability to quickly and easily add your signature to a document. Well, somewhat easily, anyway. The software lags behind your pen stroke, and looking at the screen while signing on the trackpad is a bit awkward. So although you can sign your name, it’ll be a pretty clumsy autograph you’re sending out there.

There are a few preferences you can tweak, such as the stroke width and writing velocity, and you can choose to have your signature/drawing saved as a PNG or PDF to the desk or automatically added to the currently active program.

Launching Autograph doesn’t pop up the interface. Rather it simply places it in the menu bar for you to activate via the mouse or a keystroke combo. I found it useful to have the app launch on startup, but even that’s not necessary if you rarely use it. Either after you add your signature, the program fades back into the background or you can just shut it down altogether.

So, how often do you need to sign computer documents? Do you already have a Pogo Sketch? Do you have a Wacom tablet that provides this functionality, more or less? These are all questions you have to ask yourself when considering whether you need Autograph. It’s a decent app at a great price and it does exactly what it says it will, albeit in a sloppy fashion. I don’t mean that Autograph itself is sloppy; it’s actually quite clean and streamlined. Rather, using this method, it’s hard to not be sloppy when trying to sign your name. Thankfully, you can at least indicate whether you’re right or left handed, and have the app ignore hand placement if you actually brush the touchpad with your palm.

If you’ve got a Pogo Sketch and a MacBook, you may as well grab Autograph. It’s only $7.00, after all. But I wouldn’t use this as incentive to buy a Pogo Sketch unless you know you’ll get touch device use out of it, too. (And you will, if you have an iPhone or iPod touch; the Pogo Sketch is quite a handy little device.)