“It’s just a stylus,” David Pierce writes for Wired. “You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise, though. Watching that gorgeous video, listening to Jony Ive tell you in reverent terms how Apple made a pen that feels like every other pen but is nothing like any other pen, you might believe the Apple Pencil is some radical new technology. But it’s just a stylus.”
“These are all things I told myself when I first picked up the perfectly round, perfectly white device and began to scribble on a blank page in the Notes app, filling the 12.9-inch screen of the new iPad Pro. It’s just a stylus. It’s just a stylus,” Pierce writes. “That’s when I noticed the difference between the Pencil and just a stylus: It felt great. Perfect. Better than any stylus I’ve ever used by a wide margin… it’s the first time I’ve ever written on a screen and actually felt like I was writing on the screen. There was almost zero latency, meaning the ink appeared to flow out of the Pencil and not trail half an inch behind. With the tiniest added pressure, the line became the tiniest bit thicker. I tapped on the No. 2 pencil mode, and it wrote and shaded just like all the pencils I used to sharpen with that wall-mounted thing you had to crank.”
“So what gives? How did Apple make a stylus that doesn’t feel like every other stylus? The answer is one of the oldest in the book, the line we’ve used to explain Apple’s success for a decade,” Pierce writes. “The products change, but the upshot doesn’t: Apple can make it better because it controls the hardware and the software.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yup.
Apple’s control of the whole widget (hardware+operating system] guarantees as seamless an experience as possible… Control of the whole widget always was, and still is, one of Apple’s main advantages. — MacDailyNews Take, April 30, 2006
SEE ALSO:
Why artists will flock to iPad Pro and the amazing Apple Pencil – September 11, 2015
Hands-on Apple’s new iPad Pro with Apple Pencil – September 11, 2015
Hands-on with the Apple Pencil for iPad Pro – September 10, 2015
Professional artists cheer the new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil – September 10, 2015
Apple iPads had physical keyboards three and a half years before Microsoft’s Surface tablet debut – September 10, 2015
Wired: Hands-on with Apple’s great, big iPad Pro and Apple Pencil – September 9, 2015
Apple introduces 12.9-inch iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard – September 9, 2015
Cool new iPad case with integrated Bluetooth keyboard further threatens netbooks – August 25, 2010
ClamCase announces all-in-one keyboard, case and stand for Apple iPad (with video) – May 6, 2010
I just wish it was in black that way it could match with the black iPad pro…to me there’s something off about having a white stylus on a black iPad…still I want it 🙂
White so you won’t lose it too easily.
I won’t loose it…I currently have a black Wacom bamboo stylus for note writing on my iPad and I’ve had that thing for 3 years already
PS Wacom bamboo stylus not a very good stylus but it gets the job done. This is why I can wait to replace it with the apple pencil
I freaking LOVE this stylus. So just to get this out of the way, it’s not perfect. It appears to be perfectly cylindrical, which means it will roll off your table or seat-back tray and onto the floor. Every other stylus manufacturer except for Jot has figured this one out! It’s basic. Don’t make it round.
The best styluses feature buttons and an eraser. These are great features because they let you erase or bring up a contextual menu without using the virtual keyboard or whatever. But this is a small gripe that is easily worked around with good software design.
But basically, the Apple Pencil transcends the biggest problems with all of the current iOS styluses. Namely:
1. They don’t do palm rejection properly because it’s impossible without using private methods. Apple, like Samsung and the Surface before it, can do this right.
2. They don’t handle tilt. This is a wicked cool feature that Wacom supports on the Mac and Windows, but no third-party iOS stylus supports.
3. It will work with standard apps like Air Display with no additional changes. Apps that already use the [UITouch majorRadius] method will work correctly without any new code whatsoever. Freaking cool.
4. Unlike third-party pens, this will work with new OSes. For example, Wacom’s SDK crashes on launch on iOS 9. (Seriously. Today, if you download their SDK and build and run their sample app, it will crash on iOS 9. No joke.) I doubt that Apple will make this mistake.
I’m freaking stoked about Apple Pencil.
By the way, you Trump supporters and other conservatives, please don’t respond.
Tell ’em, brother. Hopefully now that Trump has garnered a majority of conservative votes, the world will recognize that Trump’s heartless vitriol exemplifies the hatred they all harbor but are too cowardly to express directly.
Oh and yeah, whatever about the new pencil. I suppose it’s nice or whatever.
Funny you should say that. I disassembled my LG (and my Vizio before that) TV remote and painted the case WHITE, in order to find it easier.
That was very white of you.
It’s not a stylus, even if it looks like one. It’s a magic wand from the land of fairies and unicorns.
As someone who likes to draw, and who likes to take notes, this input device would enable me to do a lot more with the iPad.
This is a game changer for students…within a couple years I think this will be an educational standard. They are gonna sell a ton of these! Can’t wait to get my hands on one!
I think for $99 its crazy high for a stylus. I don’t care what you call it.
I think it should be something like $25 if bought with an iPad pro or say $79 after.
For an ipad pro and a apple pencil I’m at the cost of a macbook air
It will be…. in 2-3 years, once the initial demand is fully realized.
Then don’t buy it, ilovemymac. The decision is yours. You The Man!
You’d love Samsung’s S Pen. They license it from Wacom, using the exact same technology that powers the Surface. It’s frankly amazing. It has no batteries or active circuitry, just passive antennas and feedback loops effectively offering a digital circuit over magnetic resonance. Serious magic indeed. You can produce the S Pen and Surface pen for under a dollar. You know, versus Apple’s price of $99.99.
Samsung….Wacom….Surface…. what a heady mix. Of mediocrity.
So what? The MacBook Air has a completely different use case than what would be needed with a tablet and stylus. This isn’t about cost, it’s about functionality. How much would that MacBook Air cost with the addition of a Wacom tablet and stylus?
Obviously, you’re not a professional illustrator, animator or architect. The value of this is lost on you.
AutoDesk, Solidworks, VectorWorks, etc, please pay attention! Please look at the potential of linking these iPad Pros and Pencils to computers that can stay on our desktops running your full programs but allow us PROs to get some serious work done from anywhere with a good internet connection. Please!
Th BIG question to me is will the Apple Pencil work on older generation iPads like the iPad Air?
The SHORT answer is NO.
Well thats just stupid then.
Apple will be alienating 95% of creative professionals who won’t be getting an iPad Pro or can’t afford one (I won’t be getting one for at least a couple of years as my iPad Air is working fine)
Oh well, will just have to cope with my finger and my Jot Script then… Apple’s loss not mine!
It’s stupid? Because the Pencil requires technology not present in previous iPads?
As a creative I will be getting one once they are available.
I would think that they will keep this technology limited to the iPad Pro for a couple of years and then they will include it in the iPad Air. So the technology wasn’t there when you bought your iPad Air so your not really out anything are you? When your ready to replace it, then maybe the new ones will have it.
As a creative professional, if a tool is available that makes my life easier, then I have to weight its cost and if it makes me more productive then I’m a fool not to buy it. Which is why I abandoned PC’s years ago! But then again, I’m sure there is a market out there for drawings made using stone and chisel.
Not to sound harsh but if you are a creative professional and an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil would make you more productive but you refuse to buy it, then it would be your loss wouldn’t it?
While I think it’s a great device, and I can appreciate the clean aesthetic, it seems to me that it would have been nice to give it a different cap over the lightning connector – some elegant arrangement that we wouldn’t have to worry about losing. Or perhaps a rotating push-out connector that retracts out of harms way.
oh come on. isn’t this just another case of apple ripping off samsung or xiaomi