Apple Pencil

The New Apple Pencil Gestures Are Pretty Bad →

December 17, 2018 · 09:17

Steve Troughton-Smith:

The new Apple Pencil gestures are pretty bad, accidentally invoked all the time; think I’m gonna disable it. Should have had a button.

I disabled mine. Turns out that I like to give my Pencil a single tap from time to time, which is more often registered as a double tap for some reason. Perhaps this happens when I move it around a little too vigorously, when preparing to use it, and the movement itself (with the shock of resting my palm on the iPad’s screen) registers as the first tap.

Apple Pencil Hacks →

April 12, 2016 · 12:25

Myke Hurley:

By this point, my love of the Apple Pencil has been well documented, and it is now an essential part of the iPad experience for me.

I use my Apple Pencil for taking notes, sketching out ideas, and for navigating the iOS user interface. The latter use of my Apple Pencil is the one that’s most important to me. After having used a Wacom tablet on a Mac for the last 6-8 months, I have come to truly appreciate the benefits of pen input. The fact that the Apple Pencil lets me do this, is easily my favourite use of the device.

As with most devices that I love, I have taken it upon myself to make some customisations to it, and the iPad Pro it is connected to.

Love the skin.

15 Year Zoe Olson Uses Her iPad Pro and Apple Pencil to Illustrate a Book; Tim Cook Complements Her Work →

March 23, 2016 · 18:14

Zoe Olson:

Before getting my hands on the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, I didn’t even know that I wanted to be a professional artist! Real paints were too messy and frustrating, and a Wacom Cintiq was too bulky and expensive for a career in art to be worth it to me. The iPad Pro has eliminated all excuses. It is the best of both worlds.

Her skills are amazing!

Apple: Pencil Support for Navigating iOS UI Will Return in Next Beta →

February 24, 2016 · 16:44

Chris Welch received an official statement from Apple regarding navigating the UI with the Apple Pencil, which I mentioned recently:

Apple Pencil has been a huge hit with iPad Pro users, who love it for drawing, annotating and taking notes. We believe a finger will always be the primary way users navigate on an iPad, but we understand that some customers like to use Apple Pencil for this as well and we’ve been working on ways to better implement this while maintaining compatibility during this latest beta cycle. We will add this functionality back in the next beta of iOS 9.3.

This is good news. Whatever the real reason, I’m glad it’s here to stay.

Stolen Pencils →

November 25, 2015 · 09:26

Adarsh Verma:

People visiting the Apple Stores are reporting that the most of the demo units are stolen. “Yesterday saw guy next to me steal a limited supply Apple pencil demo unit. Employees didn’t bother chasing him,” a Twitter user tweeted. A Reddit user IMPRNTD said, “[m]y local store in Canada mentioned that most of the Apple Pencils were stolen.”

Pathetic, but to be expected. I’m assuming future demo units will have some sort of proximity sensor / alarm built-in.

The Apple Pencil as a Writing Tool →

November 23, 2015 · 15:48

Myke Hurley:

To really see what the Pencil is capable of, the best place to try it is in iOS’ built-in Notes app. The drawing mode that you can activate only features a modest selection of tools and options, but is by far the most responsive experience. Using the Apple Pencil in Notes is the closest I have ever come to getting a true handwriting experience from a digital device.

To say there is no lag would be incorrect, but it is close enough to feel that it works. When you move the Pencil across the screen, most lines will travel ever so slightly behind it. But compared to previous experiences of using a stylus on a iPad, the difference is like night and day.

My Pencil delivery date can’t come soon enough—4 weeks to go.

I also tried out a selection of drawing apps, just to see what the Pencil was capable of. I spent most of my time in Paper by FiftyThree, Adobe Photoshop Sketch, Procreate, Tayasui Sketches, and Zen Brush 2. The responsiveness of the Pencil really differed in each of these apps, with Paper by FiftyThree being the worst.

Am I the only who is curious which one was the best?

Update

And Myke responded to my question while recording Upgrade in their IRC channel:

[18:14] <imyke> Morid1n: the notes app is good. I also like Notability and GoodNotes.

Seems that Notes is the way to go.

iFixit tears down the Apple Pencil →

November 20, 2015 · 18:01

iFixit:

What is this—a logic board for ants? Not quite, but weighing in at a whopping 1.0 gram it’s definitely the smallest we’ve ever seen.

Waiting for mine to arrive which should take only 4-5 weeks, which means that I have to make do with iFixit’s excellent teardowns.