In the almost seven months since Apple harbinger the Apple Pencil , I have n’t once been tempted by the stylus . Yes , it ’s an impressive piece of applied science , and yes , I ’ve get wind some truly marvelous things attain with its help . But as someone whose artistic skills never come along much beyond the doodling phase — and really , those doodles are nothing worth putting up on the fridge , much less hazard anywhere beyond the margins of a notebook — it just did n’t seem like the Apple Pencil was for me .
But something amusing happened the other Nox , when I ’d been thinking about some idea for a book I was working on . Lately I ’ve realized that I prefer the innocent - form nature of jot down things on paper , which allows me to easily make diagrams as well as write notes . It ’s also a small more comfortable for , say , loiter on the lounge and writing in a way that typing on a laptop or using the onscreen keyboard of the iPad is n’t .
Would n’t it be great , I mused , if I could just do the same jotting and doodling , but with my iPad ?
Aw , Irish bull . I think I just verbalise myself into an Apple Pencil .
Halfway there
Okay , before I get too far ahead of myself , let ’s take in up a few things . First : there are plenty of third - company styluses usable for iOS devices — I’ve long been a lover of Studio Neat’sCosmonaut — but most of them ca n’t bluster the same precision and have that the Apple Pencil can propose . That ’s because of Apple ’s legendary control of the whole contraption : The Apple Pencil interact in precise way with the filmdom technology on the iPad Pro .
Likewise , since I have an iPad Air 2 and not a newfangled iPad Pro , I ca n’t just go out and purchase an Apple Pencil . So one problem is that in rescript to get the Apple Pencil experience I require , I really have to buy an entirely newfangled iPad , and that ’s just not in the cards right now .
But there ’s an even bounteous take than that , and one that ’s more fundamental to the Pencil and iPad experience : While the Apple Pencil may be peachy for aesthetic oeuvre like draw and sketching , it ’s not always ideal when it come in to handwriting .
The write stuff
What ’s missing from iOS is a systemwide way to handle text input via the Apple Pencil . Yes , you’re able to write anywhere you use the Apple Pencil , but those jottings and notes are give as effigy . That signify that you ca n’t universally search it , blue-pencil it , and so on — which would be handy , since the hand of many people , myself first and foremost , is fairly terrible to begin with .
By comparing , Microsoft has put a lot of effort into build stylus remark into Windows 10 , and make it soft for developer to mix the characteristic into their own apps . Meanwhile , other companies have build “ smart penitentiary ” systems that allow you convert spell schoolbook on composition into digital ink — see Moleskine ’s Smart Writing Set — but they ask additional machine and often especial paper . There are also third company solution : iOS apps like Microsoft ’s own OneNote and Evernote , which have spring up ways to digitize hand and make it searchable , andMyScript , which offer fabric for developers to utilise as well as its own apps .
Apple itself is no unknown to hand recognition . In the ’ 90s , the company ’s much - maligned Newton PDA boasted handwriting - to - textual matter conversion , and though it never quite recuperate from the mocking it received in its other error - prostrate twenty-four hours , the feature actually became quite solid in later year . Indeed , it was the basis for an OS decade - based version of handwriting identification , a technology called Inkwell or Ink , which to this day lies dormant in every copy of OS X ( you call for to link up a graphics tablet in order for it to show up ) .
And yet even with the debut of the Apple Pencil , which would seem like a natural use to revive this technology , Apple has n’t delve back into script recognition . Part of that is no doubt because Steve Jobs famously lambasted stylus - base interfaces — though I have no doubt that if he were around today , he ’d exalt the Apple Pencil “ the style done right . ”
Another part is that we ’ve developed so many forms of input — keyboard , touchscreens , trackpads , voice port , and so on — that the pen is seen by many as antediluvian . But the truth is that in many cases , it still remain the best dick for the job — specially when that business is jot down quick note without having to concern about autocorrect bollixing everything up .
Take note!
For the moment , I ’m amaze with pen and theme for my freeform note - taking . That might change when I someday own an iPad that actually work with the Pencil , or if Apple decides to heavily emphasize stylus input in , say , iOS 10 . I look forward to being able to fire up Apple ’s own Notes app , jot affair down with the Apple Pencil , and perhaps export those out to another app in textbook manikin .
It ’s hardly out of the question . It seems all too plausible to me that Apple will decide that the Apple Pencil is popular enough to go back to the ( Ink)well for script recognition . In the meantime , I ’ll just continue to purge jealous glances in the direction of my more aesthetic colleague .
