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Apple Pencil Offers High Precision and Low Latency, Gains 30 Minutes of Use From 15-Second Charge

Makosuke said:
They pretty much already do? The Surface Pro 3 comes with an active pen with 256 levels of pressure sensitivity and four buttons, and I believe the screen has a Wacom digitizer built in such that it's fairly accurate. It's fairly similar in both function and how it works to the Apple Pencil, but with no angle sensor. Its main disadvantage is latency, although I suspect that has as much to do with the tablet running Windows as the pen and digitizer hardware.

Wacom's high-end Intuos tablet-monitors, for their part, have fine-grained pressure-sensitivity and can detect 60 levels of tilt in the pen (which I believe is passive in this case, thanks to fancier hardware in the screen at the cost of a little more distance from glass to pixels and an extremely expensive device), so the capabilities are similar to the Apple Pencil. Wacom also sells the Creative Stylus 2, which is a battery-powered, pressure-sensitive Bluetooth stylus with a replaceable battery for iPads for $80. It also lacks tilt sensitivity, but is otherwise in direct competition with the Pencil, and an alternative for those with non-Pro iPads.

Point being not that the Pencil isn't a good product--it seems very nice from the short videos and what it claims to do--just that what it does do isn't globally unique, and the method it uses to do it also isn't unique. What is currently unique is the pro-grade features for a tablet OS (to date, all competing tablet styluses have not had angle sensors), and the tightly integrated combination of tablet computer, stylus, and software that should--theoretically--combine to make it work very smoothly at a very reasonable price (again, to date, the closest parallels would be the Surface Pro 3, which suffers from running Windows, and the Cintiq, which is a monitor, not a tablet computer).
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Apple Pencil senses pressure, orientation, and tilt angle. Low latency at 240Hz. I'm saying wow now!
 
There's a lot of misunderstanding from some people regarding how the Wacom tablets work. The screen isn't "pressure sensitive" .. The tablet bounces a signal with the pen which is doing some crazy electromagnetic stuff. The pen is powered by resonant coupling, and is every bit as "active" as the battery powered pens.

https://www.tablet4u.co.uk/techinfo.html - wacoms aren't industry standard because "they'll do" - they're pretty damn great. The tilt and pressure sensing aren't really likely to be surpassed by the iPad pro, honestly.

The fact that the Wacom doesn't need batteries does not decrease its accuracy. The reason Apple and other tablet manufacturers haven't used the same tech is Wacom patented the hell out of this approach.
 
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ralphabet said:
I agree that the "no stylus" quote has been used in the wrong context. He was talking about phones that need a stylus as an input device to navigate around. Making one as an option to write/draw/paint on an iPad makes perfect sense and was long over due.

I'm hoping that in the future we'll be able to tether it to the Mac like a Cintiq
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No he wasn't, he was specifically talking about tablets. Watch his video online and you will see clearly that tablet input was being discussed.
 
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schopaia said:
95 posts in and nobody has explained why it needs a battery. So how is that "obscenely ignorant".
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I'm pretty sure it's been explained in several different posts.

In short, the pressure sensor and angle sensor of the pen are run by the battery, and the wireless connection to the iPad allows it to communicate this data to the computer. Putting these active sensors on the pen rather than in the screen allows the screen itself to be simpler and cheaper to manufacture, which reduces the price of the iPad, and probably also benefits in reducing the thickness of the device and distance between the top surface of the screen and the pixels beneath, which in turn minimizes parallax (note that parallax is is a real problem on Cintiq drawing tablets). There may also be an accuracy or latency advantage for the pen or angle sensors, but I don't know about that for sure. Another possible benefit is that the device can tell the difference between the pen and a hand more accurately, to differentiate types of touch and ignore a palm.

So, the reason is: Definitely cheaper and simpler iPad hardware, almost certainly reduced thickness of the iPad and less parallax when drawing on the screen, quite possibly more accuracy in the angle sensor, and maybe better unwanted hand-input rejection and lower latency.

This is almost certainly the same reason that Microsoft uses a battery-powered pen (it has not one but three non-rechargeable batteries, in fact) for the Surface Pro 3, which still lacks the tilt sensitivity.

It also probably goes part of the way toward explaining why a Cintiq with a similar 13" screen to the iPad and similar capabilities to the Pencil but with a passive pen costs the same amount as the iPad even though it's twice the size and weight, has a lower-spec screen, and doesn't have an entire computer and all the ancillary hardware included in the package. You could estimate, based on what Wacom charges for the stylus and what a similar 13" 1080p IPS monitor might cost, that you're paying Wacom in the ballpark of $500 for just the digitizer.

mixel said:
The reason Apple and other tablet manufacturers haven't used the same tech is Wacom patented the hell out of this approach.
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I appreciate the extra info about how Wacom pens work, although I'm not at all sure about that being the reason Apple went with this approach.

For one thing, based on the cost of a Cintiq, that technology is apparently extremely expensive (it's certainly not that they're overcharging--Wacom rarely turns more than a 10% profit as a company, and actually lost money this quarter). For another, even if it wasn't, it would almost certainly increase the physical thickness of the iPad Pro and offload the cost of hardware to power the stylus to the device, rather than pen buyers (and Wacom pens are still expensive, anyway).

And besides that, if Apple really wanted the technology, they could get it--the entire company of Wacom has a market cap of a bit over half a billion dollars, so they could quite easily have just bought the company (and are known for doing that) if they really wanted the tech and Wacom refused to license it.
 
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Makosuke said:
I'm pretty sure it's been explained in several different posts.

In short, the pressure sensor and angle sensor of the pen are run by the battery, and the wireless connection to the iPad allows it to communicate this data to the computer. Putting these active sensors on the pen rather than in the screen allows the screen itself to be simpler and cheaper to manufacture, which reduces the price of the iPad, and probably also benefits in reducing the thickness of the device and distance between the top surface of the screen and the pixels beneath, which in turn minimizes parallax (note that parallax is is a real problem on Cintiq drawing tablets). There may also be an accuracy or latency advantage for the pen or angle sensors, but I don't know about that for sure. Another possible benefit is that the device can tell the difference between the pen and a hand more accurately, to differentiate types of touch and ignore a palm.

So, the reason is: Definitely cheaper and simpler iPad hardware, almost certainly reduced thickness of the iPad and less parallax when drawing on the screen, quite possibly more accuracy in the angle sensor, and maybe better unwanted hand-input rejection and lower latency.

This is almost certainly the same reason that Microsoft uses a battery-powered pen (it has not one but three non-rechargeable batteries, in fact) for the Surface Pro 3, which still lacks the tilt sensitivity.

It also probably goes part of the way toward explaining why a Cintiq with a similar 13" screen to the iPad and similar capabilities to the Pencil but with a passive pen costs the same amount as the iPad even though it's twice the size and weight, has a lower-spec screen, and doesn't have an entire computer and all the ancillary hardware included in the package. You could estimate, based on what Wacom charges for the stylus and what a similar 13" 1080p IPS monitor might cost, that you're paying Wacom in the ballpark of $500 for just the digitizer.
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I feel like an apple/Wacom alliance would allow for the Wacom style screen/tablet matrix to be shrunk, the parallax to be reduced and the whole package made cheaper, but that'll never happen sadly. Wacom don't have the insane economy of scale and resources Apple can throw at this, but they do have a bunch of patents that stop Apple from iterating on their ideas.

I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing really.
 
H2SO4 said:
Gotta give them nothing but respect if you really can get 30 mins out of 15 seconds from flat. If it works on more than the Pro, I’m in!!
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It requires so little power that I don't see how this is impressive.

I think you're confused and think that it's charging the iPad when it's the other way around.
 
BuddyTronic said:
Not sure how much processing power on the iPad it needs, not sure if it is truly a Bluetooth device even, but probably it's close to being able to work on other iOS devices. haha.

But the Apple website says it is made for the iPad Pro - specifically....

So why would that be...

Hmmm

Maybe it is using that fitness coprocessor or maybe it needs lots of horsepower and that's why it is iPad Pro only?

I didn't actually pay that much attention to this thing, but the more I look the more I am interested.

Sure enough just like the multiple guys who say "it doesn't need a battery", I am finding that the pencil has more to it than I thought.

I guess that's why it's $100 and not $4.00.


It senses pressure, orientation, and tilt.
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If it's horsepower, today's A9X becomes yesterday's A9X when the A10 will blow it away...
1429233-a_10_19990422_f_7910d_517.jpg
 
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Makosuke said:
They pretty much already do? The Surface Pro 3 comes with an active pen with 256 levels of pressure sensitivity and four buttons, and I believe the screen has a Wacom digitizer built in such that it's fairly accurate. It's fairly similar in both function and how it works to the Apple Pencil, but with no angle sensor. Its main disadvantage is latency, although I suspect that has as much to do with the tablet running Windows as the pen and digitizer hardware.

Wacom's high-end Intuos tablet-monitors, for their part, have fine-grained pressure-sensitivity and can detect 60 levels of tilt in the pen (which I believe is passive in this case, thanks to fancier hardware in the screen at the cost of a little more distance from glass to pixels and an extremely expensive device), so the capabilities are similar to the Apple Pencil. Wacom also sells the Creative Stylus 2, which is a battery-powered, pressure-sensitive Bluetooth stylus with a replaceable battery for iPads for $80. It also lacks tilt sensitivity, but is otherwise in direct competition with the Pencil, and an alternative for those with non-Pro iPads.

Point being not that the Pencil isn't a good product--it seems very nice from the short videos and what it claims to do--just that what it does do isn't globally unique, and the method it uses to do it also isn't unique. What is currently unique is the pro-grade features for a tablet OS (to date, all competing tablet styluses have not had angle sensors), and the tightly integrated combination of tablet computer, stylus, and software that should--theoretically--combine to make it work very smoothly at a very reasonable price (again, to date, the closest parallels would be the Surface Pro 3, which suffers from running Windows, and the Cintiq, which is a monitor, not a tablet computer).
Click to expand...
That is the advantage of being both the hardware and the software company. The hardware guys can tell the software guys what's what, and the software guys can let them know that they need what they need.

Going across company lines, there is an inherent "what's best for my company" mentality, and furthermore, the "what are they telling our competitors about us, even inadvertently" fear. It's destructive collaboration, or collaboration by fear.

I've seen it in that industry, and it builds up distrust and makes people dispirited, especially when they find out that they've been used to make a competitor, that wasn't going to lose the contract anyway, have to step up their game. A simple problem can take weeks to solve, as each side is not only figuring out who can say what, and then the interfaces people try to say only what they think is germane to the problem. True problem solving gets people brainstorming, and that takes people not being afraid and self-censoring.

Apple has that advantage: They make the hardware and software for these devices, so they can know all of the ins and outs of the device. Problem? Get everyone in the room, and since they're under the Apple NDA, rather than cross company ones, and solve it. The word, "can't" isn't accepted, and trust and knowledge is gained.

Ha! Look at me, being all philosophical...
 
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Hey, talk-with-your-hands morons who make these hands on videos: Stop talking and gesturing with your hands. Your stupid hand flopping around the shot the entire time is idiotic and annoying as hell. How you do not realize this?

So many people seem to lack such basic common sense.
 
apolloa said:
Aham...... From Steve Jobs himself, no mistake quoting, he states for tablets if you need a stylus you've already failed.

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Quoting Steve Jobs is all good and well, but when doing it, please do it thoroughly and do not forget "Do not ask yourself what would Steve do, just do what is right" because it seems to me that is exactly what this slim guy who runs Apple now is doing...
 
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iPad Pro 2 will have 6 speakers, slot-in Apple Pencil, 24" screen, 4D Touch, Live Photo S, and green housing...

Innovative.
 
Lone Deranger said:
Its looking pretty slick. However, not having a rocker-switch (or buttons of any kind) will limit the pencil's usage. Especially for 3D applications. It will be interesting to see how/if developers can work around this disappointing (but not unexpected... it is Apple after all) short-coming.
Good palm-rejection is crucial and has a big impact on how pleasant this stylus will be to use, especially for longer drawing sessions and/or fine and precise work.
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That will come in Apple Pencil 2.
 
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Lennholm said:
Gotta love how the fanboys now suddenly invent this "context" now that it's suitable. Jobs's original critique of styli, i.e. "You have to take 'em out, you have to put 'em away, you lose 'em, yuck! Nobody wants a stylus", sounds pretty universal to me.
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Yup. Anytime the competition has something a idevice doesn't have they ridicule it and brush it off as a gimmicky and unnecessary feature. But then when a idevice gets it, it's the best thing since sliced bread.

People made fun of phablets on this forum. Now they are the best.

Fanboys/girls made fun of NFC. Now it is revolutionary technology that is making their lives easier.

They made fun of the surface for its attachable keyboard and pen. Now that the iPad pro has it they are praising it.

Product loyalty blinds people.
 
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Oh wow, that pencil looks quite awesome. I'm just afraid they'll (the pencil and the iPad Pro) cost an arm and a leg in Finland. I still want one, though.
 
I see a lot of people breaking the charging port on the stylus or losing the cap - why didn't they use induction charging?
 
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