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Apple Predicted to Launch Optional Stylus Accessory Alongside 12.9-Inch 'iPad Pro'

O Lord, yes please let Apple make a good pressure sensitive pen digitizer for their new tablets.

That was a genuine prayer to the Lord of Hosts, by the way.

This would be a game changer. As an artist I'm using a samsung galaxy note pro right now. But I wish every day that it was apple.
 
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NewtonPippin said:
Sigh... Steve is rolling over in his grave :(
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Why do people keep bringing up Steve? He's been dead for several years and ain't coming back. Move along, carry on.

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TallManNY said:
Can't we just buy a $10 stylus right now for the iPad?
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You can, but it's basically a jury rig hack. With native support, the screen and pen work together to give you excellent tracking and pressure sensitivity. Also, application support should be native.
 
A physical keyboard is often the EXACTLY BEST way of performing some computer functions and — mirabile dictu! — Apple now displays iPads on top of third-party keyboards in at least some stores.

Likewise, a first-class (instantly responsive, high-resolution, pressure-sensitive) stylus is EXACTLY BEST for other tasks; illustration or writing a musical score come to mind.

As my perusal of Surface support forums has shown, getting the stylus right is not falling-off-a-log easy and therefore Apple's is unlikely to be inexpensive for most people who I think will have little use for it. Hence, an option and perhaps only on an iPad Graphics Workstation.
 
andrewjaques said:
Having rewatched the 2007 Jobs iPhone announcement recently, this bit particularly stands out regarding this news:

http://youtu.be/4YY3MSaUqMg?t=10s

"You have to get them, and then put them away... yeuch!"
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Yes but he was talking about a stylus as the main interaction method to control the iPhone. It would indeed be annoying to have to use a stylus every time you did anything on your device.

However, styli have their place. Retouchers, graphic designers, illustrators, animators, architects, etc... all know that using pen and paper is extremely suited for the task, and devices such as the Wacom Intuos and Cintiq are extremely successful for that reason, since they embrace the usefulness of a pen.

The iPad Pro sounds like it is aimed at people (professionals) who create stuff, and many of those people will need a stylus. The human fingers alone may be suitable for pressing buttons and dragging stuff around, but a stylus exponentially increases accuracy (which is not needed for day-to-day interactions like browsing the web), making things like drawing much easier.

This stylus is not a primary way to interact with the iPad. It's a way for those who already use styli or pens, pencils and paintbrushes to keep doing that on the iPad. A larger iPad also makes sense because those who paint and draw tend to prefer larger canvases.
 
thekeyring said:
Yes, because many PDAs require a stylus to do anything. Check email or add a calendar appointment? Update a contact? That's what he was mocking when he introduced the iPhone.
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Rogifan said:
Jobs dismissed the stylus as the primary navigation/input tool on the device. That's different than having it for special use cases like note talking or for artists/graphic designers.
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Yeah the idea was to move away from the requirement of a stylus to operate a handheld touch screen device optimally.

If the original iPhone shipped with one, we'd get some apps that have touch targets that are too small to be used with fingers. Not shipping with a stylus forced devs to make finger-optimized apps first.

The funny thing is that if Apple had included a stylus with the iPhone, I bet that the original Samsung Galaxy and other early "iPhone inspired" Android phones would've included one right from the start.
 
By the way, anyone know if there was any rumor as to what aspect ratio this ipad pro is likely to be?
 
TallManNY said:
Can't we just buy a $10 stylus right now for the iPad? They've been around for a long time, but I don't think I've ever seen someone use one consistently as part of their work process.
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...because they work so poorly.

I've spent upwards of $500 buying styli for my iPad, and none of them has worked satisfactorily. They now lie abandoned in my bottom desk drawer. I finally ended up buying a Surface Pro 3, and it is fantastic for the kinds of detailed notes, drawings, and annotations that I need to do.
 
NewtonPippin said:
Sigh... Steve is rolling over in his grave :(
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Does that mean he's stopped spinning about the extra button functionality of a mouse or an iPhone that will not fit in his pocket now?

Luckily the sound of people not banging their heads on a table because of limited functionality counteracts his rotational stubbornness.

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subjonas said:
I think he was right about that.

And wasn't it 3.5"?
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Which is like saying a Fiat 500 is the perfect sized car for everyone.

I mean why would humans need options? They are all exactly the same and have exactly the same outlooks and needs.
 
TallManNY said:
Can't we just buy a $10 stylus right now for the iPad? They've been around for a long time, but I don't think I've ever seen someone use one consistently as part of their work process.
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Current pens use the capacitative "finger" interface. This proposed product would use special active digitizer interface--like wacom
 
The day Apple releases a stylus for an iPad will be the day I will believe that they don't know what they are doing.
Nobody needs a stylus. There are better methods out there...

I wish Steve was still with us.
 
thekeyring said:
I'm pretty sure windows 8 was the first tablet OS with split screen views.

And before them, any desktop OS had multiple windows.

Don't try and tell me Samsung is the innovator and Apple copies them.
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OK, so they are catching up to MS, not Samsung in this instance. In other contexts they have copied Samsung
 
petvas said:
The day Apple releases a stylus for an iPad will be the day I will believe that they don't know what they are doing.
Nobody needs a stylus. There are better methods out there...

I wish Steve was still with us.
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Tell us all about the better method for marking up a PDF.
 
NewtonPippin said:
Sigh... Steve is rolling over in his grave :(
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I don't see it unless Apple is going to dust off the handwriting recognition from the Newton days and push that. Several companies already have good stylus units that are almost Wacom tablet quality. Nobody sells enough of them for Apple to poach that business on its own.
If anything Apple would "made for iPad" this to have a common set of specs and features for what's already out there.
 
jdawgnoonan said:
I got a Surface Pro 3 for Christmas and my iPad has not left the table where I keep it since and I haven't used my MBP much since either. Not saying that this replaces the MBP for me, but I sure think it could. The current iPad feels like a toy to me, an oversized phone. I use my Surface for taking notes at work (with the active stylus). The handwriting capabilities are amazing. So my Surface is a tablet, a notebook (when I use the type cover), a traveling desktop (when I use my Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad with the Surface on a table), and a desktop (when I have it docked to my 27 inch monitor). I think that it is my favorite computer that I have ever owned. I wish that Apple made something similar.
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Wait till MR coughs up the "ipad pro to have kickstand" rumor. Heads will explode
 
petvas said:
Use a computer with a mouse. Steve knew what usage scenarios are valid for a tablet and what for a desktop computer.
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That's less convenient than pulling out a tablet and doing it quickly at the workplace if you don't have your laptop/desktop out. How about schematics? How about drawing up that quick sketch because you just got an awesome idea for a project?

Seriously, stop acting like Jobs was the god of all knowledge. Better yet, stop pretending he was against the stylus completely. He was against it on a phone as the main source of input. But the patents in question? 2010. He was very much alive at that point.
 
petvas said:
Use a computer with a mouse. Steve knew what usage scenarios are valid for a tablet and what for a desktop computer.
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I know every time I used a highlighter on a book, I always thought "you know, I'd really rather much use a wedged shape thing that controls a disembodied pointer and roughly mimics exactly what I'm doing right now".

Cuz comeon, who needs stylusesses? They've been using those since 50,000 BC or so. I want The Future.
 
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