ESR Launches $30 Apple Pencil Alternative With Find My

God people here are insane and love giving Apple their money.

If you want an Apple Pencil Pro, this is obviously not for you. But it is very comparable to an Apple usb-c pencil (better even) while being significantly less expensive. It’s a good option for a lot of people who are very casual (or occasional) pencil users.

Im using a $12 3rd party pencil right now. The first one I got didn’t write well on my iPad mini 7 without skipping but the second one works like a charm and feels exactly like my old Apple Pencil 1. I don’t think anyone should be buying the usb-c Apple Pencil. Get the Apple Pencil pro if you care about all the fancy features, or get a 3rd party pencil like this one by ESR which is probably going to be slightly nicer than the cheaper one I got.
 
There are MANY pencils just like this (except for the Find My feature) on Amazon for half the $30 price. I think I paid about $12 for mine. It works fine with tilt but no pressure.

What is new here is "find my" support.
 
aforty said:
How often do they need to charge with light use?
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With VERY light use the main problem is the battery might self-discharge in a few weeks. If you are a student and use it in school all day, then "several days"

But of course, I have not tested EVERY pencil, that said, I'd bet most of these third-party pencils are made in the same factory. So many of them look identical. But in general battery life does not seem to be a big problem
 
3Gmatt said:
Nice. Perfect for the kid. I’m surprised there aren’t more 3rd party pencil options.
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There are endless hundreds of people selling pencils like this at all different price points. Do a search on Aliexpress or Amazon. You will see dozens of them. Thsi one at $30 is at the higher end of the price range.

What I've wondered is if these pencils all are made in the same factory and then rebranded or if a dozen engineers at a dozen companies independently came up with nearly the same design.

My guess is they use the same chip inside but about 3 or 4 places make them and many get rebranded

Xhina is like that it is a huge network or companies that informally cooperate, one maght make the electronics, one might make the plastic part and some other buy these and assemble them and then sell the assembled product to a wholesalers and so on until you see it on Aliexpress or Amazon.

Apple is different because they control the entire process from design to retail, China is exactly the opposite of this. It is the new Wild West. Companies are founded and go broke at a high rate, employee don't care because they just move next door and work for the new company.
 
ChrisA said:
There are endless hundreds of people selling pencils like this at all different price points. Do a search on Aliexpress or Amazon. You will see dozens of them. Thsi one at $30 is at the higher end of the price range.

What I've wondered is if these pencils all are made in the same factory and then rebranded or if a dozen engineers at a dozen companies independently came up with nearly the same design.

My guess is they use the same chip inside but about 3 or 4 places make them and many get rebranded

Xhina is like that it is a huge network or companies that informally cooperate, one maght make the electronics, one might make the plastic part and some other buy these and assemble them and then sell the assembled product to a wholesalers and so on until you see it on Aliexpress or Amazon.

Apple is different because they control the entire process from design to retail, China is exactly the opposite of this. It is the new Wild West. Companies are founded and go broke at a high rate, employee don't care because they just move next door and work for the new company.
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Not quite. What’s more likely happening is a number of smaller factories sourcing parts of different quality based on similar schematics. The reason you’re see such a big variability in pricing likely depends on what that particular manufacturer decided to skimped out on (or how unscrupulous the reseller is).

In this case though, ESR has actually made quite a few high quality cases and accessories that I’ve owned that have unique original designs by the company (at least, I couldn’t find anything similar on AliExpress or similar). I would trust their iPad stylus’s quality much more than more other knockoffs.
 
The Pencil/stylus from ESR looks very much like the Apple Pencil. At $30 can be a very good alternative for basic functions. The MagMouse is interesting but would have liked it if the mouse itself were having magnets. But not happy with the idea of permanently having a base stuck on the lid of the MacBook.
 
AppliedMicro said:
Plus, they won‘t be subject to Apple‘s whims on making their accessories with future iPad generations.
Prepare to write off your Magic Keyboards and Pencils once Apple yet again changes a few magnets.
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It wasn’t done on a whim. People clamored for a landscape camera on the iPad, Apple listened, and the new magnets was the resulting necessary hardware change. This was discussed to death on these forums.
 
Anyone know about the magnet placement on this, and whether it's compatible with the M2 Air?

As in, will it stick properly to the iPad - I have a Metapen that works perfectly with the Mini 6, but barely holds on to the M2 Air.
 
HJM.NL said:
It’s time for Apple to open things up so we can use better cheaper alternatives with all the capabilities Apple has to offer. I hate it they keep things locked for the only purpose to buy their expensive gear.
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Is it merely a matter of flipping a switch though?
 
klasma said:
Find My can be licensed from Apple.
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Right, it's certifiable as part of the MFi program I mentioned in my post. But I wasn't really worried about that functionality (worst case should just be that it doesn't work, I suppose?) but rather the rest of the device itself. Some of the other "clones" I've seen seem to trick the iPad into thinking it's a real Apple Pencil (including their troubleshooting suggesting un-pairing your actual Apple Pencil, if any, first to avoid problems), and I'm guessing that's all reverse-engineered rather than licensed from Apple or otherwise created using official APIs or whatever hooks it may need into the OS.

Then again, if there's any third-party stylus I'd expect to see brag about certification, it would be the Logitech Crayon, and I don't see that (at least not prominently) on their website, nor do I see any MFi categories that look like they might be broadly applicable to this type of device, so that might be the answer to my question...
 
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