...only 16 months after the release of the Apple Pencil 2!
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Everything You Need to Know About the Apple Pencil
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If you're an artist or an engineer and you have an iPhone, I consider you do use your Apple Pencil just on your iPad Pro 'to avoid royal pain in the art....'
Would be nice to have Macbook Pro trackpad compatibility for photo retouching in Lightroom/Photoshop instead of laggy Wacom.
Nice guide, thank you for putting it together. Been tempted to get one for my 7th-Gen iPad, but didn't have the time to research. This has helped me in my decision.
Hmmmm... I screen print tees & have commissioned many pieces from graphic artists.
NEVER have I had the artist go “hold on.... just gonna whip something up here on my phone”. Pretty sure they use Illustrator or something.
I can’t imagine taking an engineer or artist seriously if they think so little of their career that they don’t own any tech that is appropriate & instead work entirely off their Samsung phone & stylus.
I’m not saying that pencil support on iPhone wouldn’t be kinda fun for a few people... just saying that pretending like artists & engineers out there are struggling in their professional lives from not being able to doodle on their phones is in direct contrast with reality.
"Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs was famously against styluses"
That's a mis-analysis. Jobs was not against styluses per se, he was against MANDATORY styluses, ie a device that cannot usefully be used for almost everything it does without the stylus.
Compare this to saying "Steve Jobs was against the keyboard". Does this make sense? But Jobs WAS insistent that everything that can be done with a mouse have a mouse way of doing things, so that developers didn't take the easy route of just repackaging keyboard-centered apps.
The same is true for the stylus -- provide a stylus and developers will just repackage mouse-centered apps, without rethinking issues like the size of tap-areas, which in turn means not rethinking how to match your app to everything different about mobile.
And this was a legitimate concern! Look at all those garbage Windows CE/Mobile apps that were, in fact, just lame ports of mouse-centered desktop apps...
That's a mis-analysis. Jobs was not against styluses per se, he was against MANDATORY styluses, ie a device that cannot usefully be used for almost everything it does without the stylus.
Compare this to saying "Steve Jobs was against the keyboard". Does this make sense? But Jobs WAS insistent that everything that can be done with a mouse have a mouse way of doing things, so that developers didn't take the easy route of just repackaging keyboard-centered apps.
The same is true for the stylus -- provide a stylus and developers will just repackage mouse-centered apps, without rethinking issues like the size of tap-areas, which in turn means not rethinking how to match your app to everything different about mobile.
And this was a legitimate concern! Look at all those garbage Windows CE/Mobile apps that were, in fact, just lame ports of mouse-centered desktop apps...
The Apple Pencil and iPad Pro are an astoundingly good toolset for an illustrator. Do I prefer drawing on my gigantic desktop Cintiq tablet? Yes. But beside size difference I'm not sure if that's because I'm so used to the Cintiq, or if it actually functions better than an iPad.
Wacom styluses come out on top of the Apple Pencil in one unquestionably way: they don't need to be charged. At all. But my beautiful 27-inch Cintiq is a BEAST, and as a pro artist, I often need portability. I've tried every portable Wacom tablet made in the last ten years—both all-in-ones and those that connect to a computer—and none of them come close to the iPad/Pencil combo. The Wacom MobileStudio Pro (and its predecessor, the Cintiq Companion) offers desktop architecture and full apps, but I found drawing on one to be a laggy chore. Comparatively, the iPad Pro actually feels faster and more powerful than my desktop machine. And the form factor! I seriously can't believe the power and capability in such a small device. I wish Apple would make a 16-inch iPad Pro. I'd likely draw much less on my desktop Cintiq.
Two things about the Pencil/iPad Pro actively annoy me. One, Apple refuses to provide specs for the Pencil. Not a giant deal—functionality is what's really important—but I want to know the pressure sensitivity levels. Far more important: the iPad Pro's native glass screen is awful to draw on with the semi-rubbery tip of the Pencil, which catches and drags on the super slick glass. Add a matte screen protector and it's magic, but considering how hard Apple sells the Pro and Pencil as tools for making art, having to purchase a third tool to use them properly is ridiculous.
Creating art is an extremely personal process. Tool choice equally so. But for my money, the iPad Pro/Apple Pencil combo is currently the best portable input choice available.
Wacom styluses come out on top of the Apple Pencil in one unquestionably way: they don't need to be charged. At all. But my beautiful 27-inch Cintiq is a BEAST, and as a pro artist, I often need portability. I've tried every portable Wacom tablet made in the last ten years—both all-in-ones and those that connect to a computer—and none of them come close to the iPad/Pencil combo. The Wacom MobileStudio Pro (and its predecessor, the Cintiq Companion) offers desktop architecture and full apps, but I found drawing on one to be a laggy chore. Comparatively, the iPad Pro actually feels faster and more powerful than my desktop machine. And the form factor! I seriously can't believe the power and capability in such a small device. I wish Apple would make a 16-inch iPad Pro. I'd likely draw much less on my desktop Cintiq.
Two things about the Pencil/iPad Pro actively annoy me. One, Apple refuses to provide specs for the Pencil. Not a giant deal—functionality is what's really important—but I want to know the pressure sensitivity levels. Far more important: the iPad Pro's native glass screen is awful to draw on with the semi-rubbery tip of the Pencil, which catches and drags on the super slick glass. Add a matte screen protector and it's magic, but considering how hard Apple sells the Pro and Pencil as tools for making art, having to purchase a third tool to use them properly is ridiculous.
Creating art is an extremely personal process. Tool choice equally so. But for my money, the iPad Pro/Apple Pencil combo is currently the best portable input choice available.
Mmmm, not true at all. The alternates seems to be of 2 varieties, either a soft rubber tip or a soft rubber tip with a metal mesh over them. The size of said tip has been going down over the past few years. They are uber cheap but one does need to get replacement tips (also pretty cheap) as they do need occasional replacing. The smallest of tips is very good for very good precision work.
They are far more accurate than one's finger, even the ones with the widest tip! ALSO, they work with ALL iPads; what burns me is the Pencil 1 will not work with any tablets released last year (or into the future). I DID spend the 100 bucks to get a Pencil 1 AND if I upgrade my tablet, it becomes useless.
The phone is an other issue... these alternate stylus seem to kinda sorta work with the phone, but are 100% impractical. You have to work to get a "touch" registered (hold stylus perpendicular to the screen).
Hmm na mate, I'd say you're in the .1% of people that want a Stylus to be the PRIMARY input device for a phone.
You will find that majority of people that want to have Pencil support on their iPhones want it for note taking or for use with applications that make sense to utilise the finer point of a stylus.
Limiting your input to require a stylus is retarded.
I respectfully disagree.
With what he said, To me I think it's clear that no one wants to pull out a stylus to USE the device for the majority of its basic functions.
For example, no one wants to have to pull out a stylus and use it while texting someone in the middle of the street. Or pulling out a stylus to dial a number. Or pulling out a stylus in the middle of the dance floor to save a contact. Almost ALL devices up until Windows CE 6 around the HTC Doopod days required a stylus as the UI was designed for one. Another factory is the screen technology at the time required a single small point of pressure to be applied, which again a stylus works well for.
You're not likely to loose the stylus if you are using it survey a construction site or you're using it to draw. These are application specific examples and a stylus is fine. On the other hand, if a stylus was the primary input the UI required, you are very likely to have it pumped out of your hand when in the subway peak our rush, or in the street, or at a concert etc.
Again to my original point, people just don't get what his trying to say.
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Ive been a Wacom fan until the Intuos 5. Seemed like I was paying for the same thing over and over until an OSX update broke the drivers.
Have you tried the Microsoft Surface Studio?
Also your line about the iPad Pro being a computer...
Lol I hope I didn’t misunderstand this comment. It’s Apple’s marketing not mine, I quite frankly don’t care what it’s labeled, just saying the monikers are inline with the laptops with the exception of Mini.
Should just relabel the Mini as iPad and then Air and Pro.
Laptop should be labeled MacBook (ARM), Air and Pro.
Keep it clean and easy for the customer, Apple seems to have moved away from this mindset for product offerings. Some warranted at the time but now, sheesh.
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It does not matter what he said neither of us is Steve Jobs, it’s his actions and mannerisms that speaks for itself. It could be a little bit of both of our interpretations.
You forget that Apple had the Newton that used a stylus, I remember a friend having a Palm V and I believe I used a stylus and finger input with that device. The stylus permitted an option for finer details like writing notes or drawing. You also forget that most phones like BB and CE based had physical keyboards and navigation buttons as well, no need for stylus.
For it’s time the stylus was provided for free, unlike the Apple pencil and input was via stylus, finger and keyboard with nav buttons.
Jobs was a master salesman he made stylus seem outdated and it was the right time as people were looking for a new market broad usable product. Touch screen was it. Nothing more or less, Apple could have easily had stylus support at the time and permit users to decide, but it was to force change and then reintroduce it later, brilliant marketing strategy.
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No, I understood what you we saying in that its Apple advertising it... That's what I find funny!
I just wish the Pencil 2 still worked with the iPad, I have an iPad and an iPadPro and I just want to be able to use my AUD$200 Pencil on both. I don’t care that it can’t charge on the iPad.
That's one good thing about the Surface. Other than the Surface Pro 1 and 2 the pens can be used on any Surface (backwards and forwards compatible)
Where did you hear this? This has not been my experience at all. I'm a very light pencil user and just paired it the other day for the first time in at least 2 months. The battery was still at 54% and I charged it to 100% and used it for a little while. This morning it's still at 94%. In other words, my battery is fine with sitting unused for long periods.
I have an old iPhone 8 Plus. I will not buy another iPhone until it has Pencil support. If I have to I'll get a Note20. I remember back in the day people used to say Apple devices are great for artists, blah, blah, blah. The iPad Pro is a great tool for artists but they are being way too stubborn with the iPhone. I'd love to be able to leave my iPad at home and use an iPhone with an Apple Pencil Mini, or even the full size.
I would be all for it, but they will probably not do it because God forbid, the phone would have to be thicker due to the adage of the digitizer to the screen...
- Screenshots - If you take a screenshot on your iPad and then tap it when a preview appears in the corner, you can draw and write on it using the Apple Pencil through a feature called Markup.
You can actually take a screenshot using the Pencil! Just drag it from one of the bottom corners of the display towards the centre. This gets you straight into markup mode.
_ An old post I know but I recently bought the pencil 2 and for the most part its great. I do wish though that Apple made a universal text field field open up in the centre of the screen when you type. In Safari, the free form writing text is at the top, whereas in YouTube, it’s right at the base of the screen???!
A free form writing box should open up so that you can actually write inside the field as currenty.l, when writing a web address in Safari, all you get is the minuscule writing space inside the web address window - it’s almost impossible to write anything in such a small space using the pencil?!
The same thing happens in other apps like YouTube or Twitter, you get the smallest space to try and write anything?! It should be that you just tap inside the window with the pen and then you should be able to write anywhere on the screen but it just doesn’t work like that...??!
A free form writing box should open up so that you can actually write inside the field as currenty.l, when writing a web address in Safari, all you get is the minuscule writing space inside the web address window - it’s almost impossible to write anything in such a small space using the pencil?!
The same thing happens in other apps like YouTube or Twitter, you get the smallest space to try and write anything?! It should be that you just tap inside the window with the pen and then you should be able to write anywhere on the screen but it just doesn’t work like that...??!
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Ah, the phone & stylus! So within the last year I got a 6s. Disappointed all my various styli don't work on it. THEN by mistake I picked up my oldest styles, a big fat rubber one with the remnants of a mess cover AND low and behold it worked. I have brand news one with the same metal mesh over rubber, but much thinner and they do not work at all. The more "smoosh" laid on the screen, the closer to a finger it is given the hardware design (as in what the screen senses). I'm not engineer, but it seems logical they COULD get it to the same point that, say their tablets are in terms of allowing it to work with various stylii... or maybe they have on newer models?
I've been using the Pencil 2 now for about a month and for me, there are 2 major flaws already:
1. Auto Minimize is broken and does NOT work properly
So every time I go to Safari or an ANY app which supports Scribble, EACH AND EVERY TIME I always have to select 'Auto Minimize' as the setting NEVER gets remembered - every time I exit and return later on, the 'Auto Minimize' is AGAIN, turned off and I have to re-select this and choose ON. EVERY SINGLE TIME??! Why does it do this - its SO annoying...???!?!
Surely selecting 'Auto Minimize' the first time, it should remember the setting so that when I next come to the same app, 'Auto Minimize' is already turned on - but it doesn't, it gets forgotten and is turned off so I have to re-enabled it.
🤬
2. Pencil Keyboard doesn't disappear
So in iMessage, if you choose to use the miniature keyboard with the pencil to swipe the letters to compile your message, when you hit the Send button and the message sends, the keyboard REMAINS on the screen???! WHY???? Its pointless and gets in the way - it should disappear as there is no further use for it. You can see in the screenshot above - I have hit Send and replied to a message and yet the keyboard REMAINS on the screen??!?!?
Both of these make absolutely ZERO sense.......??!?!?!
1. Auto Minimize is broken and does NOT work properly
So every time I go to Safari or an ANY app which supports Scribble, EACH AND EVERY TIME I always have to select 'Auto Minimize' as the setting NEVER gets remembered - every time I exit and return later on, the 'Auto Minimize' is AGAIN, turned off and I have to re-select this and choose ON. EVERY SINGLE TIME??! Why does it do this - its SO annoying...???!?!
Surely selecting 'Auto Minimize' the first time, it should remember the setting so that when I next come to the same app, 'Auto Minimize' is already turned on - but it doesn't, it gets forgotten and is turned off so I have to re-enabled it.
🤬
2. Pencil Keyboard doesn't disappear
So in iMessage, if you choose to use the miniature keyboard with the pencil to swipe the letters to compile your message, when you hit the Send button and the message sends, the keyboard REMAINS on the screen???! WHY???? Its pointless and gets in the way - it should disappear as there is no further use for it. You can see in the screenshot above - I have hit Send and replied to a message and yet the keyboard REMAINS on the screen??!?!?
Both of these make absolutely ZERO sense.......??!?!?!