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New Apple Pencil Announced With Hidden USB-C Port and More for $79

ACHD said:
Not exactly. It claims to work with any USB-C ipad. so Gen 1 and Gen 2 ipads of all models if that ANY USB-C ipad claim holds true............
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That 'fork' between iPads was always kind of silly

Apple Pencil compatibility - Apple Support

Find out which Apple Pencil works with which iPad.
support.apple.com support.apple.com

Not really a good reason why the Pencil 1 couldn't have also worked with the newer wireless charging iPads. After Apple released a USB-C to Lighting adapter for the Pencil 1 it made even less sense. ( Could pair over the USB port with the adapter if that was provisioned with the drivers. ) . It was like the wirless Apple mouse only working with a subset of Macs. It is a peripheral for the line up .... why is it limited?


Going forward since all the new iPads will have USB-C ... it makes tons of sense a 'more affordable' pencil that works across all of them. Actually getting back to where Pencil 1 was shortly before Pencil 2 popped up and split the iPads.
 
I would not be surprised if we see an Apple Pencil Pro with the release of new iPad Pro's next year.
 
Screenshot 2023-10-17 at 15.27.55.png


This is a curious image. So does the new Pencil magnetically attach to the top of an iPad 10th gen? Because that's what it looks like to me.
 
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I'm such a mean daddy, lol. My 14 year old daughter has been wanting an iPad mini and saving her money for it. I was hoping a new one would come out this morning. Instead, we get a pencil. I sent this to our family message group this morning.
Screenshot 2023-10-17 at 10.27.35 AM.png
 
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profets said:
Seriously. We now have 4 iPads of very similar physical size, and 3 Pencils.

iPad 10.2”
iPad 10.9”
iPad Air 10.9”
iPad Pro 11”

Apple Pencil (2nd gen)
Apple Pencil (USB-C)
Apple Pencil (1st gen)

I can see how they end up here but could they honestly not put more of an effort to simplify this stuff? I've been in the store witnessing someone wanting to buy an iPad and being confused by all the options. The store employee explaining the differences really didn't help the issue either.

Really feel like they should have found a way to make the 2nd gen Pencil work with the 10th gen iPad so that all new designs had the same pencil. And then eventually just retire the 9th gen iPad along with the older 1st gen Pencil.
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It's like the mid-1990s all over again....
 
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GuruZac said:
I bet the 3rd Gen Apple Pencil launches with the OLED iPad Pros and new Magic Keyboard if I had to guess. I am in no rush to replace my M1 12.9 iPad Pro, and the gen 2 pencil does everything I want, but I do draw on my iPad and would love the rumored magnetic tips. I used to sketch a lot early in med school using Notability. Here are three of my drawings from Anatomy head/neck exam notes. Notability actually reached out to me to use these on the App Store. I screen shot the App Store when they were on the App home page.

View attachment 2297156View attachment 2297157View attachment 2297158View attachment 2297159RIP Apple Pencil 3 hopes.
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These are amazing.
 
Digitalguy said:
There is too much ignorance unfortunately about this and people buy expensive pencils without knowing these perfect clones exist. My guess is that they believe these are like those airpods clones, who are the same in shape but not in terms of sound, mike etc. While these are exactely the same, except for pressure...
Just look at all the "awesome" comments here, shows how people don't have a clue
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Well said. There are rubbish “stylus” but also Apple Pencils clones are identical. If you used my Pencil 2 and the clone for £24, you wouldn’t be able to tell a difference. Shape, height, weight, design, responsiveness, tilt sensitivity and palm rejection are identical.

I own both. The clone is perfect for taking on holiday and outside of the house without worrying about losing or damaging a £125 pencil :D
 
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hagar said:
who is in charge of the iPad lineup? this is such a mess. We now need 3 pencils to match with the multitude of iPad models.
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What’s makes the line-up worse, is that in some cases, older iPad Air or iPad Pros are better value that recent iPad or Air models.

A complete mess! So much for Apple fans saying that Android product lines ups are confusing and fragmented.
 
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Milennia said:
No magnetic tips and it appears to just be a budget version of an apple pencil going by the store listing, disappointing, but I guess it serves a purpose

No pressure sensitivity was certainly a choice
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I think this model is probably targeted at the educational market, possibly as a deal sweetener for the base iPad as an educational computer. With the educational discount, the cost of the base iPad (WiFi only, 64GB) is $309. The new Apple Pencil is $69 on the educational store, so that’s a total of $380 pre-tax (with tax, it probably clocks in at less than or around $400, which was probably the price point Apple was targeting for the combo). $400 is pretty comparable to cheap Windows machines (and probably has lower support and IT costs). It’s still very pricey compared to some models of Chromebooks (though I doubt a $50 Chromebook would be very good, it would probably run like a $50 tablet), but it’s probably pretty price competitive with the decent Chromebooks.

Edit: I reviewed the thread, and it looks like we’re 9 pages in, and I’m the first person to mention the educational market (or the educational discount on this model). That surprises me considering how obvious it is to me that this is for the educational market.
 
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Berti10 said:
No Pressure sensitivity? meh… those are $29 at amazon
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The wife's puppy ate her Apple Pencil. For $26 shipped to my home in one day I replaced it with a cheap knock off that she says works just as well but does charge while magnetically attached.
 
Tiered pricing for a bloody stylus is such a money grab.

They could have just lowered the pricing on both existing models and call it a day.
 
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hagar said:
who is in charge of the iPad lineup? this is such a mess. We now need 3 pencils to match with the multitude of iPad models.
Click to expand...

Of course, if we don't own the multitude, we only need(?) the pencil that works with the one(s) we do own. Or all 10 fingers still work just fine with any of them... and are free, excessively hard to misplace or leave behind and always charged and ready for use (bonus: works with Macs too).
 
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I must be missing somethng - this sits below the 1st-gen pencil feature-wise, it has no pressure levels, no wireless pairing, and no double tap switching.

This is just a dumb pointing device. Why is this $79?
 
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tonywalker23 said:
I'm such a mean daddy, lol. My 14 year old daughter has been wanting an iPad mini and saving her money for it. I was hoping a new one would come out this morning. Instead, we get a pencil. I sent this to our family message group this morning.View attachment 2297167
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This cracked me up! So evil 😂

I was in the same boat as your daughter this morning. I desperately hoped Gurman had it wrong and we’d get a new Mini before the spring semester started ):

Oh well! Maybe early next year :)
 
No pressure sensitivity - what’s the point? Just get a cheap stylus like someone mentioned above.
 
I'm sure this won't confuse any consumers, three different pencils with slightly different specs. Wouldn't be surprised if they get lots of custom complaints from people who buy the new cheap one who don't realize it doesn't do pressure sensitivity.
 
jimbobb24 said:
Apple is selling 3 pencils? This lineup is getting bizarre.
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It isn't bizarre. There are 3 price points.

After a period of time when all iPads are USB-C, pencil 1 will disappear. For the moment though there are several millions more legacy iPads than USB-C iPads. So to stop selling Pencil 1 would be the actual bizarre move. This new one is pragmatically the replacement for Pencil 1's breadth of iPad lineup coverage , but the legacy inertia keeps Apple selling Pencil 1.

The shift here is also getting to point where adopting that using a Pencil to take notes and annotate is actually better than a finger. That the anti-stylus thing was too much dogma. Especially in an era when handwriting recognition can be so much significantly better than 10 years ago (AI/ML advancements).

When the iPad Pro get an update, it won't be surprising to see the Pencil 2 get an upgrade (and the current Pencil 2 disappear). Over time, Pencil 1 will fade out some time after last iPads with lightning stop being sold. But that is not today.

The dumping of Lighting peripherals is going to take time, but for the interium the number of 'overlap , differ on port Lighting/USB-C' products from Apple will likely go up.
 
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