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iPad Pro iPad Pencil: $99 - Seriously?
- Thread starter Hustler1337
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It's pretty crazy that people find this to be too expensive.
To get a similar wacom tablet stylus with a screen (around $2000 last time I checked) or with just a pad ($400 for the biggest one, no screen) is not cheap either.
Pressure sensitive tilt and orientation sensitive stylus for iPad, especially if it is allowed to be used with the desktop or laptop could really be useful for all kinds of use in design, education, business, etc.
To get a similar wacom tablet stylus with a screen (around $2000 last time I checked) or with just a pad ($400 for the biggest one, no screen) is not cheap either.
Pressure sensitive tilt and orientation sensitive stylus for iPad, especially if it is allowed to be used with the desktop or laptop could really be useful for all kinds of use in design, education, business, etc.
What Surface includes the keyboard?
The Surface Pro 3 comes with a pen no keyboard, but the Surface 3 doesn't include either a pen or keyboard.
B
At Some point I'll be buying the iPad Pro, but I wouldn't use the pencil, so it seems a shame that such a beautiful piece of kit would sit gathering dust at the back of a drawer. So whilst it would be nice if it was included, I can understand why it isn't.
If you're already on board with digitizer pens in general then the real questions worth asking are about performance. The pen input field has been stagnant for a long time because no one has ever challenged Wacom. You could point to N-trig, but that tech has its own shortcomings that make it less appealing, especially as an art tool. Basically the user experience is mediocre because no one is pushing the tech forward at all.
To make a real impact Apple would have to:
-Significantly reduce latency vs Wacom (active capacitive can do this and from the Pencil video demos it looks like this was a focus).
-Significantly improve linearity vs N-trig (downside of active capacitive, but increasing resolution and/or sample rate of the digitizer could make a big difference here. Impossible to tell from the available videos).
-Palm rejection, preferably with some hover detection (both Wacom and N-trig have hover so it's theoretically possible on active capacitive).
-A decent pressure curve with low minimum activation pressure and fairly linear tracking from there. Wacom's curve has never felt very linear, while N-trig has a high minimum pressure.
The big question is: How much does Apple care about this? Is Pencil about being feature-complete compared to SP and Note, or does Apple think they can actually make a better experience compared to Wacom?
To make a real impact Apple would have to:
-Significantly reduce latency vs Wacom (active capacitive can do this and from the Pencil video demos it looks like this was a focus).
-Significantly improve linearity vs N-trig (downside of active capacitive, but increasing resolution and/or sample rate of the digitizer could make a big difference here. Impossible to tell from the available videos).
-Palm rejection, preferably with some hover detection (both Wacom and N-trig have hover so it's theoretically possible on active capacitive).
-A decent pressure curve with low minimum activation pressure and fairly linear tracking from there. Wacom's curve has never felt very linear, while N-trig has a high minimum pressure.
The big question is: How much does Apple care about this? Is Pencil about being feature-complete compared to SP and Note, or does Apple think they can actually make a better experience compared to Wacom?
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I'm still getting over the $99 price tag, in addition to the price of an iPad Pro. I'm not saying it should be bundled with the Pro either, but at least discounted to a more reasonable $25 or even $50 add-on.
If they improve upon the Wacom experience, $99 price for a first generation stylus that bests the best on the market is really nothing to complain about.
I know one thing... someone needs to get on it with a Pencil charging dock.
THIS is unacceptable.
![image.jpeg]( "image.jpeg")
THIS is unacceptable.
I'd say parallax is another big one. I was looking at my iPad Air and realized this is something they would need to address on the iPad Pro. Hopefully it was considered and the reduced parallax as much as possible.
i only hope it has somekind of an usb charging cable. that is ridiculous. or are they going to increase the price of the pencil by selling to you some fancy white and a small pencil stand...
A $30 angled connector should solve the problem.
i would let the pencil lay on the desktop and be charging from the usb port of the laptop rather than be stuffed in the *ss of ipad.
Here's to hoping it opens up to the next generation Air, at least.You'll have to pay a premium (iPad Pro) in order to pay $99 for the privilege of using the Apple Pencil.
to be honest, the design is somewhat unattractive, it is just a white stick. and because it doesnt fit inside the ipadpro, they should have stolen some design works from other stylus manufacturers. i can understand the white stick, if you can push it inside the device, but in this case, you cant. There are great styluses like P53 with walnut, feels great on your hand. The pen doesnt need to be the same shape as a regular pen is. And if it does, most of the best manufacturers has paid an attention to the ergonomy too. Apple pen is just a huge stick - i think it is again a design over function.
When i watch the apple pencil, i cant see any ergonomic approaches, i can only see a stick that was designed by apples way. Maybe the stick is good enough to write and draw, who knows until some gets it and writes review.. Im quite interested in seeing what they say about the ergonomy. Atleast now they have been checking the ergonomy and the shape of the pencil closely, but what about now, when they get a stick...
Yeah very true... I guess I'm so used to Wacom parallax that it didn't even register as something you could correct. We have seen active capacitive beat Wacom in this area in at least one case (N-trig in SP3 has less parallax than Wacom in SP1/2). It's going to be extra important with Pencil because Apple doesn't seem to be implementing an on-screen tracking cursor like most devices using Wacom digitizers. Without a cursor the user will expect lines to appear precisely at the contact point with the screen. None of the videos I've seen have enough detail to make any serious conclusions about the accuracy.
It's expensive, but it looks like it's the first "pencil" that will actually work. I've spent quite some €'s in different styluses for sketching over the past couple of years. $99 for a good stylus that just works as it's supposed to is quite ok. I'm more bummed that it doesn't work with the iPad mini 4, That would be an awesome size for my sketchbook on the road.
That's a legit statement...and I agree to that.
Have you closely observed the pencil...not the actual, but the pictures of apple pencil?
i have several friends who are artists who are so used to drawing like this to avoid smudging on paper that its actually not uncomfortable to them