Personal experience after 48 hours of operation.
What we have been waiting for so long has come true. Apple released the iPad Pro, we wrote, and two weeks later the guys from Onlyphones.ru offered to plunge into the world of fine art and test all the possibilities of the Apple Pencil stylus.
What is iPencil capable of, is the game worth the candle, and how does the owner of the iPad Pro live, in whose hands the Apple Pencil fell into? Let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the stylus.
Reason #1: no delays
For people who use the computer as a professional tool, the worst enemy of all time remains delay. The sound engineer struggles to minimize the time it takes to convert audio from analog to digital; designer - wins back precious milliseconds by drawing another stroke on a graphics tablet. Apple Pencil is devoid of such shortcomings.
As soon as you touch the iPad Pro's huge screen with the tip of the stylus, it instantly responds to your touch. The lines are clear and even, and the artist has the feeling that they are drawing on a slate board or a piece of parchment. Response speed this accessory has the highest praise, and the signal reading frequency reaches 240 times per second.
Reason #2: Very sensitive
Despite its small size, comparable to the size of a regular ballpoint pen, Apple Pencil is packed with all sorts of sensors to ensure its smooth and trouble-free operation. The stylus distinguishes not only pressing force(up to 2048 degrees), but also the tilt angle.
By setting a slight slope, you can quickly shade a section of the drawing, as if working with a regular pencil.
Reason #3: Long lasting
Inside the Apple Pencil is a miniature battery that has a capacity of only 80 mAh Despite such a small size, after a full charge, the stylus is ready to use. 12 o'clock continuous work.
What's more, the universal charger for Apple Pencil is always at hand. The gadget is equipped with a traditional Lightning port, and a simple connection to the corresponding port of the iPad Pro for just 15 seconds will give the stylus 30 minutes of work. Full charge time is about 50 minutes.
For charging via a regular network, a miniature adapter is provided: an Apple Pencil is inserted on one side, and a Lightning cable on the other.
Reason #4: The palm is not the enemy
Even an experienced artist knows what is fraught with touching with a palm to a drawing that has just been drawn with a slate or charcoal pencil. This is the case when the hands that created the drawing can also spoil it. Apple has foreseen this as well.
Despite the fact that according to all the "laws of the genre" of the capacitive screen technology, it should respond to the touch of a human hand, working with the Apple Pencil you can touch the screen with the edge of your palm, leaning on the tablet screen as if on a regular sheet of paper. The tablet will not go berserk from this action, and the clarity of the stylus will not deteriorate at all.
Reason #5: Works through "obstacles"
Another curious feature of the Apple Pencil is the ability to work through a sheet of paper. Suppose that you want to draw as accurately as possible a fragment of the original drawing printed on paper.
To do this, just attach the sheet to the iPad Pro screen and circle all the required contours. The tablet counts all touches of the stylus, despite the fact that there is an impromptu obstacle between the screen and the pen tip - a sheet of paper.
Reason #6: Instead of a finger
The main purpose of the Apple Pencil is drawing. However, the stylus is compatible with just about everything you would normally do when touching the tablet with your fingers.
Opening links, launching applications, scrolling, interacting with menu items, typing (support for third-party keyboards and keyboards that allow handwriting) - Apple Pencil can do it all. Among the limitations of the accessory is the inability to open the Notification Center, Control Center, switch to Slide Over or Split View. Most likely, this limitation is purely software in nature, but "Apple decided so."
Reason #7: App Support
To implement a really good product, the ingenuity of engineers and the bright look of a designer are not enough. Need software support. The number of apps compatible with the Apple Pencil is growing exponentially.
Today, Apple's stylus is compatible with: Pixelmator, Adobe Comp CC, Paper, Adobe Phoroshop Mix, Adobe Photoshop Fix, AutoCAD 360, Autodesk SketchBook, Evernote, Adobe Illustrator Draw, Canva and a number of other applications. The inclusion of stylus support by developers allows not only to optimize the interaction of the accessory with the interface, but also enable support for iOS features such as Split View.
A little sad
Ask any marketer and he will confidently answer that there is no “perfect product”. The Apple Pencil is no exception, and the list of disadvantages of the "Apple Pencil" looks something like this:
- The stylus is only and only compatible with the iPad Pro. It will not work with other devices, including Apple products.
- Unavailable multitasking. Apple Pencil does not allow you to switch to Split View and Slide Over modes - the main innovations of iOS 9. You can only do this with your finger.
- No eraser. Users familiar with alternative styluses that work with capacitive screens, one of the advantages of this category of products include the presence of an eraser. Touched the screen with the other end of the stylus - activated the eraser mode. The Apple Pencil does not have this feature.
- Apple Pencil does not support multi-touch gestures. However, not a single stylus can do this.
A skeptical user will certainly classify the next Apple development as an "expensive and unnecessary toy." A professional designer or artist, being a creative person, will think about purchasing an Apple Pencil, because the desire to experiment is the main engine of creativity. The Apple aficionado and user who has been waiting for the "big iPad" will pick up the stylus without hesitation.
Where to buy an Apple Pencil? We suggest stopping at the Onlyphones.ru online store. First, it is in stock today; secondly, among the impressive assortment of accessories for Apple devices, you will definitely want to buy “something else”.
Of the minuses - after drawing in this application, the vector has to be decently cleaned up like that, since a lot of extra points are formed. On the plus side, you can drag and drop an image from your iPad directly into Illustrator with the click of a button, and this is insanely convenient!
There is also a very cool drawing application called Procreate - it is also free, it costs about $ 6, and, unlike Adobe Draw, you can only draw a raster there, which then needs to be converted to a vector. There are a lot of settings, brushes and other cute things, but for me personally, drawing there, as they say, didn’t work, I don’t know why (but I know that many people adore it).
#2 CONTOURING
True, for this method to work, you need an additional application called Astropad and it costs money. With this application, you can "broadcast" the computer screen to the iPad. That is, by launching the illustrator and the Astropad application, you can turn the iPad Pro into a kind of Syntic (who doesn’t know, this is a Wacom graphics tablet that allows you to draw “directly on yourself”).
If you already have Syntic - again, this method of cleaning will not surprise you. But since my role is played by Wacom Bamboo, which lies on the side of the computer and does not have its own screen (that is, it essentially works like a more convenient kind of mouse), I really liked being able to edit “right on the screen” using the iPad Pro.
In theory, you can draw right in the same way - right away in illustrator, but when working through Astropad, there is still a slight delay in the appearance of lines, and therefore I like to use this application to “finish” pictures. I open the image after the trace in illustrator, connect the iPad via USB cable (so the connection is more reliable), launch Astropad and use the pencil tool to edit the lines. Of the minuses - in the CC version, the selection is constantly self-cancelling, so you have to keep one hand on the keyboard to press CMD + A (and who came up with the idea of \u200b\u200bdeleting the selection when working with this tool? Clearly some evil person)
#3 RECORDING THE DRAWING PROCESS
Now in the trend are videos that show how you draw quickly, easily and coolly. Well, or not even cool, but you draw - everyone likes to watch the accelerated process. Therefore, if you are thinking about how to get promoted in social networks, then recording a video of the drawing process is it. I must admit that I ignore this trend for now - not because I don’t understand its importance, but rather because it’s too dark in my current habitat to shoot decent videos (and it’s already cold to draw outside). Well, I also have a terrible habit of hanging over the drawing, which greatly complicates the top view shooting process (one crown is visible, which, as I found out, is not very photogenic for me :)).
And yes, you can record the process without an iPad Pro. But it's cool when I drew the picture and recorded the video :)
For some reason, many considered that one of the key features of the iPad Pro is the presence of a stylus, which they called the Apple Pencil, although the company strongly emphasizes that this is not a stylus at all, but something else, for example, a pencil, as the name implies. The reason for the dislike for the word "stylus" is understandable. Apple founder Steve Jobs argued that all control on the company's touch devices will be done by hand, and the stylus is a relic of the past. Steve Jobs is no more, which means that the current executives of the company can release whatever they want, which is what they do. Nevertheless, you still have to give explanations for your brilliant discoveries, otherwise the crowd of fans remains at a loss and does not know what to tell others about the next great invention. Jonathan Ive, who hasn't come up with anything interesting or worthwhile in the past few years, in an interview with Wallpaper Magazine explained why and how the idea of the pencil came about, here is his direct speech: “We realized that there is a clearly defined group of people who can appreciate a tool that will allow them to draw or draw, but not in the way they draw with their fingers. And I suspect it's a large group of people."
Almost five years after the release of the first Note, the launch of this line from Samsung and its rise in popularity, Apple suddenly saw that there was a niche in the market for those who like to draw. And we decided to make our own product. There was no need to invent anything, since all kinds of styluses for Apple tablets were produced by many companies, but they all suffered from one drawback, these were stick-pokes, while other manufacturers created full-fledged input devices that respond to pressure, pen tilt, and others "little things". In particular, such devices include all styluses from Samsung, as well as a pen for Microsoft Surface, which is part of the standard package in the latest versions of tablets. Once again, Apple is entering the market with its solution, where there are already analogues that have come a long way in several generations. If Apple had not ignored other people's experience, they could have created their own “pencil” completely different, and it would have been much more useful for iPad tablet users, but everything turned out differently, the story developed as usual.
To begin with, the Apple Pencil is an optional accessory, sold separately from the iPad Pro and positioned as an optional part of the tablet. This accessory is not intended for everyone, and the fact that it receives so much attention is due solely to the successful PR efforts of the company. Every day there are more revelations from designers, user interface developers, and those who design cars, airplanes and ships, in which these people admit that before they had no life, and with the advent of the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil, they first got the opportunity to work fully, and not as they did before. Of course, there are adequate reviews in this PR hubbub, but they often drown in the enthusiasm of those who have never worked with a stylus and for whom the Apple Pencil is the first such experience.
The price of the Apple Pencil in the US is $99 excluding taxes, in Russia - 7,790 rubles, which makes this pencil, if not gold, then close to it. On the other hand, professional styluses from Wacom are not cheap, but they are a completely different class of products, and their consumers know exactly what they are paying for. This is not a mass toy for bored people who want to depict something on the tablet screen. I doubt that professionals in graphics, design and the like will start using the Apple Pencil en masse, it all comes down to force of habit, but the main thing is the software that will be available to work with the pen. And so far everything is very sad with the software, but more on that later.
So, we take out the Pencil from the box, open the cap on the upper end and see the Lightning connector. The box shows how it should be inserted into the tablet to recharge.
Forgive me, but this is pornography in the literal and figurative sense. Apple engineers lost all their skills, as they created a visually ugly, bad and unreliable solution, in this position it is not difficult to break off the connector. And they sincerely warn about this! Caring curvy Apple Pencil creators who quickly realized that their solution was not very good, and therefore added an adapter to charge the pencil from a computer or from the network. This is a small adapter, on the one hand we stick the usual charging from the iPhone / iPad, on the other hand - the pencil itself. Adapter! For the stylus! If Steve Jobs were alive, he would have had a very sharp conversation with Jonathan Ive, after which the latter would rush to fix and redo everything.
I did not dare to post a photo of what it looks like in a state of charging, I was afraid that we would be closed for pornography, so look at this moment in the video, everything is shown there. But I can say one thing, Apple engineers exceeded my worst assumptions, they made a pencil in the worst possible way. The same stylus on MS Surface doesn't need to be charged and works great with built-in software. But more on that later.
Apple's pencil is glossy, and if you have wet hands, it starts to slip. No rough surfaces, a creative tool should be smooth and sliding, both on the surface and in the hands of a person. Speaking seriously, it seems that it is not for nothing that the majority of those who produce styluses do not make them smooth, but prefer a rough body. Let's guess why. Apparently, they put the ergonomics of the device higher than its appearance, but Apple does exactly the opposite.
In terms of ergonomics, the Apple Pencil has another drawback - it doesn't have a mount on the iPad case. It is magnetized from the bottom side, but the force of attraction is not enough, so it will not work to wear it. It will have to be worn somewhere else, but not with the device. This is stupid? In my opinion, this is damn stupid and short-sighted, and most importantly, inconvenient. But one can deny quite obvious things and say that this is correct and the only way it is necessary.
Now about good and pleasant. Apple Pencil works only with iPad Pro, it will not work with other tablets. The reason is that the company slightly changed the screen technology to support such a stylus. Whether it will be supported in other products, I do not know, but it is justified only on large diagonals, on the same iPad Mini, there is little sense in a pencil.
We insert the charging pencil, and right there the iPad Pro prompts us to synchronize the device via Bluetooth, connect it. We agree. In notifications, you can find a widget that shows the charge level of the Apple Pencil. The company claims that a fully charged pencil will last about 12 hours, 15 seconds can get a runtime of 30 minutes. A full charge of the Apple Pencil from the iPad will take about 45-50 minutes. In principle, this is a small problem, it will not be difficult to charge this stylus from time to time. When the battery level is low, a warning will appear.
There is a reverse side of the coin, which no one thinks about and pays no attention to. When using an Apple Pencil, the power consumption of iPad Pro increases. For half an hour of work on the screen, the battery loses 7-8 percent of its charge. For comparison, watching a movie at maximum brightness eats up 10% per hour. Feel the difference and differences.
Software - all familiar names
Apple's stylus understands up to 2048 degrees of pressure, as well as horizontal deviation. This means that by clicking on it, you can make lines thicker, and by tilting the pencil, you can get hatching. And in this way it resembles an ordinary pencil, which is very good.
But now is the time to talk about what programs and how they support working with the Apple Pencil. With it, you can move around the screen, select icons. And there are no problems, everything works. Another thing is that creativity requires programs that can work with the Apple Pencil, and there are already more than a dozen such programs. For example, in standard notes you can write by hand, but your text is not recognized, there is simply no such feature in iOS9. This is the first disappointment, no handwriting and typing so this pencil is for creativity and not for boring freehand notes.
I tried a dozen programs that the App Store recommended for a pencil, most of them already had support for styluses, so the appearance of the Apple Pencil was not unexpected. For example, in Evernote you can enter notes by hand for a long time, on the iPad you could draw with your finger, as, however, you can do it now. Approximately the same in each of the programs, the Apple Pencil does not give any special accuracy, you draw exactly the same as you drew before, with the same programs or similar input devices.
I did a little experiment and asked my colleague, who is fond of drawing, to try out the device and express his opinion. She enthusiastically began to draw from a photograph taken on one of her trips, but very quickly put down her Apple Pencil and said the following: “I don’t really need it, here you can draw all this with your hands in the program, some parts are probably more difficult than usual, but not fundamentally more difficult.” After chatting on this topic, I realized a simple thing: to draw, you don’t need a miracle device, you just need a desire, and the choice of a tool is secondary. The surface of the device cannot replace paper, its quality and other sensations, because it is not only the pencil, brush or paints that are important, it is important how they interact with the paper and what result you get. In theory, it would be possible to emulate paper in software, but no one has done this yet.
All the software that I have tried can be used with any stylus, Apple's device is extremely simple and does not have any special functions. Moreover, there is no integration into the operating system. And this puts an end to the most popular use cases that have opened up on the Note line in almost five years of its existence. For example, people often cut something out of pictures and send it by mail, add annotations to such pictures. And on the same Note, this can be done in a matter of seconds, there is an option “write on the screen”, you instantly get a screenshot that you already decorate to the best of your ability. And you can cut out a piece of the picture and at the same time recognize the text on it, send both the picture and the text from it, and in any language. But this is already such a high class that I won’t even talk about it, since Apple in this case looks like a poor relative. The key advantage of Note is the deep integration of the stylus into everything you can do on the device. It was created not only and not so much for those who draw, but for everyone who wants to get new opportunities, and the device provides these opportunities to the fullest. Perhaps they are not always needed, but sometimes they are necessary and very useful.
What about stylus integration on MS Surface? Exactly the same story, in Microsoft, oddly enough, they understand that the stylus itself is not important, it is necessary to integrate it into the system, for example, give the opportunity to launch OneNote with one click, enter handwritten text or drawings, recognize all this. If necessary, erase without resorting to additional movements and by pressing the button on the stylus. And on the same Surface Pro 4, the stylus is magnetically attached to the body, it can be worn with the device. It turns out that the engineers at Microsoft are much better than at Apple, where they could not implement the simplest function, although they themselves came up with a lot of chips with magnets in the days of Steve Jobs.
Also a slightly different level of software and binding the stylus to the system. And why is this so? Probably, the answer lies in what people think, why and why they do it, to whom it may be important. They are working on use cases. At Apple, they don’t do this, but rest on their laurels. In fact, by copying other people's products, Apple does not bring anything to them, and the implementation from an engineering point of view is the worst possible. Why is that? We relaxed, there is no owner inside the company who would monitor how everything should work.
It's interesting how, with the release of the Apple Pencil, a lot of "world's leading publications" discovered this topic and began to write about it. And it doesn't matter that dozens of styluses existed before, and the software initially supported them, including on the iPad. It does not matter that the only advantage of the Apple Pencil in the small market of styluses is the name of the manufacturer, and nothing else. The main thing is that the company was able to create a myth that it releases successful products that millions need from time to time. And it doesn’t matter at all that the same watch didn’t take off and Apple doesn’t say anything about them in terms of real numbers. Never mind that the iPad Pro is a very niche device with an idea that was stolen from Samsung and Microsoft, a little bit of each. And it's not so important that no one thought to collect a hundred dollars for a stylus. On the other hand, you have to pay for stupidity. Apple thinks stupidity is worth $100. And this is the right price.
As a side note, here is a review of our UI/UX design reader about the Apple Pencil.
This accessory, like a drop of water, reflects where the company is going and how its helmsmen have relaxed and rested on their laurels. This is not the best product that Apple has released, however, over the past couple of years, it’s hard for me to name something that would attract attention. Copying other people's ideas, their poor implementation, but for now Apple can afford it. That's just the credibility - a rather fragile thing, it may disappear.
We thank the company UP-house.ru for the pencil provided by Apple.
Steve Jobs once said that styluses are the last century. On our devices, the mastermind and creator of Apple claimed, there will never be styluses. But Steve is gone. And the new leaders decided not to listen to his opinion on this issue, based, by the way, on a unique flair, thanks to which, perhaps, the most successful brand in the world was born.
In the fall of 2015, the Apple giant introduced an accessory called the Apple Pencil along with the new iPad Pro tablet. At the presentation, however, they assured that this was by no means a stylus, but a convenient tool for drawing and working, a niche product for our most creative fans. Well, let's figure out whatis an Apple Pencil in fact, and it is not in vain that the successors of the Jobs case disobeyed him.
The Apple Pencil was introduced with the iPad Pro for a reason. This device became the pioneer of a new line of "tablets" Apple. Positioned Pro as a tablet that can replace a work laptop. The gadget received a powerful processor, 4 gigabytes of RAM unprecedented for Apple devices, an almost 13-inch screen, and a special connector into which a removable keyboard could be connected. Thus, Pro has become at least just an ideal tool for demonstrating presentations and other materials to partners, while connecting a keyboard, you can quickly make changes to the document.
But on the other hand, it was even more convenient, easier and faster to make changes using ... Apple Pencil! Well, if you think in this vein (and let's be honest - the above reasoning can hardly be called illogical), the release of an accessory suspiciously resembling a stylus can be considered quite justified. And, perhaps, given the circumstances that led to the appearance of this product, even Steve Jobs would not be against its “birth”.
A true exclusive: Apple Pencil for iPad Pro
iOS gadgets have eternal compatibility problems, and this is no secret to anyone. However, the Apple Pencil for iPad Pro really crossed the line. The company was not afraid to present an accessory that at the time of the presentation was compatible with only one device in the line!
In fairness, however, it’s worth saying that the reason for the “limited” Apple Pencil was quite respectful - in order for the stylus to be convenient, fast and functional, the iPad Pro screen had to be equipped with a number of new technologies. Well, you understand that it was not possible to add them to already released devices, thus making the field of application of the accessory wider. However, the second Pro has already been released and it is promised that the third one will be released soon, so little by little the field of application of Pencil will expand ...
The agony of creativity is unfamiliar to Apple Pencil owners
... as well as the functionality of the accessory, which at the time of release was hardly impressive. However, during the time that the functionality was expanding, skeptics managed to write a bunch of negative reviews on the new device from the “apple” giant and talk about a lot of its much cooler counterparts. However, today, when Pencil has found its niche and become more functional, it is definitely not necessary to speak negatively about its abilities.
The accessory is most loved by users who often have to face the task of drawing something - in other words - for designers, and in various fields. You can make the first sketches of, say, a logo directly at a meeting with the customer, make changes, such as “is it possible to make black blacker?”
There are quite a few applications for drawing today, the most advanced of which at the moment is probably Procreate - both designers and artists appreciate its capabilities. However, you can make a simple sketch even in the native Notes application, which with the Apple Pencil turns into a kind of Paint - different colors and tools are available - a marker, ruler, eraser, etc. The thickness and type of the line can also be selected in the program, but (!) The same thickness can also be changed and, as they say, with a slight movement of the hand - press the i-pencil lighter, the line will become thinner, show a little more diligence - the thickness will increase.
Another cool feature is drawing through paper. What does it mean? And the fact that if you want to quickly redraw something from a sheet, you can put it on the display and quickly circle it with an i-pencil - and voila - the drawing is already on the tablet screen! Of course, in this case, the sheet should not be too thick, but, for example, classic printing paper is quite suitable.
Or maybe a stylus?
Apple Pencil, however, is good not only as a drawing tool - it is appropriate everywhere, as Apple itself assures, additional precision may be required. To be honest, it is very convenient and if you use it as ... yes, the ill-fated stylus. The last century is the last century, but on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, the stylus can, however, quite often be more convenient than a finger. For example, your hand is tired of being in the air, and you still have a lot of work to do - you need to look through your mail - take an i-pencil and start working with it, and you can put your hand on the screen - a special technology will allow the display not to respond to pressing your palm if you use an Apple Pencil .
Now let's imagine that you need to not just look at the mail - let's say you work as an editor and received texts for editing. You don’t have to turn on the computer, open Word and use the special Review tool, it’s much faster and more convenient to take notes from the iPad, and you don’t even need to be at the table, you can, for example, lie on the couch. In general, the scenarios for using the Apple Pencil may not be as small as it seems at first glance.
Fast and long lasting
As we said above, everyone is aware of the compatibility problems of iOS devices, but it's also not a secret to anyone that all Apple technology is very fast and responsive, and it also has no problems with autonomy. All these "compliments" are relevant for the i-pencil - its response speed is amazing. It is also simple and quick to create a Bluetiich pair between the iPad and the Apple Pencil - you need to connect the device to the connector and, when prompted, tap "Pair".
You can charge the Apple Pencil both through the tablet itself and through the outlet, a full charge takes about half an hour, after which the accessory can exist autonomously for up to 12 hours. In general, very well. In addition, it's nice that the charge level can be monitored through the notification center, and when the level is low, a corresponding notification appears.
A few but...
However, no matter how fast and autonomous the Apple Pencil is, and no matter how many features it offers, its obvious shortcomings cannot be avoided. Firstly, the engineers of the "apple" company came up with a wildly strange charging mechanism - you need to remove the "cap" from the accessory and insert it into the tablet's Lightning connector. It’s conveniently conceived - they say, you can charge directly from the iPad, but in reality the design turns out to be somehow wildly awkward and fragile - a very long “stick” sticks out of the tablet - one awkward movement and the connector will break.
Apparently, realizing the whole horror of the situation, when it was already too late to fix something, it was decided to report a special adapter to the i-pencil kit - it is put on the accessory and a charging cable is already attached to the adapter, which is inserted into the socket. Of course, you’re not afraid to break the connector here, but, you see, the “garden” turns out to be noble, it’s downright tempting to say that this would not have happened under Jobs.
Another obvious design disadvantage is the lack of a mechanism for attaching the Apple Pencil to the tablet - yes, it seems to be magnetized to the body, but it’s very flimsy, that is, it’s possible to magnetize it so that it doesn’t get lost on the desktop among the papers, but it’s unlikely to be transferred somewhere in this form if anyone decides - that and look will fall.
And, finally, it should be noted that when working with an i-pencil, the iPad discharges very quickly - 10 percent of the charge is lost in half an hour of work.
A matter of taste
Also, the disadvantages of the Apple Pencil, many include the fact that this accessory does not look at all like Apple, they say, there is no grace and soul in it. However, this, of course, is a matter of taste - one might say - boring, but you can - organically. Besides, the artist shouldn't be distracted, should he?
Issue price
Stop. You didn’t think until now that the i-pencil comes with the iPad Pro for free, right? No. Apple would then not be Apple. Of course, you have to pay for the accessory and not a little - its official cost is $ 100. As before, the course didn’t seem to go anywhere, but at the current price it doesn’t bite slightly and it immediately seems that you can draw with your finger, which is already there. The average cost of Apple Pencil (MK0C2ZM/A) is now about 7500 rubles.
Who needs him?
The question - “Who needs it for that kind of money?” Of course, is spinning on the tongue, but here you need to remember that the product is niche, whatever one may say, Apple does not hide this and does not say that it is absolutely necessary for any user. But, nevertheless, in this world there are quite a few people to whom this tool will seem like a very good acquisition. All these people can be divided into two groups: creative natures - designers, artists, etc., and people on whose opinion a lot depends - the editor, director - quickly making changes to the current project is worth a lot. As you can see, the niche is not so narrow.
Another question, why don't all these people buy a similar tool from another brand? Yes, we will not hide that the Apple Pencil has quite a few competitors - some of them are cheaper, some are more expensive, some have more features, some less. But, you need to understand that no stylus will work with the iPad Pro as smoothly and quickly as the Apple Pencil. Moreover, do not think that good styluses, which can be called worthy competitors of the product of the "apple" giant, will be much cheaper.
Personal experience after 48 hours of operation.
What we have been waiting for so long has come true. Apple released the iPad Pro, we wrote, and two weeks later the guys from Onlyphones.ru offered to plunge into the world of fine art and test all the possibilities of the Apple Pencil stylus.
What is iPencil capable of, is the game worth the candle, and how does the owner of the iPad Pro live, in whose hands the Apple Pencil fell into? Let's talk about the advantages and disadvantages of the stylus.
Reason #1: no delays
For people who use the computer as a professional tool, the worst enemy of all time remains delay. The sound engineer struggles to minimize the time it takes to convert audio from analog to digital; designer - wins back precious milliseconds by drawing another stroke on a graphics tablet. Apple Pencil is devoid of such shortcomings.
As soon as you touch the iPad Pro's huge screen with the tip of the stylus, it instantly responds to your touch. The lines are clear and even, and the artist has the feeling that they are drawing on a slate board or a piece of parchment. Response speed this accessory has the highest praise, and the signal reading frequency reaches 240 times per second.
Reason #2: Very sensitive
Despite its small size, comparable to the size of a regular ballpoint pen, Apple Pencil is packed with all sorts of sensors to ensure its smooth and trouble-free operation. The stylus distinguishes not only pressing force(up to 2048 degrees), but also the tilt angle.
By setting a slight slope, you can quickly shade a section of the drawing, as if working with a regular pencil.
Reason #3: Long lasting
Inside the Apple Pencil is a miniature battery that has a capacity of only 80 mAh Despite such a small size, after a full charge, the stylus is ready to use. 12 o'clock continuous work.
What's more, the universal charger for Apple Pencil is always at hand. The gadget is equipped with a traditional Lightning port, and a simple connection to the corresponding port of the iPad Pro for just 15 seconds will give the stylus 30 minutes of work. Full charge time is about 50 minutes.
For charging via a regular network, a miniature adapter is provided: an Apple Pencil is inserted on one side, and a Lightning cable on the other.
Reason #4: The palm is not the enemy
Even an experienced artist knows what is fraught with touching with a palm to a drawing that has just been drawn with a slate or charcoal pencil. This is the case when the hands that created the drawing can also spoil it. Apple has foreseen this as well.
Despite the fact that according to all the "laws of the genre" of the capacitive screen technology, it should respond to the touch of a human hand, working with the Apple Pencil you can touch the screen with the edge of your palm, leaning on the tablet screen as if on a regular sheet of paper. The tablet will not go berserk from this action, and the clarity of the stylus will not deteriorate at all.
Reason #5: Works through "obstacles"
Another curious feature of the Apple Pencil is the ability to work through a sheet of paper. Suppose that you want to draw as accurately as possible a fragment of the original drawing printed on paper.
To do this, just attach the sheet to the iPad Pro screen and circle all the required contours. The tablet counts all touches of the stylus, despite the fact that there is an impromptu obstacle between the screen and the pen tip - a sheet of paper.
Reason #6: Instead of a finger
The main purpose of the Apple Pencil is drawing. However, the stylus is compatible with just about everything you would normally do when touching the tablet with your fingers.
Opening links, launching applications, scrolling, interacting with menu items, typing (support for third-party keyboards and keyboards that allow handwriting) - Apple Pencil can do it all. Among the limitations of the accessory is the inability to open the Notification Center, Control Center, switch to Slide Over or Split View. Most likely, this limitation is purely software in nature, but "Apple decided so."
Reason #7: App Support
To implement a really good product, the ingenuity of engineers and the bright look of a designer are not enough. Need software support. The number of apps compatible with the Apple Pencil is growing exponentially.
Today, Apple's stylus is compatible with: Pixelmator, Adobe Comp CC, Paper, Adobe Phoroshop Mix, Adobe Photoshop Fix, AutoCAD 360, Autodesk SketchBook, Evernote, Adobe Illustrator Draw, Canva and a number of other applications. The inclusion of stylus support by developers allows not only to optimize the interaction of the accessory with the interface, but also enable support for iOS features such as Split View.
A little sad
Ask any marketer and he will confidently answer that there is no “perfect product”. The Apple Pencil is no exception, and the list of disadvantages of the "Apple Pencil" looks something like this:
- The stylus is only and only compatible with the iPad Pro. It will not work with other devices, including Apple products.
- Unavailable multitasking. Apple Pencil does not allow you to switch to Split View and Slide Over modes - the main innovations of iOS 9. You can only do this with your finger.
- No eraser. Users familiar with alternative styluses that work with capacitive screens, one of the advantages of this category of products include the presence of an eraser. Touched the screen with the other end of the stylus - activated the eraser mode. The Apple Pencil does not have this feature.
- Apple Pencil does not support multi-touch gestures. However, not a single stylus can do this.
A skeptical user will certainly classify the next Apple development as an "expensive and unnecessary toy." A professional designer or artist, being a creative person, will think about purchasing an Apple Pencil, because the desire to experiment is the main engine of creativity. The Apple aficionado and user who has been waiting for the "big iPad" will pick up the stylus without hesitation.
Where to buy an Apple Pencil? We suggest stopping at the Onlyphones.ru online store. First, it is in stock today; secondly, among the impressive assortment of accessories for Apple devices, you will definitely want to buy “something else”.
