Apple unveiled the iPad Pro, a bigger, more powerful iPad. While in many ways it looks and feels like a bigger iPad Air, the iPad Pro has a secret weapon — its stylus. Apple calls it the Apple Pencil.
When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone, he said that nobody wants a stylus, and that the best pointing device is our finger. And yet, a stylus is a much more precise input device that makes a lot of sense when it comes to graphic design, photo editing and many other content creation use cases.
The pencil detects position, force and tilt. It looks like the ISKN smart surface or the Adobe Digital Pen. This could also replace your Wacom tablet.
It features a lightning connector so that you can charge it directly to your iPad when you are not using it. App developers will be able to take advantage of this stylus.
Apple invited Microsoft on stage to demo Microsoft Office; you can use the pen to annotate documents. For example, you can circle items in documents, and draw shapes on PowerPoint slides that are directly converted to graphic objects.
Eric Snowden from Adobe demoed Adobe Photoshop FX, a brand new app. As expected, you can draw using the stylus. Overall, it seems like this stylus works quite well. When you draw something, it appears instantly on the screen.
The Apple Pencil is going to cost $99. It remains to be confirmed whether this stylus can work with existing iPads. It will be available in November.
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