Apple is exploring a new type of display finish for iPhones, iPads and Macs with a visually imperceptible texture that would enable a tactile sensation varying with an object contacting the glass surface, like a finger or Apple Pencil.
“If you see a stylus, they blew it,” Steve Jobs famously quipped during the January 2007 iPhone introduction while showing off the handset's multi-touch user interface.
In this brief tutorial, we will show you how to see the current firmware version of your Apple Pencil using the Settings app on your iPad.
You know how Apple Pencil is weighted to prevent rolling and how it always stops rolling with the word “Pencil” facing upward on its metal band? Well, Apple's attention attention to detail doesn't stop at the stylus.
Today, we have Apple's brand new leather case for Apple Pencil put through its paces by our resident video editor Andrew O'Hara. In his hands-on video, Andrew finds that the case has been designed to prevent rolling and broken tips.
And while you can put your stylus with the bottom part in first, it won't be stuck inside the case because the body is soft: you just squeeze it down the tube until it comes out.
And here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaVSLN4bgc
Subscribe to iDownloadBlog on YouTube.
“This simple leather secures the cap, prevents it from rolling off your desk, and keeps the tip from being damaged,” says Andrew in the video.
Apple's case for Apple Pencil is available in Saddle Brown, Taupe, Midnight Blue and Black finishes. Priced at $29 a pop and currently shipping in 1-2 weeks, it can be grabbed from Apple's web store. The price is a bit on the high-side, but then again—this isn't an ordinary, sloppily designed stylus case.
Apple on Friday released new ads via its official channel on YouTube, a continuation of its ongoing “Real problems…answered” campaign that positions its tablet as a powerful computer.
Titled “A new kind of power” and “The amazing Apple Pencil”, the new videos run sixteen seconds long each and highlight the features of the new 10.5-inch iPad Pro with the thinner side bezels, upgraded display and CPU, Apple Pencil and more.
A new kind of powerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPnooxO6V6k
“You could feel the power of the A10x Fusion chip, if your computer was the new iPad Pro.”
The amazing Apple Pencilhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvr3p2_MiNY
“You could write with basically no lag, if your computer was the new iPad Pro.”
The very first ad featuring the 10.5-inch iPad Pro was released on Monday. Like prior “Real problems…answered” ads, the latest ones are based on real tweets from real people.
Yesterday, Apple released a new “Shot on iPhone” commercial, titled “Earth”, based on some powerful narration by the late cosmologist and science popularizer Carl Sagan.
It was only a matter of time until Apple would release an in-house case for Apple Pencil. Lo and behold, just after this year's main WWDC keynote had come to a close, the item already offered by various third party companies was silently added to the Apple Store.
We'll put this addition down as rather overdue and predictable - all the while welcome - which also holds true for the colors currently on offer. With Saddle Brown, Taupe, Midnight Blue and Black, Apple draws on the four most classic tones also available for iPhone and iPad cases, playing it safe rather than betting on a new color palette. As it stands, the cases ship in 3-5 business days and can be grabbed for a hefty $29 per piece.
If this is what you were waiting for, hurry up, because shipping times might slip fast!
Apple Pencil is already loved by a large constituency, but new features added this fall will mean more and better use cases for the white stylus. Deeper integration for Apple Pencil has been developed for both the current and new iPad Pro range, the latter however does boast additional technological advancements such as ProMotion, developed to further boost the responsiveness and latency of the writing tool.
With the exception of ProMotion, all iPad Pros in the market are going to acquire a bunch of new skills. Naturally, the most prominent features were introduced under the buzzwords of Instant Markup, Instant Notes, Inline Drawing and Scan & Sign.
To flesh out Instant Markup, any device screenshot taken on iPad immediately creates a thumbnail in the newly-designed app dock, which in turn can be marked up or manipulated otherwise before being shared.
Besides this and a built-in scanner functionality for the enhanced Notes app, Inline Drawing (between typed paragraphs) for Pencil will be implemented, allowing for the user to easily clear as much space as needed between written words for drawings or sketches.
It is also now confirmed that touching the lock screen with Pencil will instantaneously open a clean piece of paper to work on. The instant note will be saved inside your Notes app in the event that the iPad is locked again.
What's more is that iOS 11 boasts smarter machine learning algorithms capable of recognizing Apple Pencil handwritings in Notes, which means you will be able to search notes by way of Spotlight search and consequently detect files containing words scrawled by hand.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office yesterday awarded a new patent to Apple, seemingly covering a future Apple Pencil that would work with an iPhone. Apple's $99 stylus is currently exclusive to iPad Pro models because the accessory requires a special system underneath the display, which iPhones currently don't have.
The U.S. Patent No. 9,658,704, titled “Devices and methods for manipulating user interfaces with a stylus”, describes a future Apple Pencil as supporting a myriad of electronic devices outfitted with a touchscreen and one or more sensors to detect signals from a stylus.
In some embodiments, the patent describes using a stylus with portable communications devices like iPhone, iPod touch and iPad by taking advantage of the projected mutual capacitance sensing technology that Apple's existing OS devices currently use.
The wording of the patent indicates strongly that a future Apple Pencil may work with other types of apps like word processing, spreadsheet making, game playing, web browsing, image editing, email and more.
Other devices like Macs with touch-sensitive trackpads might also work with a stylus.
Both “iPhone” and “phone” are referenced many times throughout the patent application. One of the included patent drawings clearly illustrates a stylus being used with an iPhone-like device.
The patent was originally filed for in September 2015 and credits Apple engineers Jeffrey Traer Bernstein, Linda L. Dong, Mark K. Hauenstein and Julian Missig as its inventors.
Tim Cook may have hinted in an interview last September that Apple Pencil could soon work with iPhones, thereby suggesting that the next iPhone might incorporate additional sensor support for a next-generation digital stylus from Apple.
Apple today showcased work of the self-proclaimed “Vector Art Monster” aka Rob Zilla, who drew NBA star Kevin Durant with his iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.
The iPad Pro + Apple Pencil combo allows the artist to create illustrations that Mashable has described as “bright, arresting sports imagery.”
To celebrate the Golden State Warriors’ NBA-best regular season record, and star Kevin Durant’s return to the team just in time for the 2017 NBA Playoffs, the iPhone maker has shared images and videos showing off the illustration coming to life from start to finish.
Apple just rolled out a pair of new iPad Pro commercials via its YouTube channel, running sixteen seconds each and titled “Need Less Stuff” and “Take Better Notes”. The former positions iPad Pro as a clutter-free alternative to clunky desktop PCs.
The latter makes the bold claim that iPad Pro and Apple Pencil “revolutionized the way people take notes,” adding that users can even record voice notes. Watch the new videos, then jump into the comment section to tell us how you liked them.
Reminiscent of Apple's legendary "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC” commercials, the latest iPad Pro ad campaign based on real tweets from real people continues with a new 16-second video posted to the company's YouTube channel Tuesday.
Titled “No More Printing,” the video is based on a 2013 tweet which reads: “When you're printing personal things at work and you have to run to the printer to get your stuff before anyone else does.”
The commercial shows off iPad Pro's ability to sign digital documents right on the device with Apple Pencil. “You wouldn’t have to print anymore, if your computer was an iPad Pro,” Apple wrote in the video's description.
Apple today published four new ads on its YouTube channel that continue to position its iPad Pro tablet as being better than a computer. The four new commercials, running sixteen seconds each, use the tagline “Real Problems... Answered” and appear to be based on typical PC user tweets.
The videos promote the tablet as a device that's free of wires, immune to viruses, faster than most laptops and able to run Microsoft Office apps and connect to fast LTE cellular networks.
Give the new ads a quick watch, then meet us in comments.