Hands-On With the iPad Pro Apple Pencil
The Apple Pencil has technically been available for purchase since last week, but supplies of the iPad Pro accessory have been tight. Orders placed on launch day, November 11, are just starting to arrive to customers this week, and retail stores only began receiving reliable shipments starting yesterday.
We picked up an Apple Pencil yesterday afternoon and did a hands-on video to give MacRumors readers a look at the highly sought iPad Pro accessory.
The Apple Pencil is an accessory that's unique to the iPad Pro and was built from the ground up alongside the tablet. It's aimed at creative professionals who need a more precise tool for sketching, drawing, writing, and other tasks where accuracy is imperative.
Pressure and positioning sensors built into the Apple Pencil let it detect a range of forces, enabling pressure sensitive writing and drawing. When used with the iPad Pro, the tablet scans the signal coming from the device more than 240 times per second, resulting in the low latency levels seen in the video.
Tilt sensors in the tip of the Apple Pencil determine the orientation and the angle of the hand holding it, so it's possible to do things like shading by using the side of the tip. Apple has designed the Apple Pencil to work alongside a finger, so it can be used simultaneously with touch gestures. It also has palm rejection technology, so you can rest your hand on the iPad Pro screen when drawing or writing.
There's a Lightning connector at the bottom of the Apple Pencil that's used for charging. It has a 12 hour battery life but can also charge enough for a half hour of use in 15 seconds, so it will never be non-functional in a pinch.
The Apple Pencil can be purchased from the online Apple Store for $99. Orders placed now won't arrive until December, so customers seeking an Apple Pencil may have better luck in retail Apple Stores.
Popular Stories
iOS 19 is still around three months away from being unveiled, but there are plenty of rumors about the upcoming update.
Below, we recap iOS 19 rumors so far.
Redesigned Camera App
A leak earlier this year allegedly revealed a redesigned Camera app coming with iOS 19.
On his YouTube channel Front Page Tech in January, Jon Prosser shared a video showing what the new Camera app will...
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April.
From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
Apple is expected to embrace a new camera system design for some models in its upcoming iPhone 17 series, and the latest purported CAD images don't deviate from what we have been hearing lately about Apple's new lineup. If you do not like the sound of an iPhone with a Google Pixel-style camera bar, look away now.
Seasoned leaker Sonny Dickson shared the following images in a post on X...
iOS 18.4 was supposed to bring new Apple Intelligence Siri features, but Apple ended up needing to pull those capabilities from the update to continue testing. There are fewer new Apple Intelligence additions now, but there are still some new features that will make the update worth installing when it comes out in April.
Priority Notifications
Apple introduced Priority Notifications back at ...
Apple has offered a reason why the iPhone 16e doesn't include MagSafe, one of the more notable omissions from its latest entry-level smartphone.
According to Apple representatives who spoke to Daring Fireball's John Gruber, MagSafe is not included in the iPhone 16e because "most people in the iPhone 16e's target audience exclusively charge their phones by plugging them into a charging...
With the iPhone 16e now in the hands of customers, Apple reportedly plans to move on to its next product announcement in the coming days.
Apple plans to announce new MacBook Air models with the M4 chip "as early as this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
"I expect the M4 MacBook Air to be introduced as early as this week," said Gurman, in a post shared on X today. "Inventory has ...
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Apple offered a line of Wi-Fi routers that it referred to as AirPort base stations. There was a standard AirPort Express, a higher-end AirPort Extreme with more advanced networking features, and an AirPort Time Capsule that doubled as an external storage drive for backing up a Mac with Time Machine.
Apple discontinued the AirPort line in 2018, but the company...
iPhone 16e reviews are now out, and Apple's custom-designed C1 modem has been put to the test. The results so far are quite surprising, as the C1's speeds are not as slow compared to Qualcomm modems as originally expected.
While the C1 does not support ultra-fast mmWave 5G in the U.S., it appears to offer comparable 5G performance to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X71 modem found in the iPhone 16,...
According to a post on X today from a leaker known as Kosutami, Apple plans to launch AirPods Pro 3 in May or June this year.
The leaker also claimed that an AirTag 2 will launch around the same time.
Kosutami is best known as a collector of prototype Apple hardware, but they have occasionally shared accurate information about Apple's future product plans. For example, they accurately...
