However what’s grinding my gears is the truth that the brand new Apple Pencil Professional solely works with the brand new 2024 iPad Professional and iPad Air fashions. Sure, even in case you spent $1,099 on the 2022 iPad Professional two years in the past, you can’t use this new “Professional” stylus on that mannequin. You will need to improve. That is most likely a great time to say that the 2024 iPad Professional fashions are dearer throughout the board, beginning at $999 for the 11-incher and $1,199 for the 13-inch mannequin (a $200 and $100 leap, respectively).
Know what’s worse? In the event you thought you can improve to the brand new iPad Professional or iPad Air from an older iPad and preserve utilizing the second-gen Apple Pencil you already personal, suppose once more. The brand new iPad Air and iPad Professional tablets solely work with the 2 latest styli: the Apple Pencil (USB-C) that got here out final yr and the brand new Apple Pencil Professional. So if you’re an avid Pencil person and need one of many new slates, you most likely have to purchase a brand new Apple Pencil.
Apple wouldn’t touch upon the document about this after I attended an iPad hands-on occasion at the moment. The corporate’s advertising supplies do spotlight a “new magnetic interface” for the Apple Pencil Professional, which is the interface the Apple Pencil makes use of to recharge, pair, and keep connected to the pill. Nonetheless, there are not any particulars on what precisely is “new” about this interface moreover the truth that Apple needed to transfer its placement barely to accommodate the iPad’s front-facing panorama digital camera. The brand new interface would not provide quicker or extra environment friendly charging, quicker pairing, or safer magnets—nothing of the kind. It feels virtually similar to the prevailing system.
And the Apple Pencil is a stylus. For the love of god, it must be one of many best issues to make backward appropriate. So what if the “Squeeze” gestures may not work on an older iPad? I do not suppose it is troublesome to point that sure new options will not be accessible on older tablets; Apple already does this with its software program updates. Sure new features in iOS do not work on older iPhones, even when the {hardware} remains to be supported. On the very least, let the purchasers who’ve purchased your stylus from years previous apply it to the brand new fashions. I am unable to discover a good motive why a second-generation Apple Pencil would simply not be appropriate in any respect.
The one reply I’m drumming up is the dearth of processing energy on older slates, but when the M2 chipset contained in the 2022 iPad Professional is already not highly effective sufficient to deal with a number of new stylus tips, that does not converse very effectively to the efficiency prowess of Apple’s silicon.
It is all very foolish. The Apple Pencil Professional, second-gen Apple Pencil, and USB-C Apple Pencil at least ought to work on all of Apple’s present lineup, regardless if sure features are usually not accessible. There most likely additionally should not be 4 Pencils to select from within the first place.
“It simply works” is the motto that is typically equated with every thing Apple. Not so with the Apple Pencil.
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