The iPad Pro accessories, Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard, may be in short supply worldwide but that doesn’t stop iFixit from tearing them down. The Apple Pencil teardown demonstrated some clever internal component miniaturization and the Smart Keyboard has similar tricks. Most notably, the teardown shows Apple’s “conductive fabric material” that runs down the length of the accessory. Rather than trailing wire or a ribbon cable inside the keyboard, Apple is using special fabric that can send power and data in both directions. iFixit believes this has durability benefits too, claiming it should be less likely to break than normal wiring would over the course of the product’s lifetime.

In fact, in general, the Smart Keyboard is praised for its durability here. The entire product is encased in a rich fabric for water and stain resistance leaving no visible holes; iFixit literally had to cut their way inside the keyboard. Inside, there are a lot of protective layers to keep the components in place. The less good news is that iFixit scored the Smart Keyboard a 0/10 for repairability as any attempt to get to the internals involves damaging the device permanently.

Although the actual keycaps themselves are pretty straightforward, no backlighting or anything to make them technically complex, iFixit confirms that the dome switches are the same as the 2015 Retina MacBook. They also notice a stiffening weight is included on the space bar, enabling firm presses across the entire width of the key to be picked up without wobbling.

That’s the Smart Keyboard: pretty durable for something that looks delicate but if anything breaks, you are out of luck. Apple has allowed third-party manufacturers to use the Smart Connector so you aren’t limited to the $169 first-party offering if you don’t want it. Right now, the only Smart Connector alternative is the $149 Logitech CREATE — check out our review of the keyboard here.

Filed under: iOS, iOS Devices Tagged: iFixit, iPad Pro, Smart Keyboard, teardown

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Earlier this year a rumor began floating around that claimed Apple had acquired Faceshift, the company behind the motion capture technology used in Star Wars. Now, TechCrunch reports that the acquisition has become official and Apple has acquired the Zurich-based Faceshift startup.

Apple has not directly confirmed the acquisition, but issued its standard statement regarding its purchasing of smaller companies. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company said.

This isn’t the first motion capture startup Apple has acquired. Over recent years, the company has acquired PrimeSense, Metaio, and Polar Rose, all European-based motion capture, facial recognition, and virtual reality companies of some sort.

It’s still unclear at this point as to how Apple plans to use the talent and technology it has required in the virtual reality field. Early indications were that Apple was planning to implement some of the technology into the Apple TV, but none of that has yet to come to fruition, despite the newest generation model being released earlier this month.

Faceshift’s technology is used in the most recent Star Wars film to make non-human characters have features, characteristics, and expressions more similar to real humans.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: acquisition, Apple, faceshift, Star Wars

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Popular RSS client Reeder has today released the third major iteration of its app on iOS. The availability of Reeder 3 for iOS follows the release of Reeder 3 for OS X back in September alongside the launch of El Capitan. Reeder 3 introduces a handful of new features and capabilities, including support for new services, interface tweaks, and more.

First off, the update adds support for using Instapaper as a sync service. Instapaper joins services like Feedbin, Feedly, and Feed Wrangler as services supported by Reeder. The update also introduces a Safari View Controller, meaning that you no longer have to exit the Reeder app itself to view links. Instead, they will open directly within the app, making for a much more seamless experience.

Reeder 3 also adds support for Split View multitasking for iOS 9 users, as well as support for iPad Pro. 3D Touch support is also now supported for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus users. You can now press harder on articles in the article list to preview them without actually tapping on them.

Various other interface tweaks have been made, as well. There are now font size options, unread and starred counts for smart folders, a new archive folder, font options for the article viewer, and more.

Below is the full changelog and Reeder 3 is available for free in the App Store now.

Filed under: Apps Tagged: Apps, reeder 3, RSS, update

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Twitter today announced that it is rolling out a highly-welcomed new feature to its Twitter Kit developer tools. The company announced in a blog post that users will now be able to watch full-screen Twitter videos and GIFs without having to open up a webview or leave their app.

Essentially this means that Twitter for iOS now will play back videos and GIFs full-screen with the native video player on iOS that we’ve all come to recognize and use over the years. Twitter notes that the feature is live on iOS now and will come to Android soon. This feature should make the entire video viewing process more seamless for the user as they will no longer have to remember to go back to whatever app they were using before clicking the video link that opened another app.

Twitter appears to be rolling out the update over-the-air, so there’s no work that needs to be done on the user/developer of things. Twitter says this feature is supposed on the latest version of Twitter Kit on iOS 8 and higher.

Here’s what the company had to say in its blog post announcing native video support for Twitter Kit:

From unbelievable sports highlights to powerful first person footage, Twitter is full of unique stories told with immersive videos. Today, we’re excited to announce native support for those videos in Twitter Kit.

Starting today, your users will be able to watch full-screen Twitter videos and GIFs without having to open up a webview or leave your app. Video support is now live on iOS, and will be coming shortly for Android as well.

The best part is, you don’t have to do any extra work. Any app running the latest version of Twitter Kit on iOS8+ will automatically support native video viewing.

We’re committed to helping you tell the best stories with videos, and we look forward to building new ways to showcase rich Twitter content in your Twitter Kit apps.

Filed under: Apps Tagged: Apps, developer, native video, Twitter

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Feature Request is a new regular 9to5Mac series where authors offer their opinion on how to improve popular hardware or software products.

Before Apple even announced the oft-rumored iPad Pro, it unveiled a new version of iPad software, iOS 9, that included several new features that seemed perfect for a device with a larger screen. Sure enough, those features foreshadowed the launch of the larger, 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Zac did an excellent job last week of highlighting some of these enhancement that are great on the larger-screened device.

As Zac noted, iOS 9 includes a handful of really nice optimizations for iPad Pro. These include things such as Picture in Picture support for video and FaceTime calls, Split View and Slide Over multitasking, an enhanced keyboard, and more. While these features truly shine and highlight how much potential the iPad Pro has for professional use, I still feel like there’s a lot more Apple can do to take advantage of the larger 12.9-inch Retina display…

Secondary Display Support

One of the ways I find myself using iPad Pro the most is at my desk while I work on my dual 28-inch monitors. I use iPad Pro to have things like Twitter and email streaming constantly, or when a game is on, I use WatchESPN to stream it right to my desk on the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro is the ultimate device for doing this thanks to its large and tactile display, but it could be even more useful if it could be used as an actual secondary display for my Mac without requiring third-party software.

Apple already has its AirPlay standard that, with the occasional hiccup, works pretty smoothly. For instance, with Apple TV, you can AirPlay a Mac or iPad to it and use your TV to either mirror or extend your Mac’s display. It would be incredibly useful if Apple added this capability to iPad Pro. You could AirPlay your Mac to the iPad Pro and use it to extend your Mac’s display for things like Twitter, email, and streaming video. The technology is already there and third-party apps are tackling this problem, but an official Apple method would be great.

App Interfaces

Jeremy did a good job addressing this issue in his piece, but it’s something annoying enough to be addressed twice. While Apple has done a fair job optimizing some aspects of iOS for iPad Pro, there are many instances in which first-party app interfaces are an absolute mess. Look at the Notes app for instance. Functionally, it is great on the iPad Pro thanks to the ability to handwrite notes and more, but visually, it’s a mess.

Typing text notes out leave way too much white space on either side of the text. While I don’t know if extending text to full width would be best, there is certainly some room for fitting more text on the display.

Too much white space is a common trend in app interfaces on iPad Pro. It seems as if Apple is essentially banking on people always using Split View or Slide Over. In Mail, landscape email text is surrounded by blank interface space. Also, where is the version of GarageBand optimized for iPad Pro that Apple showed off on stage at the device’s unveiling event? That was one of the apps I was most excited to use on the larger display, and it’s seemingly not ready yet.

Lock Screen Info

When iPad Pro is locked, the lock screen seems like a huge waste of space. You see the same amount of info on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro’s lock screen as you see on the iPhone. There is so much more space for more details and actionable notifications.

For instance, if you receive an iMessage with an image, why isn’t there a way to quickly view the image directly from the lock screen instead of having to go into the messages app itself to view it. The same goes for an email with an attachment. People have also long called for iOS to support “widgets” on the lock screen. I’ve personally been against this on the iPhone because I like the simplistic look of the lock screen, but on iPad Pro, I think Apple Watch-like complications would be very useful. Quick access to things like weather info, calendar events, and breaking news would be very useful and make the lock screen somewhat less of a waste of space.

The App Grid

This is something that’s incredibly simple and likewise, incredibly frustrating. The iPad Pro in landscape mode has a 5×4 app grid and in portrait mode a 4×5 grid. The iPhone 6s Plus has a 4×6 app grid in portrait mode and a 6×4 app grid in landscape mode. It doesn’t make any sense that the iPhone can fit more apps on its home screen than the more than 2 times bigger iPad Pro can. In landscape mode, the iPad Pro can easily have a 6×5 setup and 5×6 setup in portrait mode.

I’ve long agreed with Apple’s decision to keep the iOS home screen nothing more than a grid of apps, but with the size of iPad Pro, it’s time to change that. Not to just show more icons, but to support some sort of way to display information, preferably in the form of widgets, much like I mentioned for the lock screen.

Third-Party Apps

To put it bluntly, third-party apps are a mess on iPad Pro right now. I know this isn’t necessarily Apple’s fault, but there is so much more it could have done to ensure a strong lineup of apps optimized for the larger display were available at launch. For instance, there isn’t a truly optimized Twitter client right now. The official Twitter app is an absolute joke, while Tweetbot is arguably the best and it’s not officially optimized for the larger display. Likewise, the official Facebook app is nothing more than the normal iPad app scaled up to fill the 12.9-inch display.

Similarly, the two most popular video apps, YouTube and Netflix, have not been updated to take advantage of Picture in Picture and Split View/Slide Over (or native resolutions). It baffles me as to why Apple didn’t go to companies like Netflix, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook and work with them to optimize apps for the larger iPad Pro. Presumably, iPad Pro has been in the works inside Apple for years now, and it was shown off two months before launch, so why aren’t more apps available for it?

3D Touch

For a device that carries the “Pro” tag, it seems insane to me that Apple didn’t include support for 3D Touch on the iPad Pro. I was skeptical of 3D Touch’s usefulness when initially announced, but now I find myself relying on it heavily when using the iPhone 6s Plus. There have been several instances of times when I’ve attempted to press harder on the iPad Pro’s display simply because I’ve become so accustomed to the quick shortcuts it provides on the iPhone and Apple Watch.

One of the instances in which I feel 3D Touch would be most useful on the iPad Pro is with the software keyboard. On the iPhone 6s, you can use 3D Touch on the keyboard to bring up the incredibly useful trackpad-like text editing tool. On the iPad Pro, you have to use two fingers to activate it and it’s not nearly as seamless and intuitive as using 3D Touch.

Safari

Safari on the iPad Pro is disappointing. There really aren’t any optimizations for the larger display and “Pro” angle of the new iPad. For instance, there is no way to view two Safari tabs side by side without extra software. This would be incredibly useful for doing things like comparing prices and features of products, or doing research for a paper.

Safari also still lacks some sort of a download manager. If I want to download an MP3 from Soundcloud and add it to my Music library, there’s no way to do it. Instead, you have to go to your Mac, download the MP3, add it to iTunes, and add it to your iCloud Music Library. Extensions allow you to save MP3s to Dropbox, but a Mac is still needed to import the file to iTunes and iCloud Music Library.

The Argument Against iPad Pro Running OS X 

One thing many people have argued is that the iPad Pro should run Mac OS X because of its larger display. In my opinion, however, this is definitely not a good idea. OS X is not optimized for touch and there’s not much Apple could do to optimize it. The click targets are way too small to be easily navigated with multitouch. Instead of even considering putting OS X on iPad Pro, Apple should put all of its efforts into better optimizing iOS for the device. Essentially, if you think iOS isn’t well enough optimized for iPad Pro, imagine using OS X that has not ever been optimized for touch use. It just wouldn’t work.

A hybrid device with OS X and iOS paired with a detachable keyboard + trackpad seems somewhat more realistic, but again, for my personal use of any iPad, the last thing I want to do is run OS X. It doesn’t provide the combination of ease of use and productivity that Apple markets it tablets as having.

Overall iPad Pro Thoughts

Overall, despite some software annoyances, I really do like iPad Pro. It’s not a PC replacement by any stretch of the imagination (yet), but it provides a happy-medium between using an iPad and a MacBook. It does more than an iPad Air thanks to its larger display and less than a MacBook due to iOS. Personally, I think it’s a good thing it does less than a Mac, but as mentioned above, there are certainly a few things Apple could do to iOS to make it more productive. To me, using a Mac implies that I should do something productive. Doing things like watching Netflix are far more relaxing with the iPad Pro than on a Mac and more enjoyable than an iPad Air.

However, iPad Pro is the ultimate luxury device. There are very few reasons anyone has to have one. For most, the iPad Air 2 is probably a much more price-realisitic option, but once you get used to the giant 12.9-inch display, it’s hard to go back. For me, the first day of using iPad Pro was jarring. The screen seemed stupidly big, but once I got used to it, I was hooked. I had the same experience when I upgraded from the iPhone 6 to the 6s Plus. Once you go big, you don’t know how you ever managed with smaller screens before. Hopefully future versions of iOS make better use of all that extra space on iPad Pro.

Filed under: Feature Request, iOS Devices, Opinion Tagged: Feature Request, iOS, iPad, iPad Pro

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Google today has updated its Drive app on iOS with a handful of notable new features and enhancements. First off, today’s update to Drive, which bumps the app to version 4.4, adds 3D Touch support for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus users. Now, pushing with more pressure on the Drive app icon will bring up two options, one to quickly upload photos and another to quickly search the contents of your Drive.

Next, the update adds the ability to receive push notifications whenever a new file is shared with you. Also, searching through Spotlight in iOS will now bring up files you have saved in Drive, allowing you to easily jump to it without first having to open to open the app.

Finally, version 4.4 of Google Drive for iOS adds support for Split View and Slide Over multitasking on iPad and iPad Pro. While these features aren’t mentioned in the changelog of the update, they appear to be new in this version. Now, while using Drive on an iPad, you can have the app running on part or half of your display while another app occupies the rest of it.

The changelog for there update can be seen below. The latest version of Drive is available now on the App Store for free.

Filed under: Apps Tagged: 3D Touch, Apps, Google Drive, iOS, update

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Even though the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus support 4K video recording, the 4K format is still gathering steam. TVs with 4K Ultra HD only became affordable in the past year (with major holiday discounts), but the lack of 4K content — and devices to even play 4K videos — have been sticking points. Apple’s just-released fourth-generation Apple TV doesn’t support 4K, and the only Apple devices that can play back 4K videos at full resolution without a separate 4K monitor are the 21″ Retina 4K iMac and 27″ Retina 5K iMac.

Even though they can’t actually display 4K videos, either through their own screens or accessories, Apple has enabled certain iOS devices to edit in 4K using the latest version of iMovie. So armed with an iPhone 6s Plus and two accessories, I decided to see whether the brand new iPad Pro was actually up to the task of editing and sharing 4K videos. The results were surprising, so if you’re wondering how 4K video editing actually works with Apple’s “Pro” tablet, read on…

What I Used

• 4K Video Camera: iPhone 6s Plus. Unlike most consumer 4K video cameras, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus record 4K (3840×2160) videos in solely H.264 format rather than the newer H.265/HEVC standards. This makes iPhone 4K video files easy for various devices to open, but compromises on video quality and file size relative to H.265 videos. My 20-minute, 29-second iPhone 4K video required 7.7GB of storage space.
• 4K Video Editor: iPad Pro. The iPad Pro has been billed as a potential laptop replacement with processing power on par with Apple’s entry-level MacBook computers. Sold in 32GB or 128GB capacities, the 128GB version is much more likely to have enough free space for 4K video editing: remember, the only workspace you’ll have is what isn’t already occupied by apps, media files, and the original (unedited) 4K recordings, which can become large.
• A Lightning to USB Cable. Packaged with every iPad, including the iPad Pro, this USB 2.0 cable is required to connect your iPhone to the iPad for wired video transfers. Spares can be had for $5.
• A Lightning to USB Camera Adapter. Originally released for the iPad (fourth-generation) and iPad mini, this adapter lets you connect various USB devices — including video cameras and cameras — to all iPad Air, iPad mini, and iPad Pro models to import videos and photos. It operates at USB 2.0 speeds.

What I Found

Recording 4K video with the iPhone 6s Plus was absolutely effortless. Default settings for both of the 6s models record video at 1080p (2K), but under Settings > Photos & Camera, you can choose to Record Video at “4K at 30 fps,” which activates 4K recording across all videos. At that point, it’s literally a matter of launching the Camera app — or 3D Touch-ing Camera to “Record Video” — and hitting the red record button… preferably when your iPhone is horizontal rather than vertical.

Sharing 4K video to the iPad Pro was not as easy as it should have been. Connecting the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter to the iPad Pro is simple, as is connecting the Lightning to USB Cable to both the iPhone and the Adapter. You’ll next need to “trust” authorize the iPad to share the iPhone’s files, after which you’ll be able to import videos (and photos) using the Photos app’s Import tab. Most likely due to an iOS bug, I found that the iPad Pro repeatedly requested trust authorizations from the iPhone, despite having previously been granted permission. Still, none of this is challenging — if it works.

In my testing with video clips, however, the import process didn’t work perfectly on the iPad Pro. A 1-minute, 46-second video clip came over without any problems in less than a minute, but after taking 6 minutes to supposedly import the 20-minute, 29-second clip, the video was nowhere to be found in the iPad’s library. A restart didn’t help, so I re-imported the clip, which properly showed up after an additional 7 minutes. As iFixit discovered in its iPad Pro teardown, the iPad Pro has the ability to support USB 3 transfer speeds and accessories, which could improve the import process — assuming Apple releases both a USB 3 Lightning adapter, a USB 3 Lightning cable, and (assuming the iPhone 6s doesn’t include support already), a device capable of sharing 4K content at USB 3 speeds.

Using iMovie to edit 4K video is pretty straightforward. You just need to select the 4K video clip, bring it into a project, and learn the appropriate (generally unmarked) finger gestures and icon taps to tweak the video to your heart’s content. If you can’t figure something out, a ? icon explains everything on screen and lets you access a deeper “Learn more” help system. I haven’t actively used iMovie for iOS in years, but within 10 minutes, I was able to merge my two clips together, add two photos, customize transitions, add a photo color filter and title the video.

Exporting 4K video from iMovie had the same type of hiccups I saw when importing the 4K videos to the iPad. I was able to do a 2K export of the video fairly quickly: it took only 7 minutes and 2.57GB to create a 22-minute, 25-second 1080p version of my clip, or around 1/3 realtime. That’s nice and fast — if you’re making short 2K videos, you’ll be done in a flash.

But the 4K export process stumbled. After 21 minutes of rendering, the iPad Pro stopped and said “An error occurred during export,” without providing any additional details. I then had to start again, and after around 45 minutes, the iPad Pro thankfully succeeded, creating a (surprisingly small, 4.15GB) 4K video. The 4K video rendering time would have been roughly 2 times the actual length of the video, except for the failed initial attempt, which brought the total rendering time to 3X realtime.

What I’d Change

The good news is that the iPad Pro can easily — though not flawlessly or quickly — be used to import and export 4K videos. If you’re only handling small videos, you’re less likely to bump into problems during importing, storage, or exporting. Depending on the type of “Pro” user you are, and the type of content you create, you might find the iPad Pro just fine for 4K editing work as-is.

However, many professionals would say that the iPad Pro’s efficacy as a 4K video editing tablet is currently limited by a variety of factors, ranging from storage capacity to software reliability when handling large 4K files, as well as import and export speeds. That’s even before you consider software/hardware limitations on handling raw H.265 videos created by non-iPhone video cameras, the current state of iPad Pro accessories, and the lack of 4K export quality controls. For serious video editing, it’s hard to recommend the iPad Pro right now over an entry-level MacBook Pro, which is similarly priced once you factor in the cost of Apple’s Smart Keyboard, yet much more capable. You don’t even need Apple’s Final Cut Pro to get a better editing experience on the Mac.

Improving the Pro’s editing performance is going to require at least some software and accessory changes, including an iOS update to improve transfer reliability, an iMovie update to enhance export reliability, and USB 3 cables to improve transfer speeds. Thinking more broadly, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Apple release a iPad Pro USB dock with enhanced connectivity options, enabling the tablet to come even closer to a laptop for storage, input, and video output when needed. I would love to see such a device, but shudder to think of the price Apple would charge for it. For now, the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter is a fine if not terribly fast option.

More From This Author

Check out more of my editorials, How-To guides and reviews for 9to5Mac here! I’ve published a lot of different topics of interest to Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch users, as well as a great holiday gift guide for iPhone users, and a separate holiday gift guide for Apple photographers.

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: 4k, IMovie, iPad Pro, iPhone 6s, iphone 6s plus, Video editing

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Aside from its larger 12.9-inch display and faster A9X processor, the iPad Pro stands out from all other iPads to date thanks primarily to a new accessory: the Apple Pencil. For now, the Apple Pencil can only be used with the iPad Pro, and offers quantifiable differences in both good and bad ways compared with third-party styluses that have previously been sold for iPads.

While Pencil is not required to use the iPad Pro, it’s especially interesting because it’s Apple’s first official solution for handwriting, drawing, and precision input on iPads beyond finger touches and gestures. By contrast, Apple’s Smart Keyboard for iPad Pro is the company’s second or third typing solution for iPads; the company offered an official solution for physical keyboard input on iPads way back when the original iPad launched in 2010 with the short-lived Keyboard Dock, and has sold Wireless/Magic Keyboards as well. What does Apple’s first digital stylus bring to the iPad? Read on…

Measuring 7 inches in length from the removable cap that covers its Lightning plug to the replaceable tip where the digital ink flows, Apple Pencil is surprisingly longer than most iOS-ready digital styluses that have come before it. Surveying a few pens and pencils around my office, Apple Pencil is also longer than most writing pens and mechanical pencils, but similar to actual pencils which are longer to accommodate more lead.

The impressively simple design is characteristically Apple, and you’ll likely either love it or be frustrated by its few omissions. Unlike some of the Bluetooth styluses released by third party developers, there are no buttons tied to software features, no LED status indicator, and no pen clip for securing it to your shirt or pants pocket.

As a fan of discontinued polycarbonate white MacBooks and stainless steel-backed iPods, I found the almost all-white exterior with metallic accents both refreshing and charming. The shiny plastic shell can be slippery when held loosely, but when gripped normally for writing or drawing, it sits comfortably in the hand without any ergonomic issues despite the lack of rubber for gripping.

And despite not having a pen clip or flat edge, Apple Pencil has an internal weight that keeps it from rolling off level surfaces, though it can slip off an incline. Apple Pencil always comes to rest with its name printed on the metal casing facing up, too, also a nice touch.

At the drawing end is a replaceable light gray rubbery tip that screws off to reveal a gold-colored metallic holder. The other end has a removable plastic cap with a metallic insert that magnetically clips on to cover and protect the integrated Lightning plug that can be used to recharge Apple Pencil. This cap easily slides out of pant pockets and into couch cushions or onto the floor, so bear that in mind when trying not to misplace it.

Inside the box (initial unboxing and hands-on impressions here) you’ll find the Apple Pencil capped with one tip already in place, plus an identical replacement tip and a new female-to-female Lightning port adapter. This part allows you to charge Apple Pencil with any standard Lightning cable or dock. No Lightning cable is included, but the required iPad Pro does come with a lengthy 2-meter one, and you can buy shorter spares for a few bucks.

Interestingly, the safety and handling pamphlet notes that “With use, the tip of Apple Pencil will wear down, and you’ll need to replace it to avoid damaging the iPad Pro screen.” Although the box includes a single spare tip, additional replacement tips aren’t yet available and pricing is unknown. A note on Apple’s support website promises that replacement tips will be available “in the future.”

But aside from the inevitable Apple Pencil replacement tips, I would love to see an Apple version of Microsoft’s $10 Pen tip kit for its Surface Pen, which offers 2H, H, HB, and B tip options. Similarly, some third-party stylus makers have used conductive bristles to successfully recreate the feeling of using a paint brush on iPad with inexpensive solutions.

Apple’s pencil metaphor tends to break down when using software tools that let you paint with splashes of color or even just crank up the brush size. Apple Pencil’s tip doesn’t conduct like a typical rubber dome stylus, but I’d love to see Apple try to expand the writing tip options. For now, it looks and feels like a plastic pencil.Whether Apple offers solutions or others find a way to work around Apple Pencil’s special tip, I’m certain we’ll see a market for alternative tips pop up eventually.

Setting up Apple Pencil is as simple as uncapping it and plugging the Lightning connector into the iPad Pro’s Lightning port. As long as your iPad’s Bluetooth is turned on, an on-screen alert will ask for permission to pair Apple Pencil with iPad Pro, then you’re done. There’s no Apple Pencil app or section within Settings — just an optional battery status widget that you can add in Notification Center.

For creatives, the goal of Apple Pencil plus iPad Pro is to recreate the experience of drawing or painting with traditional tools but in a digital way. You don’t need to be a professional to appreciate just how well Apple Pencil works either. Pencil itself is very easy to learn and Apple’s Notes app is basic enough that you can easily demo Pencil’s features. When you move on to other apps, the programs may present a learning curve up front, but Pencil generally behaves the same in each one.

Apple describes Pencil as highly responsive with virtually no lag. That’s because the iPad Pro display refreshes 240 times per second to detect Apple Pencil, which is twice the refresh rate it uses for touch input with your fingers. As for latency, Apple says it has been reduced to an “almost imperceptible level” of milliseconds, but your mileage may vary depending on which app you’re using.

For now, Apple Notes is easily the best demo when testing how low the latency can be. You can intentionally race Pencil’s top across the iPad’s display to see the delay, but at realistic handwriting and sketching speeds it’s impressive enough to not be a distraction. You feel in full control of what you’re placing on screen. Other apps that have been updated to support Apple Pencil could stand to improve as the lag is more visible at fast speeds, but even now, it’s nothing embarrassing or show-stopping.

Where Apple Pencil really impresses in my testing is palm rejection. iPad Pro is a giant canvas, and that means you’re likely going to want to rest your hand on the display when sketching intently. I’ve tested other digital styluses that promise palm rejection but struggle with dealing with iPad’s multitasking gestures and deciphering stylus input from light palm touches. Without good palm rejection, you might as well be using pen and paper instead, avoiding the hassle of trying to recreate an analog experience with a digital solution. Because I can trust Apple Pencil’s palm rejection, I can comfortably draw and focus on the activity and not worry about holding it right, which is a very big deal.

Apple says iOS won’t activate Notification Center, Control Center, or Multitasking when drawing with Apple Pencil, so there’s no need to disable these features when sketching or taking notes. (It’s actually quite pleasant to push content around the screen using Apple Pencil where you might normally use your fingers, avoiding leaving finger prints, but you cannot swipe off-screen even from the Home screen.)

Apple Pencil also features pressure sensitivity and side detection to mimic drawing or painting with traditional tools. This allows you to press harder to draw darker lines, or hold the tip of Pencil at an angle against the display to widen your brush or shade an area. Both work well, but I found shading to be very impressive when using pencil tools within Notes and other apps. The size and shape of Apple Pencil plus the curve of its tip makes for a very realistic experience for anyone with experience sketching with pencil and paper.

Interestingly, and despite its name, Apple Pencil doesn’t have an eraser opposite its drawing tip. Pencil by 53, a predecessor to Apple Pencil at half the price, does feature an eraser end like basic pencils, but apps have to include special instructions to talk to 53’s Pencil for the eraser end to work as such, otherwise it’s just a dual-sided stylus.

My guess is Apple opted not to include an eraser end for Apple Pencil 1 to avoid having a fragmented experience for a non-essential feature. Future Apple Pencils could quite possibly feature a special eraser end while maintaining the Lightning connector underneath for charging. But how important is having an eraser on a pencil? Any good drawing app will thoughtfully place both undo buttons and eraser tools alongside pencils, pens, and brushes, so I haven’t found it to be a worthy critique.

Apple Pencil promises 12 hours of battery life and 30 minutes of usage after a 15 second quick charge by plugging it into the iPad Pro. Optionally, you can charge Apple Pencil with the included Apple Pencil Charging Adapter and a self-supplied Lightning cable like the one that came with the iPad Pro.

iPad Pro gets 9 hours of battery life on cellular and 10 hours on Wi-Fi, so Apple Pencil will likely outlive iPad on a single charge if both start at 100%. Realistically, Apple Pencil and iPad will likely have varying battery levels, and in testing I never found Pencil to drain excessively fast during use. Mine arrived completely drained but charged to double digit levels in a matter of seconds.

Whether you’re charging Apple Pencil with iPad Pro, with your iPhone’s Lightning port (this works), or the Apple Pencil Charging Adapter, checking the battery widget in the paired iPad Pro is the only way to monitor Pencil’s charge levels. The paired iPad will display an alert when Apple Pencil reaches 5%.

If Apple Pencil dies, the battery widget goes away (unless other supported devices are listed) and all Pencil input totally stops working as if it was never paired. My first thought during testing was that Apple could handle this more gracefully, but super fast charge times alleviate any lasting usability issues once you’re familiar with managing battery life.

And while I did not notice any excessive drain during use, I did observe consistent Pencil battery life drain when using iPad Pro while Pencil was in my pocket. My guess is Pencil detected enough motion that it remained active, and that’s a necessary side effect of not having an on/off switch of any sort.

Finally, just how long does it take to recharge Apple Pencil in iPad Pro’s Lightning port and how much energy does Pencil borrow from iPad? Apple claims 15 seconds of charge to a dead Pencil gives you 30 minutes of usage with iPad Pro is at 100%. I tested that claim (it’s surprisingly hard to run a Pencil battery down) and found nothing to dispute. A charge of 15 seconds gave me 2%, 30 seconds 4%, and a full minute 7%. Pencil reached 50% after 10 minutes and 30 seconds, then 100% in 22 minutes. Meanwhile, iPad Pro dipped from 100% to 97% with the display continually on to monitor the battery widget. More detailed testing is required to determine detailed usage times, but general use shows that Apple Pencil battery life likely meets what is claimed.

Because Apple Pencil is just generally pleasant to use, I find myself wishing I could sketch over anything on iOS, or at least easily markup any photo or screenshot without installing third-party apps. For now, Pencil support with stock iOS 9 is mostly limited to Apple’s overhauled Notes app, which supports creating sketches and hand-written notes as embedded images alongside text. Drawing and writing tools within Notes include a pen, highlighter, pencil, ruler, and erase, plus 24 color options including 8 in grayscale. Line width is set to a single option, while tilting and applying pressure to Pencil’s tip creates variables with each tool.

Apple’s Mail app also features limited drawing capabilities with the somewhat hidden Markup feature. Include an image in a draft, long press it, and select markup to draw over the screenshot or photo. Choose between 8 colors and 3 line widths, then use Pencil’s pressure detection to further manipulate how much ink appears. There’s also a handy signature-writing feature here. My signature was originally synced over iCloud from my MacBook where I drew it with a finger and trackpad; I then created a totally accurate signature on the iPad Pro, which syncs back to the Mac and can be found in Preview.

I’d love to be able to mark up any photo or screenshot in Messages or Photos with Apple Pencil, and it’s possible for third-party apps to create extensions to enable this, but out-of-the-box Pencil is just a pointer stylus in these apps.

Once you graduate from Apple Notes and want to see what else you can do with Apple Pencil, I recommend a few apps that have already updated with optimizations for it.

Paper by 53 is free, has a low learning curve, and can even import images you create in other apps for enhancing.

Featured in Apple’s first iPad Pro ad, Procreate ($5.99) requires some time to learn and hides more advanced features out of sight from beginners. I’ve specifically used it to easily layer a blank canvas over a downloaded image, enabling digital tracing. You can even export a short clip of your work to share with others afterwards.

Adobe Photoshop Sketch (free) offers much more robust versions of the same tools offered in Apple Notes for drawing. It also talks to Adobe’s Creative Cloud for backing up your projects, and I like the app’s approach to creating projects made of multiple sketches.

Pixelmator ($4.99) offers both photo editing and drawing features that work with Apple Pencil. Photoshop Mix (free) uses Apple Pencil for precision input when making selections. And even apps like Photoshop Fix (free) that don’t optimize for Apple Pencil still benefit from precision input and selection when editing. Microsoft’s Office apps even take advantage of Apple Pencil for markup features and more if you’re an Office 365 subscriber.

Apple clearly worked with a healthy set of developers to enable Pencil support in popular App Store apps, and Pencil interest on iPad Pro is high enough at launch that additional developers are continually optimizing their apps for it as well.

At launch, Apple Pencil’s biggest fault (aside from sparse retail availability) is that it only works with a single iPad model, the new iPad Pro, which may be too big for a lot of potential Pencil users. You can charge Pencil in other Lightning-equipped iPads, but iOS won’t offer to pair with it, and unpaired Pencils don’t even offer basic touch input on touch displays.

The larger 12.9-inch display is excellent for sketching with plenty of room for context and little need to zoom into detailed areas, but 9.7-inch iPads have been popular with creatives since their debut in 2010, and 7.9-inch iPad minis are highly portable and bigger than even Plus-model iPhones. For those reasons, I would bet that future models of non-Pro iPads ship with Apple Pencil support (even if the current paperwork in the box explicitly references iPad Pro only).

If you’re an iPad Pro owner and plan to sketch on it, Apple Pencil is easy to recommend. It features reliable palm rejection, realistic pressure and side detection, and it’s convenient to pair and charge, and a growing number of apps are being optimized for it. But if you find the nearly 13-inch screen too unwieldy to be your personal iPad and want to have a near-Apple Pencil experience on your non-Pro iPad, there’s already a healthy variety of digital styluses for iPads already available and at more competitive prices. Fans of the pencil metaphor can pick up the eraser-equipped Pencil by 53 from $50–$60 for use in Paper and a small list of other apps, while Adonit’s $50 Jot Dash provides a nifty writing tool minus palm rejection. Apple has created the ultimate iPad writing tool at a high price point, leaving plenty of room for other options if you don’t need the specific features it offers.

Filed under: iOS, iOS Devices, Reviews Tagged: Apple Pencil, digital stylus, iPad Pro, stylus

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Apple TV users should notice several new App Store categories when browsing for new content on tvOS. After initially launching without a dedicated categories section live in late October, Apple pushed the new section to new Apple TVs without a software update earlier this month. The latest expansion brings the total number of tvOS app categories to seven, up from five initially, which should further improve new app discovery.

Apple first added two categories in early November: Games and Entertainment. The additional categories (via iDownloadBlog) gained since include Education, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, News, and Sports.

Apple highlights a collection of quality tvOS apps under each category. The education section, for instance, features the educational Noggin channel as well as the Star Walk Kids astronomy app and TED Talks. Health and fitness apps include Yoga Studio, 7 Minute TV Workout, and similar apps for exercising and getting fit. Other sections include a fair mix of apps previously available on Apple TVs and new apps totally new to the platform.

Viewing new App Store categories shouldn’t require a software update but may require a reboot.

Filed under: Apple TV, Apps Tagged: App Store, Apple Store, categories, tvOS

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Intrepid iOS developer/hacker Hamza Sood is back, this time with a cool hack to bring 3D Touch to the iPad Pro. By hooking relevant parts of the iOS system code via a jailbreak, detailed here on GitHub, iOS turns pressure data from Apple Pencil into pressure data for 3D Touch interactions. This is neat for two reasons: iPad Pro does not normally support 3D Touch (a feature currently exclusive to iPhone 6s) and its an unorthdox use for the Apple Pencil sensors, which is generally focused on drawing and sketching. You can see the video of the hack in action after the break …

This is all possible because the Apple Pencil reports pressure data back to the system, intended to add an extra dimension when painting or drawing. The sensors to do this are contained in the pencil, not in the iPad Pro display — so you couldn’t do this with just your fingers a la iPhone 6s 3D Touch. Sood’s code converts the raw force data into sensible numbers expected by the 3D Touch Peek and Pop system.

Useless project of the day: using Apple Pencil pressure data to drive the 3D Touch engine
http://ift.tt/1LxPfsS https://t.co/OwYpI9kIqD

—
Hamza Sood (@hamzasood) November 23, 2015

At least officially, Apple doesn’t seem keen on exploiting the technology in the Pencil for things aside from sketching or drawing … but it can act as a generic pointing across the iOS UI. Even if its technically possible, Apple is unlikely to bring 3D Touch to iPad Pro via the Apple Pencil for marketing reasons.

Although the iPad Pro itself is available in stores and online, the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard accessories continue to be in low supply around the world, backordered up to 4 weeks when ordering from the Apple Online Store.

Filed under: iOS Devices, Tech Industry Tagged: 3D Touch, Apple Pencil

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