Malcolm Owen
The next generation of Apple Pencil could have haptic feedback, buzzing a user's fingers as they draw and write.
Apple's holding a special event on May 7, which is expected to include updates to the iPad lineup. As part of the event, it seems that the Apple Pencil could get another update.
In Sunday's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman writes that a new Apple Pencil is on the way. The arrival is not a surprise, but a highlight feature is — it's main feature is said to be be the addition of haptic feedback.
Haptic feedback will mean the Apple Pencil will lightly buzz, alerting the user to notifications. It could also offer other benefits, such as giving a minor bump when the user draws over a button.
The idea of haptic feedback in a stylus has been seen previously in patent filings. Documents from 2020 suggest the use of various mechanisms to give haptic feedback to the user.
Other rumors about the next Apple Pencil include the possibility of interchangeable tips, changing how it writes and moves. A new squeeze gesture for interactions has also been proposed, along with Find My functionality.
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6 Comments
This could be a cool feature. I very briefly used a Surface. The one thing I loved about that was the pencil & the haptic feedback it had, where it’d stimulate drawing on paper w/ the feedback
Is that an Apple Pencil in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
But seriously, I really hope that:
It's bad for consumers which means it's bad for business. That said, I do understand that if the market is too small that both planning far ahead of the truly universal Pencil release and adding digitizers to all other devices in a category may simply be more than they'd ever recoup in profit so I understand why a company may not go that route.
I hope the animations advertising the upcoming event, showing a hand flipping a pencil around, are a hint that it will get one feature I've never understood was left out, at least since version 2: why doesn't the back end of the pencil do anything? It should be programmable and default to an eraser (or equivalent) functionality, like, you know... an actual pencil
Really hope they can find a way to unify them because the fragmented situation now with four different models is just ridiculous and unnecessary.. entirely a product of their desperate need to segment their product line; there was absolutely no technical need for it.
And I also hope moving the camera, giving the new Magic Keyboard a pencil "slot", and rumors that the new pencil will be glossy like version 1, are not all hints they they've given up on magnetic charging on the side. That would just be lame.