KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is back with another report outlining his belief that Apple will launch a stylus as an optional accessory for the company’s rumored 12.9-inch “iPad Pro”. With the new iPad’s larger screen, it will likely prove popular with enterprise and creative users who tend to have more need for a stylus and Kuo believes Apple will fill that need with an in-house solution.
A stylus may work for creatives, but I think using a finger will still be the preferred method for the majority of people.
Is that a Yep? : )
Let’s see… I use a pencil for writing, but I don’t use it when dialing a phone, turning on a light switch, operating the microwave, closing a tupperware, or operating a remote control. Why this is such a hard concept for analysts to understand is beyond me.
“A stylus may work for creativlies…”
Agree. Some people need to draw, and drawing with a fingertip sometimes just isn’t precise enough.
Of course, there are already many 3rd party styli on the market. So I’m not sure an Apple stylus is all that necessary. Maybe Apple wants to provide the complete solution for that one-stop-shopping experience.
Problem is that the iPad really doesn’t have good stylus support. 3rd party community has been extremely clever working around this, but it’s led to a fragmented system of incompatible styluses. They really need a proper digitizer under there.
Absolutely. Apple just needs to add a decent framework for pen support. They don’t need to build one themselves. I think they took the “finger as stylus” thing a little too far by excluding pens completely. Fingers and pens can coexist in peace and harmony, just give them a chance!
This whole rumor sounds ridiculous. Anyone who wants a stylus can buy one now, and there are hundreds to choose from. Is the third party stylus market so lucrative that Apple needs a piece of that pie? What value can Apple even add to a stylus that isn’t already available?
It’s not “may work for creatives” it’s “would work for creatives”.
I’m a graphic artist. I design and also illustrate. My tools of choice are a Wacom tablet and a Macintosh. When the iPad was first announced I saw it as a potential 10 inch digital sketchbook. I bought one, backed a nice stylus on Kickstarter, started using it for sketching outside my office, and I eventually gave it away to my sister because the whole experience was terrible because of the lack of proper pressure sensitivity. It was just a giant iPhone. I didn’t and still don’t need a crippled portable computer. I have precisely that in my pocket, and I have a nice MacBook that weighs only a slight bit more than the iPad I can take with me when necessary that can do everything the iPad can and better.
People who don’t understand how a graphics tablet/digitizer works and has never used them seem to focus on the stylus thinking all the voodoo happens there. They’re like the curmudgeons back in the 1980’s who couldn’t understand why we wanted nice typography on our personal computers. There’s comments here saying we could just buy another stylus. Sure, but it doesn’t change the fact the iPad has a capacitive touch screen designed for multiple finger-sized inputs with no pressure sensitivity instead of a resistive touch screen designed for a single pinpoint-sized input with thousands of levels of pressure sensitivity. The focus shouldn’t be on the stylus but instead on whether Apple will also put a resistive touch layer in there as well which would allow for precise input with any compatible stylus while maintaining its multitouch capabilities.
One would hope this iPad Pro, if true which I greatly doubt, will make the Android version of Wacom’s tablet solution look like a joke.
All you are saying, is give pens a chance!
This is the primary reason why my iPad has never replaced my Wacom.