Serenity Caldwell, writing for iMore:
Unfortunately, whether by bug or intentional design, the Pencil’s navigational prowess appears to have vanished in the iOS 9.3 public betas. With 9.3, you can no longer scroll or manipulate text; the only places the Pencil works are on canvas or when pressing digital buttons.
It’s a beta. Surely this is just an oversight, right?
Normally, I don’t write about beta bugs and features, because it’s a beta: There are always bugs, and features change. But this functionality is important enough that I wanted to talk about it before Apple submits its final 9.3 release. It could be a bug, yes: But several betas in, we’ve seen fixes for Smart Connector keyboards and new features, and the Pencil remains crippled. Which makes me think, more and more, that this is a conscious decision on the part of Apple’s engineering team.
Read the whole post. Serenity is not alone in her thinking here. Here’s hoping she’s wrong or, if Serenity is correct, that the Apple Pencil team changes their minds on this.
Someone should Kickstart a replacement cap for the Apple Pencil with a capacitive stylus tip.
According to MR article here, it appears to be intentional: http://www.macrumors.com/2016/02/22/ios-9-3-apple-pencil-intentional-feature-removal/
This has been an issue since b1 and I’ve filed a radar, they haven’t fixed it since.
I’m pretty sure one of the things talked about in the introduction of the iPad Pro was that the pencil wouldn’t control the UI. (This was mentioned alongside the palm ignoring algorithm, I think.) So this would seem to be a bug they’re fixing.
I don’t have an iPad Pro so I don’t have a horse in this race (yet), but if this was a bug it’s a pretty horrible one for Apple to have shipped since they’re now fixing it once people are used to the “functionality.”
It was not a bug in anyone’s eye, in fact, a lot of people including myself loved using Pencil to select text because it’s more precise than using their fingers. It’s more comfortable to use the pencil to scroll the list, selecting text, swiping between images, and so on.
If Apple does not clarify its stance on this, they need to refund everyone who bought a Pencil after seeing how it works on iOS 9.2.
Well, “anyone” would include me, and that is not the case. I considered it a bug from day one, and I also filed a bug report.
As Steven pointed out correctly, this was never an advertised feature of the Pencil. Just the opposite, they were pointing out from day one that this is not a stylus, not a primary input device, and not a replacement for touch. Everybody claiming something different is deliberately playing dumb.
If people really want that, then Apple should maybe make it an option. But the default should be what it is in the beta. The Pencil should not trigger anything it is not supposed to trigger.
🙂 Well, one that actually stays on the Pencil, and ideally has a clip, so I can secure it at least somewhere… Would cover 99% of what I need.
I think it’s important for Apple to maintain consistency with its user interface. The Pencil is for drawing which makes sense on the iPad Pro because of the large form factor. So it may very well never become compatible with smaller tablets or phones. It’s not a stylus. If they enable stylus-like functions, it will be a source of confusion amongst users, as well as developers. Apple has spent a lot of time and attention designing its touch interface, guidelines, and standards, along with touch gestures for its mobile devices. It’s a stable datum for both customers and developers. Enabling stylus-like functions for the Pencil would seem to me to be an unnecessary and arbitrary regression to non-Apple devices of the past.
Nobody’s saying you shouldn’t be able to, only that Apple was quite clear leading up to the iPad Pro’s release that this wouldn’t work.
It sounds like they’re adding it back, but it remains to be seen if they’re adding as an option or if it’ll always be there. I know if I was an actual artist I’d probably want the pencil to function like a pencil only. If the UI is in the way where I place the pencil, it should move out of the damn way.
Hopefully apps can already determine if the touch is a finger or pencil, and can provide the right behaviour on a per-app, possibly user-configured basis. I think that’d be best all around.
(But Springboard, Settings and other “regular” UIKit apps? No reason they can’t always treat the pencil like a finger.)
Mostly agree, except that for certain apps always treating it just like a finger makes sense. Springboard and Settings, for instance.
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The iPad Pro knows the difference between the Pencil and touch, it is hardware based and Apple emphasizes this on their hardware design page. Developers can directly control the interaction between Pencil/touch if they want.
There is no confusion between stylus/pencil, it has never triggered incorrectly anywhere on iOS 9.2 for me.
Apple has confirmed it is coming back in the next beta and claims they only took it out to improve it further.
Just because it never was an advertised feature doesn’t mean the opposite is true.
iPad Pro can in fact tell the difference between the Pencil and Touch, it is hardware based and devs can control it however they want. It does not trigger in an area that explicitly disables it.
Apple already confirmed it is coming back in the next beta, so good news for those who wanted this.
They already have it enabled since the iPad Pro was released, everyone is using it now for months now and I have not seen a single case where there’s confusion caused by this. I used Pencil all the time to scroll lists, select texts with no issue of accidental triggers. iPad Pro knows the difference between Pencil and Touch, it does not work in any apps or areas that explicitly disables such Pencil support.
That’s what the whole article is about, Apple “disabled it” in iOS 9.3 betas and many folks want Apple to revert that change.
Apple has confirmed it is returning in the next beta.