C’mon, Why Isn’t the New Apple Pencil Professional Backward Suitable?

However what’s grinding my gears is that the brand new Apple Pencil Professional works solely with the brand new 2024 iPad Professional and iPad Air fashions. Sure, even for those who 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 may should improve. That is in all probability an excellent time to say that the 2024 iPad Professional fashions are costlier throughout the board, beginning at $999 for the 11-incher and $1,199 for the 13-inch mannequin (a $200 and $100 soar, respectively).

Know what’s worse? Should you thought you may improve to the brand new iPad Professional or iPad Air from an older iPad and maintain utilizing the second-gen Apple Pencil you already personal, assume 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 in case you are an avid Pencil consumer and wish one of many new slates, you in all probability have to purchase a brand new Apple Pencil.

Apple wouldn’t touch upon the file 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 hooked up to the pill. Nevertheless, there are not any particulars on what precisely is “new” about this interface apart from 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 sooner or extra environment friendly charging, sooner 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 suitable. So what if the Squeeze gestures may not work on an older iPad? I do not assume it is tough to point that sure new options will not be out there 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} continues to be supported. On the very least, let the shoppers who’ve purchased your stylus from years previous apply it to the brand new fashions. I can not discover a good cause why a second-generation Apple Pencil would simply not be suitable in any respect.

The one reply I’m arising with is the shortage 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 couple of new stylus methods, that does not converse very properly 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 in any case ought to work on all of Apple’s present lineup, regardless if sure capabilities aren’t out there. There in all probability additionally should not be 4 Pencils to select from within the first place.

“It simply works” is the motto typically equated with every thing Apple. Not so with the Apple Pencil.

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