JVTech News This unexpected Apple project for the iPad is already in the works
While the iPad remains an obvious choice in the tablet market, Apple continues to try to innovate with this new technology that may be coming to upcoming iPads, or more accurately, Apple’s next stylus, the Apple Pencil.
A stylus that recognizes real-world colors and textures
If for some the use of a computer is clearly superior to that of a tablet, the latter have undeniable advantages, starting with the stylus. The large touch surface is an ideal playground to show your creativity or even your productivity. Apple has figured this out, and while there are tons of compatible styluses through third-party brands, there is a home version: the Apple Pencil.
It’s beautiful, it’s expensive, but it’s very practical. In addition to having a flat side so it doesn’t roll and a magnetic charging system at the edge of the iPad, its responsiveness of just 9ms makes it almost as satisfying as a real pencil. Apple doesn’t want to stop there and continues to work on ways to improve their stylus, especially with this patent discovered by the site Briefly Apple.
Concretely it would bea color-aware stylus placed very close to the tip to capture and reproduce them on the iPad. For example, if you find a beautiful purple on a flower, simply place the tip of your Apple Pencil on it and the stylus will recognize the exact color. All that remains is to draw on the tablet with the shade you just discovered.
To do this, the Pencil is equipped, among other things, with an ambient light sensor and a light emitter. But what is even more interesting is this the patent would also cover texture capture. We could thus reproduce rough, shiny, wavy effects… that we see around us. Crazy, right?
A patent does not mean that features or products are coming soon, not even if they see the light of day. As Mac Rumors makes clear, Tim Cook and his gang already filed for a patent like this in 2020, and nothing has happened since. But it’s a possibility that Apple is considering, and it wouldn’t mind the many graphic designers, illustrators and designers who use the iPad every day for their work or for their free time.
What’s next for the iPad stylus?
Even if it’s just a patent, let’s not forget that Apple is still enthusiastic about its Pencil, with the recent addition of a feature on the iPad Pro that allows the user to hover the stylus over the tablet to get a preview of which color will be applied and where exactly, to get accuracy.
First generation back, second generation forward
With new features regularly added to the Apple Pencil, we tend to forget that we are talking about the second generation of the brand’s stylus. Indeed, we are in 2023 and the first generation is still compatible (and only compatible) with the iPad 2022, the cheapest version of the range. A somewhat strange decision, especially since this old-fashioned stylus needs to be connected to Lightning to recharge, while all iPads are now USB-C… Recall that the Apple Pencil is sold separately from iPads.
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