Apple releases the iPad Pro
by Mike Milo
So Apple finally did it. They released an optional pen with their new iPad Pro which is odd considering that legendary Apple CEO Steve Jobs jokingly expressed his animosity towards styluses in general. “Yuck, who needs a stylus,” he claimed. Another thing he said was “If you need a stylus you’ve already failed.”
And yet with the success of the Surface Pro line from Microsoft it would seem Apple is eating it’s words. And I think they’ve failed to tell the truth.
Dubbed the “Apple Pencil”  it’s a rechargeable stylus exclusively for the 12.9” iPad tablet. Despite the name, it remains to be seen whether this is going to be a killer device for ‘pros’ since it’s running iOS9 and not OSX which was rumored.
I can tell you that the all-white stylus felt light in the hand when I used it to scribble in Notes and draw on a picture in Apple’s native Mail app. It also felt fast, unlike some styluses that suffer from latency issues. But again, I didn’t use it for an extended period of time. As with Microsoft’s Surface Pro stylus, you can use it with certain applications, but not all applications. Other developers that will fully support the Apple Pencil are Microsoft’s Office suite, as well as a few of Adobe’s iPad-tailored apps that will be exclusively available on the iPad Pro and will ship in November.
That quote above which is from The Verge says all I need to hear: you can use it with certain applications, but not all applications, which basically makes it a very expensive hobbyist toy as you’ll never run a serious animation or 3d program off of it which is silly considering the price.
Another thing they did wrong in my opinion is that you need to charge the pen. That’s as lame as it gets as far as I’m concerned and in many ways a deal breaker. It’s one thing if it charged inside the tablet but it doesn’t. Instead, it has an embedded Lightning connector that allows you to directly connect it to the iPad Pro and charge it which tells me you can’t keep the iPad plugged in AND charge the pen at the same time. Why? You know as well as I do that that damn thing is always gonna be dead when you pick it up to doodle on a whim. I guess it’s better than creating some stupid proprietary Apple charging connector just for the Pencil so I’ll give them that.
The iPad Pro will ship in November and starts at $799 for a 32GB device. For one with 128GB of storage, you’re looking at $1,079. It will be available in silver, gold and space grey. The Apple Pencil will cost you $99
