C’mon, Why Isn’t the New Apple Pencil Pro Backward Compatible? Leave a comment

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 in case you 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 must improve. That is most likely a superb 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? If you happen to thought you would improve to the brand new iPad Professional or iPad Air from an older iPad and preserve utilizing the second-gen Apple Pencil you already personal, suppose 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 12 months and the brand new Apple Pencil Professional. So if you’re an avid Pencil consumer and wish one of many new slates, you most likely 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 this time. The corporate’s advertising and marketing 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 connected 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 digicam. The brand new interface would not supply sooner or extra environment friendly charging, sooner pairing, or safer magnets—nothing of the type. It feels virtually similar to the prevailing system.

And the Apple Pencil is a stylus. For the love of god, it needs to be one of many best issues to make backward appropriate. So what if the Squeeze gestures won’t work on an older iPad? I do not suppose it is troublesome to point that sure new options will not be accessible on older tablets; Apple already does this with its software program updates. Sure new options in iOS do not work on older iPhones, even when the {hardware} continues to be supported. On the very least, let the purchasers who’ve purchased your stylus from years previous apply it to the brand new fashions. I am unable to discover a good purpose why a second-generation Apple Pencil would simply not be appropriate 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 tips, that does not communicate very effectively to the efficiency prowess of Apple’s silicon. (Replace: A reader has jogged my memory that the brand new iPad Air runs the M2 chipset, the identical because the older iPad Professional, so Apple’s determination actually is not tied to efficiency.)

It is all very foolish. The Apple Pencil Professional, second-gen Apple Pencil, and USB-C Apple Pencil at least ought to work on all of Apple’s present lineup, regardless if sure capabilities are usually not accessible. There most likely additionally should not be 4 Pencils to select from within the first place.

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

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