Are you able to think about Steve Jobs ever launching an Apple Pencil 3?
“Over my lifeless physique”, Jobs as soon as famously mentioned of the concept of bringing a stylus to iPhone and iPad. “It’s a must to get ’em, put ’em away, you lose ’em. Yuck! No one desires a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus.” However thousands and thousands of gross sales and two generations of Apple Pencil later, and you may see even Jobs consuming his phrases. Whereas our fingers are nice at prodding buttons and swiping by screens, it seems that in relation to precision, a stylus like an Apple Pencil nonetheless can’t be crushed.
But regardless of its reputation, it’s approaching 5 years because the 2nd technology Apple Pencil was launched, and lots of accompanying iPad generations have come and gone with no new Apple Pencil becoming a member of them with a brand new bag of options to take advantage of.
So what are the probabilities of an Apple Pencil 3 launch any time quickly? And what new methods may it deliver for artists utilizing iPads throughout the globe? Going by the leaks, rumors, patent purposes and whispers we’ve heard, the possibilities are comparatively excessive — if not within the close to future, however actually sooner or later down the road.
Apple Pencil 3 design and rumored options
Leaks for the Apple Pencil 3 have been few and much between, and whereas any eventual product stays in improvement, we’re unlikely to see many hints as to what any potential system may characteristic from Apple itself.
Nonetheless, Apple often recordsdata patent purposes to guard its new innovations from imitators and infringement, and these ultimately are made public. Whereas they’re no assure of work-in-progress client merchandise or options, they typically provide a good suggestion of what Apple is considering in a product class, and point out a number of the options that will ultimately flip up in actual merchandise. And Apple has filed a ton of patents referring to Apple Pencil in the previous few years. Trying on the cream of the crop beneath, you’ll be able to simply begin to see an Apple Pencil 3 forming, combining all the options beneath. In comparison with some extra esoteric patent purposes, the next all appear to have palpable advantages for an finish consumer.
Vibrating suggestions
In June of 2022, Patently Apple (opens in new tab) highlighted two new patents Apple had been awarded pertaining to a brand new stylus system. The primary, ‘Contact-based enter system with haptic suggestions’, described what seemed to be an Apple Pencil that would ship haptic suggestions based mostly on what the consumer was doing. If, as an example, a consumer chosen a unique brush by tapping on an software UI ingredient, the Pencil may buzz or vibrate.
AirPod fashion buttons
The identical patent additionally describes how part of the ‘consumer grip area of the housing is deformable’ — learn: squeezy — which may act as a button to alter features. In the event you’re conversant in the AirPods Professional 2, you’ll understand how this might work, because the earbuds’ stems may be squeezed to activate noise-cancelling options. In addition to stress delicate, this part could possibly be touch-sensitive — think about dragging your finger up the Pencil’s edge to alter a brush dimension or management zoom ranges, as an example.
Colour and texture sampling
A additional patent (opens in new tab) described a possible characteristic that might be very helpful to artists. It describes a lightweight sensor and lightweight emitter (not dissimilar to a digicam and accompanying processing unit) that could possibly be constructed into an Apple Pencil 3, permitting the consumer to pattern colours and textures from surfaces round them. As an illustration, if there was a beautiful wooden grain you needed to repeat for a design, you might place the Pencil close to it and duplicate its sample and tone. This might be an ideal boon for artists, mirroring comparable performance that devoted gadgets just like the Nix Mini 3 Colour Sensor (opens in new tab) is able to.
Rotating ‘Digital Crown’ cap management
You could be seeing a theme right here — plenty of what’s instructed in these rumored options are concepts cherry picked from different Apple gadgets. Yet one more patent (opens in new tab) suggests Apple may combine a rotating controller, like an Apple Watch Digital Crown, into the top of the Apple Pencil 3, which might let the consumer cycle by menus, brush varieties, colours and extra. You possibly can see what that may appear like within the render video above by artist Sarang Sheth (opens in new tab).
Interchangeable nibs with totally different properties
Anybody who often makes use of an Apple Pencil can be conscious that ultimately the nibs of the stylus put on down and want changing. However a patent published again in 2017 (opens in new tab) instructed Apple could possibly be contemplating introducing interchangeable nibs that serve totally different functions and have totally different properties. Colour, form, thickness, even the flexibility to reflect the totally different hardness values of conventional pencils, could possibly be labored in as defaults to totally different nib varieties — and provides Apple the chance to promote equipment for equipment…
VR controller
An Apple VR headset is nearly a certainty at this level, given the years of rumors surrounding the system. However the particulars nonetheless stay shrouded in thriller — not least of all how you’ll management the factor. Whereas plenty of leaks level to an nearly fully hands-free expertise, utilizing a consumer’s arms and fingers to gesture controls by the VR interface, yet one more patent (opens in new tab) factors to Apple contemplating any eventual Apple Pencil 3 as a VR controller. Sensors in each the Pencil and VR headset may work in tandem to trace the stylus in 3D house, and convert its actions into enter in a digital actuality setting. VR artwork is a rising medium, and Apple having an correct management methodology for associated purposes could possibly be a key draw to its nascent VR platform.
3D object creation
That is an attention-grabbing concept, and given what number of 3D artists are on the market utilizing Apple Pencils, one you’ll be able to think about Apple being eager to unravel and implement. A 2020 patent noticed by Apple World At this time (opens in new tab) describes how future Apple Pencils may perceive depth in 3D house to create co-ordinates for real-world objects, and recreate them as three-dimensional fashions in purposes. Positioning information could possibly be calculated utilizing acceleration and speak to, and you may think about an concept working in tandem with the sensors employed for coloration and texture sampling, detailed above.
A less expensive Apple ‘Marker’ Pencil 3 various?
It’s been instructed that Apple may additionally be contemplating a completely totally different stylus system in an all-new type issue. Rumors pointed to an Apple Pencil designed particularly for iPhone. Codenamed ‘Marker’, it was rumored to have been set to launch alongside the iPhone 14 line, and be considerably cheaper by dropping options like stress sensitivity and a inbuilt battery, as an alternative being powered by the display it was touching, just like Samsung’s Galaxy Be aware S-Pen. However it by no means arrived, calling the validity of the rumor into doubt, and any eventual launch into query.
Apple Pencil 3 launch date expectations
Although there’s proof that Apple is actively engaged on an Apple Pencil third technology mannequin, the drip-feed of leaks and rumors means that it’ll nonetheless be a while till we see any main revision of the Apple Pencil {hardware} arrive. It could possibly be that they’ll seem alongside M3-equipped iPad Professional tablets, which you’d count on to see arrive of their annual Q3 slot for 2023. Discuss of Apple VR supporting a stylus may additionally affect a possible launch date, with that headset anticipated to land earlier than the top of 2023, too. However a extra conservative guess would put it within the following yr, when M3 chipsets have matured, and discuss of a extra consumer-focussed VR headset is assumed to start to bubble.
Apple Pencil 3 pricing — what to anticipate
We will work out a ballpark worth vary for the Apple Pencil 3 based mostly on the pricing of the earlier generations of Apple Pencil.
The primary technology Apple Pencil prices $99, whereas the second technology Apple Pencil 2 prices $129. Neither have seen a worth drop since happening sale, and even the primary technology stays on sale in the present day (partially a minimum of to serve the 10-inch iPad from 2022). $129 would subsequently be the bottom we’d count on to see the Apple Pencil 3 price, however given a number of years of inflation and the additional complexity of the system rumored, we’d be able to anticipate it hitting $150 for pro-level customers, with Apple protecting the second technology pen out there for everybody else as a ‘cheaper’ various.
Why the Apple Pencil 3 has to occur
The Apple Pencil 2 is sweet. Nice, even — there’s but to be a third-party various to beat it, and out of doors of sitting at a devoted graphics pill at a desktop machine, it’s about pretty much as good a digital writing and sketching expertise as you will get.
It’s not a lot that the Apple Pencil must evolve, as it’s that folks want a motive to purchase a brand new iPad. You have a look at the newest iPad fashions, they usually’re intensely overpowered — they’re operating the identical chipsets because the entry-level Mac computer systems, however with an working system, interface and app library that hardly ever takes benefit of it.
So a future OLED iPad Professional, as an example, may ship alongside an Apple Pencil 3 that’s in a position to solely make the most of additional M3 or M4 chip horsepower, and provide an upselling temptation that even these much less artistically inclined might splash the money on. Don’t be stunned if the following actually thrilling iPad replace is an Apple Pencil 3 characteristic as an alternative.
