Apple Pencil UI navigation functions to return in next iOS 9.3 beta, Apple says
Responding to concerns over the crippling of Apple Pencil of usability features in iOS 9.3 beta, namely the ability to navigate iPad Pro's user interface, Apple on Tuesday confirmed such functionality will be restored in the next beta build.
Apple's response comes weeks after AppleInsider first called attention to the apparent gimping of Apple's $99 iPad Pro accessory. Apple Pencil shipped last year to serve primarily as a drawing and writing tool, but the device also doubled as a stylus for Springboard input, menu navigation and other operations normally accomplished with a finger. But that changed with the iOS 9.3 beta release in January.
"We believe a finger will always be the primary way users navigate on an iPad, but we understand that some customers like to use Apple Pencil for this as well and we've been working on ways to better implement this while maintaining compatibility during this latest beta cycle," an Apple spokesperson told The Verge. "We will add this functionality back in the next beta of iOS 9.3."
Initially, iOS beta testers expected Apple to reinstate Pencil's secondary capabilities in an ensuing software update, but as of third beta issued on Monday, the device is still limited to in-app functions like drawing. Following yesterday's beta release, some users began to speculate that the decision to restrict Pencil to drawing activities was a conscious one. Indeed, Apple CDO Jony Ive expressed concern that users might "confuse the role of the Pencil with the role of your finger in iOS."
Apple said it temporarily removed Pencil's ability to act as a finger replacement as it works to refine such functionality, the report said. Full capabilities should be restored in the upcoming iOS 9.3 beta, and will assumedly be included in the firmware's final version.
Apple's response comes weeks after AppleInsider first called attention to the apparent gimping of Apple's $99 iPad Pro accessory. Apple Pencil shipped last year to serve primarily as a drawing and writing tool, but the device also doubled as a stylus for Springboard input, menu navigation and other operations normally accomplished with a finger. But that changed with the iOS 9.3 beta release in January.
"We believe a finger will always be the primary way users navigate on an iPad, but we understand that some customers like to use Apple Pencil for this as well and we've been working on ways to better implement this while maintaining compatibility during this latest beta cycle," an Apple spokesperson told The Verge. "We will add this functionality back in the next beta of iOS 9.3."
Initially, iOS beta testers expected Apple to reinstate Pencil's secondary capabilities in an ensuing software update, but as of third beta issued on Monday, the device is still limited to in-app functions like drawing. Following yesterday's beta release, some users began to speculate that the decision to restrict Pencil to drawing activities was a conscious one. Indeed, Apple CDO Jony Ive expressed concern that users might "confuse the role of the Pencil with the role of your finger in iOS."
Apple said it temporarily removed Pencil's ability to act as a finger replacement as it works to refine such functionality, the report said. Full capabilities should be restored in the upcoming iOS 9.3 beta, and will assumedly be included in the firmware's final version.
Comments
If working on the function makes the rest of the beta unusable, it makes sense to remove it temporarily.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/11/17/jony-ive-apple-pencil-is-clearly-for-marking-not-a-stylus-finger-replacement.
Such hubris.
The pathetic conspiracy theorizing over a beta is embarrassing. This is particularly true for sumergo who's got a whole fan fiction Jony Ive story and character motivation imagined as some sort of industrial design supervillian.
Isn't this exactly the purpose of betas? Get user feedback on functionality and usability and work it back in?
It's not like the functionality was removed in iOS 9 and will only be added back in iOS 10. Whether Apple intended to remove this functionality in 9.3 and then backtracked is irrelevant since we now know that the functionality will be there in 9.3 GA.
And the cap gets lost easily (plus it doesn't work as a gum).
You'd expect some sort of wireless conductive charging going on, something smart.
Not that long ago, Apple used not to accept 'good', only 'great'.
Same for the Magic Mouse. After all these years, the only improvements they've came up with is a charger at the bottom instead of the back. Really?
i feel like I was baited and switched into the Apple ecosystem. It's still better than Windows and Linux (every effing variant), so I'm pretty much stuck here, and Apple knows this. They're eroding their previously earned position of authority and respect by degrading their systems and ignoring attention to detail that made them great. It's the same business administration focus that wrecked Apple when Jobs was gone the first time, and he's not coming back a second time. The Steve Jobs card is an annoying one to play in this conversation but it seems pretty clear that the guy was critical to keeping Apple focused on the details that made their product feel robust and superior. iOS feels more and more like android with each passing day. It's still better but it's ugly, clumsy, and inconsistent in behavior to the point of obstructing workflow:
• the keyboard was visible before switching to another app, and the task switcher shows it is still there while switching apps, it shouldn't then vanish and slide back out when returning to the app from another app;
• PDFs shouldn't scroll four pages down just because you locked and unlocked the device;
• trackpad features shouldn't delete the words you've typed while using two hands to type on iPad Pro's keyboard that, by design, invites you to use two hands and more than one finger;
• hidden controls should not magically refuse to unhide (control panel in iOS does this, "buttons" in OS X Mail do this, OS X menu bar does this on full screen apps, etc);
• the control panel shouldn't come up when touch dragging the 123 button;
• app thumbnails should reflect the actual state of the app (they often fail to);
• Safari tab thumbnails should reflect the actual state of the tabs (they frequently fail to);
• in iOS, text selection and editing on websites is incredibly inconsistent and sometimes utterly broken. This includes Apple's own forums and feedback form websites (just try to select text in the feedback subject or scroll to the hidden end of the text in the text box). Half of the time, selections are displayed as broken: the text you selected is selected but the blue area and handles are somewhere else entirely. Common with forms like this comment box;
• Safari shouldn't scroll horizontally just because it suddenly decided to scroll vertically so you could actually see the text you're typing into a text box.
• text shouldn't be covered by the onscreen keyboard (as it is all over the web and even in Apple's own Mail app). Here on this comment box I have to keep manually moving the page. Yet, on Facebook, the competing behaviors between page and operating system makes the opposite occur (it scrolls so far away from the keyboard that it's easy to be left to feel you've lost your place);
• all the usual complaints about the disaster of UX that iOS 7 brought (unintuitive controls that lack discoverability or bounding boxes, text as buttons, lack of visual cues as to what controls are and do, lack of distinguishing features between areas of interactivity and non, loss of contrast and readability, uncomfortably white/grey screen areas, wasted resources on disorienting visual effects like parallax scrolling to make up for elimination of shading and contrast in springboard icons, etc);
i I could go on. Oh. There. The bugs in autocorrect, depending on what websites you're typing on. Apple's own discussion forums are full of that problem on every iOS I've used (6, 9, three different devices).
ios is a freaking MESS. iOS 6 was fine. It didn't "look dated" and didn't need to be "refreshed" with a dramatic new look. The utility of the hidden quick access control panel and the improvements to Siri and maps (not the flyover BS) are undoubtedly good things, and I have repeatedly been pleased to have them since upgrading my device from an iPhone 4, but these additions did not require flushing down the toilet the decades (and millions of dollars) of validated science in human interface design that Apple themselves pioneered.