Apple Pencil coming on May 7 could buzz users with haptic feedback

AppleInsider

The next generation of Apple Pencil could have haptic feedback, buzzing a user's fingers as they draw and write.

The first and second-generation Apple Pencil

Apple's holding a special event on May 7, which is expected to include updates to the iPad lineup. As part of the event, it seems that the Apple Pencil could get another update.

In Sunday's "Power On" newsletter for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman writes that a new Apple Pencil is on the way. The arrival is not a surprise, but a highlight feature is -- it's main feature is said to be be the addition of haptic feedback.

Haptic feedback will mean the Apple Pencil will lightly buzz, alerting the user to notifications. It could also offer other benefits, such as giving a minor bump when the user draws over a button.

The idea of haptic feedback in a stylus has been seen previously in patent filings. Documents from 2020 suggest the use of various mechanisms to give haptic feedback to the user.

Other rumors about the next Apple Pencil include the possibility of interchangeable tips, changing how it writes and moves. A new squeeze gesture for interactions has also been proposed, along with Find My functionality.

Rumor Score: Likely

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Dave Cummings

This could be a cool feature. I very briefly used a Surface. The one thing I loved about that was the pencil & the haptic feedback it had, where it’d stimulate drawing on paper w/ the feedback

Xed

Is that an Apple Pencil in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

But seriously, I really hope that:

1. These things can start working for all devices and not be such a disjointed mess.
2. Future iPhones can use them.

It's bad for consumers which means it's bad for business. That said, I do understand that if the market is too small that both planning far ahead of the truly universal Pencil release and adding digitizers to all other devices in a category may simply be more than they'd ever recoup in profit so I understand why a company may not go that route.

chasm

Xed said:

Is that an Apple Pencil in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

But seriously, I really hope that:

1. These things can start working for all devices and not be such a disjointed mess.
2. Future iPhones can use them.

I can't see the Pencil being a popular accessory on an iPhone, as without that magnetic strip to keep it secured to the iPhone the way it attaches to the iPad (and charges it), people are just to lose/drop/forget/damage them.

brianus

I hope the animations advertising the upcoming event, showing a hand flipping a pencil around, are a hint that it will get one feature I've never understood was left out, at least since version 2: why doesn't the back end of the pencil do anything? It should be programmable and default to an eraser (or equivalent) functionality, like, you know... an actual pencil 

Really hope they can find a way to unify them because the fragmented situation now with four different models is just ridiculous and unnecessary.. entirely a product of their desperate need to segment their product line; there was absolutely no technical need for it.

And I also hope moving the camera, giving the new Magic Keyboard a pencil "slot", and rumors that the new pencil will be glossy like version 1, are not all hints they they've given up on magnetic charging on the side. That would just be lame.

Xed

chasm said:

Xed said:

Is that an Apple Pencil in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

But seriously, I really hope that:

1. These things can start working for all devices and not be such a disjointed mess.
2. Future iPhones can use them.

I can't see the Pencil being a popular accessory on an iPhone, as without that magnetic strip to keep it secured to the iPhone the way it attaches to the iPad (and charges it), people are just to lose/drop/forget/damage them.

Since it would be for a specific type of user making a case with a magnetic space for the Pencil wouldn't be difficult.

roake

Dave Cummings said:

This could be a cool feature. I very briefly used a Surface. The one thing I loved about that was the pencil & the haptic feedback it had, where it’d stimulate drawing on paper w/ the feedback

This was what I came here to ask.  I haven’t used a Surface, but I can imagine cleverly-done haptic feedback that makes it truly feel as if we are drawing on different surfaces.