Inductive Apple Pencil charging tech reportedly too expensive for 2019 iPad Air & mini
Addressing questions as to why the 2019 iPad Air and mini don't support the second-generation Apple Pencil, a report on Tuesday claimed the required inductive technology was too costly to include in the builds.
A 2018 iPad Pro and a second-gen Apple Pencil.
The "inductive charging data port" for connecting a second-generation Pencil is "expensive enough to be prohibitive for the new Air and Mini," Daring Fireball's John Gruber said. While only indicating he was "reliably informed" on the matter, Gruber is known to have deep industry contacts.
The second-generation Pencil has a few advantages over the first, but the main one is typically considered the ability to magnetically attach to a 2018 iPad Pro, solving both charging and storage. It's not compatible with any other iPad.
Beyond inductive technology, the updated Air and mini would have also had to be redesigned with flat magnetic edges. Alternately, Apple could have added a Lightning port to the newer Pencil, but that would have left the problem of having a removable cap that's easily lost.
The latest iPads are largely performance upgrades with few major changes. Enhancements include a 10.5-inch display on the Air, A12 processors, True Tone displays, up to 256 gigabytes of storage, and first-gen Apple Pencil support.
A 2018 iPad Pro and a second-gen Apple Pencil.
The "inductive charging data port" for connecting a second-generation Pencil is "expensive enough to be prohibitive for the new Air and Mini," Daring Fireball's John Gruber said. While only indicating he was "reliably informed" on the matter, Gruber is known to have deep industry contacts.
The second-generation Pencil has a few advantages over the first, but the main one is typically considered the ability to magnetically attach to a 2018 iPad Pro, solving both charging and storage. It's not compatible with any other iPad.
Beyond inductive technology, the updated Air and mini would have also had to be redesigned with flat magnetic edges. Alternately, Apple could have added a Lightning port to the newer Pencil, but that would have left the problem of having a removable cap that's easily lost.
The latest iPads are largely performance upgrades with few major changes. Enhancements include a 10.5-inch display on the Air, A12 processors, True Tone displays, up to 256 gigabytes of storage, and first-gen Apple Pencil support.
Comments
That said, I'd kind of like Apple to offer more first-party cases that include a place for the Pencil in the case. I've returned two lost Pencils to the coffeeshops where their owners left them behind, and I'll wager that's a common issue. One of my friends has managed to lose not one but TWO pairs of AirPods (HOW???). Heh.
All for like $12!
Im happy the new Mini supports Pencil 1. My wife can use mine after she upgrades the Mini 2 and we dont have to buy another!
‘Lots of storage, best processor etc. would also benefit from waterproofing as in addition to my flight map app ForeFlight I use my mini for an e-reader. I have a mini 4 but have used up most of the storage. The pencil is a nice idea I have both a one and two, but don’t tend to use either. I don’t have with me when I need them nor are they charged if I manage to bring one along. Of course they only work with my pro model iPads and those are too big for most practical use. Might get my pencil 1 out to try and take down a clearance on my new mini, once I get it.
But what Apple should have done is released a "cradle" that could plug into the new iPads via Lightening, and could charge the second-gen Apple Pencil. To say it's "not compatible" is creating unnecessary fragmentation.
Does the second-gen Apple Pencil actually work with the new iPads, even if they can't charge it? Or is the pairing process entirely different? Enquiring minds want to know.
Touch ID is not old tech. It's still the industry-leading capacitive touch fingerprint reader.
People complain about prices going up. Apple delivers a perfectly-modern iPad and maintains the same great price, and suddenly they complain about it having "old" tech? Just can't keep people happy.
No one knows Apple’s production costs or profit margins. It’s hard to imagine that the hardware for the Pencil2 is that expensive. I’m guessing it was more the fact that they wanted to essentially stick a new logic board in the existing shell.
I used to wish that Pencil support was given to the iPhone line-up. But thinking about it now, it would probably be awkward to use the Pencil, even with the XS Max.
The iPad Mini seems like the perfect notepad size device for the Pencil.
I would have picked up the new Mini in a heartbeat if I didn't have the iPad Pro on my list before it!
My guess is that it's not offered because the tech for digitizer is still costly to make it viable across an entire iPhone model. With the rising cost of iPhones in other areas and their drop in sales last year (which may have been mostly due to their battery replacement program) I have doubts that it would come this year, even though we're seeing the digitizer added this year to less expensive iPads, even though it's using the older tech that supports the original Pencil.
Any quite frankly, as long as people [including me] keep buying their either outdated or great but overpriced technology - why would they?
Just feature-crapping to differentiate (or rather de-marginalize) the cappuchino-“Pro” line
With only one mini, I don't know if I'd categorize it as Good or Better though it's much better than the mini 4 and leaps and bounds over my mini 2.
I'm not sure there's enough market to support an iPad Pro mini, but Apple would probably get my money. The 120Hz screen is gorgeous. At some point I'd like to see that as an across the board feature.