[devwinportable]

from my experience, "apple pencil" is a piece of crap (too slippary, too heavy, requires charging thru the ipad's port ...wtf?)

Surface Pro / Galaxy Notebooks(wacom-based) with "a layer of finely textured acrylic glass" will be a much better comparison.

> but it comes at the cost of not being able to flip through documents using finger swipes or taps

so no multi-finger zoom gestures

[tlrobinson]

> requires charging thru the ipad's port ...wtf

It comes with an adapter so you can charge it with same Lightning charger you use to charge the iPad itself.

I almost accidentally threw it out with the packaging. They should have incorporated into the cap so you'd always have it with you.

Also it's kind of silly they didn't make that end (where an eraser usually is) function as an eraser.

[mikestew]

Also it's kind of silly they didn't make that end (where an eraser usually is) function as an eraser.

That is the one thing that annoys the crap out of me, considering the stylus from my Toshiba Windows Tablet PC (what, thirteen/fourteen years ago?) had this functionality. I’ll ignore that I have to charge it all (Toshiba one didn’t) because of the tech differences, but I can’t grock a reason not to have an “eraser”.

[devwinportable]

but why not just put a female-end of lightning port? (not on top but somewhere near middle - I agree with your eraser function)

having a cap to protect its manliness is so... stupid

[tlrobinson]

It’s nice being able to charge directly from the iPad in a pinch. Supposedly 15 seconds of charging gives you 30 minutes of use.

I’ve just been using the female-female adapter as a cap, but it doesn’t look as nice. It’s more oval than round and has the exposed port.

I’m kind of surprised no one has made a nicer female-female adapter with matching male cap.

[djrogers]

> why not just put a female-end of lightning port

Because when I'm out and about, I don't want to stop somewhere to charge my pencil. This way, you plug it in to the iPad, and in less than a minute you can work with it for any hour or more - no need to hunt for a wall plug or bring along a cable.

[VexorLoophole]

> requires charging thru the ipad's port ...wtf?

i don't get the problem with that fact. At first i was also like "This looks stupid and somehow dangerous for the device/port, and why do i need this adapter??". But after using the Pencil i never even though about the port, or the adapter, or anything like that, since i can charge the pencil for like 60 seconds and directly with my ipad. Without searching my charger. And these 60 seconds will be enough for the day.

With these fast charging / long using times i really dont have a problem with this concept.