Apple Pencil Teardown Hints At Potential New Features

The first-gen Apple Pencil was a pretty straightforward device that allowed users to use it with the iPad Pro, Apple improved upon its functionality with the launch of the second-gen Apple Pencil that was announced alongside the newly-designed iPad Pro. Now thanks to a teardown of the device by the folks at iFixit, it seems that the device could potentially do more than advertised.

In the teardown, iFixit discovered what appears to be capacitive grids along the body of the Apple Pencil which they speculate could potentially open the door to more complex gesture support in the future. One of the features touted by Apple of the new Apple Pencil is its ability to support gestures. An example they gave was that when using an app such as Notes, a quick double tap on the side of the Apple Pencil would allow users to quickly swap between brush types.

Ahead of the tablet’s announcement, there were rumors that the Apple Pencil could also support swiping gestures in addition to taps, but that feature was not mentioned. It is possible that due to the use of the capacitive grids that Apple might introduce such a feature in the future, where swiping could allow the Apple Pencil to be used for presentations, browsing the web, and so on. Of course whether or not they will remains to be seen.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Tablets
Tags: Apple Pencil, iPad, iPad Pro