Apple Pencil Pro (with gestural features) for type design?

Adam Ladd

Was watching a video on it out of curiosity, and the reviewer mentioned 'calligraphy'. Just made me wonder if others have used the previous pencil or have interest in the new one — which now features more gestures and more rotational drawing options for altering pen angle, etc. (I know others have used it for sketching ideas and lettering.)

James Puckett

Procreate already does pressure and angle. But not rotation. Although with the second generation and the Pro rotation won’t be great because there are flat sides on the pencil. 

I tried using an Apple Pencil with an iPad and I went back to paper. I grew up with paper and I just can’t give it up. I haven’t charged the pencil in months.

Sergio Ramírez

It's a shame it's only compatible with the ipad models they just released. You might want to check reviews from artists on youtube when they have access to them. I'm a bit skeptical on the new gestures, because the pencil I have currently has double tap, but I ended up disabling it because I found myself triggering it more accidentally than intentionally. That aside, I love sketching on the ipad because they help to make the process faster and more accurate.

James Puckett said:

I haven’t charged the pencil in months.

You might want to charge it every now and then if you don't want it to get permanently damaged.

Mark Simonson

It is unfortunate that you won't be able to use the Apple Pencil Pro with older iPads (and the old second generation won't work with the new ones), but this seems to be the price for moving the FaceTime camera to the long side, something users have been asking for since video conferencing became so popular. Unfortunately, it's the same side where the previous Apple Pencil charged. Apparently, they couldn't make this new hardware arrangement work with it. The Apple Pencil Pro is really just a replacement for the second generation model that works with the new charging hardware, but with some added features and the "Pro" designation because... Apple.

Back to the original topic, I would think that the rotation feature would be useful for lettering and calligraphy. I don't normally use it for that, but, judging from what I've seen on YouTube, there seem to be a lot of lettering artists who do.

Craig Eliason

Mark Simonson said:

Back to the original topic, I would think that the rotation feature would be useful for lettering and calligraphy. I don't normally use it for that, but, judging from what I've seen on YouTube, there seem to be a lot of lettering artists who do.

If nothing else, the tech can give Noordzij enthusiasts a sense of fulfillment, since we can now achieve all three of his theoretical stroke mechanics: translation (through nib selection), expansion (through pressure sensitivity), and rotation.

I wonder if any Gerrit Noordzij completists were on the dev team!