Apple Pencil is a digital pencil for iPad and iPhone that communicates over bluetooth to function as an advanced stylus. Questions about other branded stylus should use a different tag than this.
Use this tag for questions regarding usage of Apple Pencil with supported iOS devices.
Two generations of Apple Pencil has been released.
- First generation released in November 2015 comes with a Male Lightning jack for charging and pairing.
- It is round and has a glossy finish with a metal band.
- It charges by wired connection and has a cap to cover the lightning pins when it's not charging. (and which can be lost and managed)
- Second generation released in November 2018 came with redesign and did away with the Lightning port. It instead attaches magnetically to the 2018 iPad Pros with Face ID (11 inch and 12.9 inch) which are the only iPad models with which it pairs. It also features gesture support, automatic pairing, wireless charging, magnetic storage and new matt finish.
- It is not round (there is one flat side on an otherwise round barrel) and has a matte finish with no metal band.
- It charges wirelessly once paired with an iPad Pro (model released in 2018 with flat metal sides - similar non-rounded edge design to the iPhone 4 through iPhone 5 models)
- It senses taps to the barrel that can be programmed into software preferences on iOS to change functions of the pencil.
Please do not use this tag to ask questions regarding 3rd party digital styluses for iPad and iPhone. It would be acceptable to tag this if the question related to the benefits of a pencil over a different stylus design as the core part of the question.
