MacLife UK – August 2019

Apple Pencil is

even mightier

Digital scribbling advanc

WITH ALL iPAD models now
supporting one of the two versio
of the Pencil, it’s no surprise tha
iPadOS reinforces the pairing.
What is surprising is how much
software tweaks have improved
the immediacy of the Pencil.
Among the factors that consp
against digital scribbling feeling
exactly like the real thing, a trick
one to eliminate is latency: when
you touch a pencil or pen tip to
paper, it makes a mark in real tim
but on a screen there’s a tiny del
Reducing that delay is primari
a hardware challenge, but it turns
out there was some room for
improvement in the operating
system too. Using the Pencil 2 on
the latest iPad Pros, iOS 12 achieved
a latency of 20 milliseconds; iPadOS
cuts this to nine.
“Our goal is to have it be
indistinguishable from making
marks on a physical piece of paper,”
said Federighi.

SCREEN SWIPE

iPadOS also enhances the default

tools for marking up images and

documents. You can take a screen

grab by swiping up from the bottom

left or right corner of the screen

with the Pencil. This is a blessed

relief from the hardware button

combinations that have always been

as likely to result in turning oļ or

dropping the device as getting

a screenshot. Even better, when

grabbing a web page, document

or email, you can choose to create

a Scan image of the whole thing,

not just the part currently on

screen. The Markup tools then

appear for you to add annotations,

and they’re now in a ľoating

palette, with a pixel eraser (to

remove precise areas rather than

whole strokes) and ruler added.

ces

ons

at

ire

g

ky

n

me,

lay.

ily

Apple wants making marks on the iPad to be as close as possible to the experience of pen on paper.

Files becomes a Finder

And it can read your USB stick at last!

Until iOS 11, apps just saved

anything you created in their

own space and offered it up

again when you went back.

With the addition of the

Files app in iOS 11, Apple

acknowledged that this was no

longer enough, and in iOS 13 and

iPadOS we finally get something

akin to macOS’ Finder, though

with a quite different look. A

proper browser, with a metadata

pane and multiple sort options,

makes it more practical to deal

with hundreds of files. You can

add server shares without

needing a third–party app, and

— drumroll please — you can

connect a USB drive or SD card,

via Lightning or USB–C adaptors,

and transfer files to and from it.

Via iCloud Drive Folder

Sharing, you can collaborate on

files with other users.

Feature