The Apple Pencil got quite a bit of hype and appreciation when it debuted and the latest patents from Apple seem to propose a follow-up to the accessory, or at least a way to latch it to a slate. We’ve seen a patent for a holder and now a patent for a supposed successor appears.
The Apple Pencil debuted with the first iPad Pro in 2015 and now we may see a second gen accessory with the iPad Pro 2 (second gen 12.9 incher). The lack of a magnetic connection to the slate was one of the few drawbacks of the stylus. Its strange position when charging was also thumbs down material. Now a bunch of patents showcase new methods to attach the Apple Pencil to the iPad and Smart Keyboard, while using a separate accessory.
The US Patent and Trademark Office has published a patent application from Apple, providing some hints about the new accessory. 7 Apple Pencil patents have come up actually and one of them is called “Active Stylus Precision Tip”, while another is dubbed “Preprocessing for Nonlinear Stylus Profiles”. Magnetic attachment is also mentioned and a power connector within the stylus.
It’ll electrically couple to an external surface on an electronic unit. The iPad Pro has external electrical contacts in the documents and it also has one or more magnets included. It would be strange to see magnets on a tablet, seeing how many objects you carry with you can be negatively affected by them, so it remains to be seen how Apple pulls that off.
