The iPad Pro (or iPad Plus) is one of the latest in a long line of products rumored to be on-deck from Apple, and along with it are rumors of an Apple stylus — a digital pen that can be used to more easily write or draw on the screen. Apple famously said fingers were better for input than styluses at the original Apple event, yet they’ve accumulated a lot of patents in the area over the years. Meanwhile, companies like Ten One Design, Adonit, FiftyThree, Studio Neat, and others have shipped a lot of third-party stylus pens. Apple, arguably, could make an amazingly engineered, incredibly well integrated stylus if they chose to. But the question is — would you want it?

I’ve used stylus pens for years. I’ve used them with Handspring and Palm products that had resistive touch screens. I’ve used them with Wacom tablets that had digitizers. I’ve used them on the iPad both without pressure sensitivity and with pressure sensitivity simulated over Bluetooth LE.

The Wacom ones were always the best. Bluetooth LE is okay but less consistent because it depends on each individual app incorporating the matching software developer kit. A digitizer on the iPad Pro would make Wacom-like results possible, including from an Apple stylus.

Absent a digitizer, while an Apple stylus would no doubt connect more easily and enjoy wider-ranging system and app support, it would have to use some other technology or set of technologies to get anywhere near producing Wacom-like (or better?) results.

We won’t know anything for certain about an Apple stylus unless and until Apple announces one. Until then, it’s just another rumor. We can, however, ask this question — if Apple did make a stylus, would you want it?

Let me know in the poll above and let me know why, or why not, in the comments below!

A readership divided

When we posited the question this last week about if Chromebooks had invaded your home or your life just yet, I knew we were going to get some Chrombook converts and we were also going to get some hardcore PC users telling us Chromebooks can’t do anything and that they’re a waste — they do plenty and they’re not, by the way — I just didn’t know how many of column A and how many of column B we’d see.

Earlier today, on the heels of yet more rumors about Apple moving their stylus pen into production, I asked how many people would actually want one. What I didn’t consider, however, was potential demand beyond the retail and online shelves. For example, from enterprise and education. Neil Cybart, writing for Above Avalon:

An Apple Pen would find a nice fit in this type of setting. Additionally, if the Apple Pen can be used to capture information such as distance, shape, texture, and angles, the implications expand into many different industries such as industrial and into various commercial settings from Fortune 500 companies to independently owned and operated businesses.

My background in art and design biases me towards those kinds of use cases, but obviously anything Apple ships would have to appeal to a wider audience. Medical could be another space that benefits from an Apple stylus pen. So could those who work at home and on the road, those who are self employed or entrepreneurial, those working in the community and those serving the community. That strikes me as something Apple has spent a lot of time and effort on with the iPad product line already — mainstreaming productivity.