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Comment by jowiar | Hacker News Reader

The pencil is a game changer for many things.

For students, doing math/physics/thinking spatially anything that isn't fundamentally "typing".

For teachers -- grading/marking up assignments.

I love my gadgets so I’ve owned lots of smart phone, tablets, tablet pencils, and Wacom devices—even a couple of high end Wacom video graphic tablets. I think Apple did a good job with their pencil. However, I rarely use any of them outside of electronic art projects.

I completed my Math degree and Engineering degrees in 1974 so I’ve solved my fair share of problems and taken thousands of pages of technical notes; my opinion is that no electronic drawing device beats a ream of typing paper and a good pen or pencil. (I don’t even use a calculator very often. Once I’m ready to handle numbers I use a computer.)

I'm a theoretical physicist, and the iPad Pro with pencil definitely beats paper for me: I can my move things around, copy and modify an equation, and correct mistakes much more easily. Also, I don't lose notes and I can organize them much more easily (virtual notebooks don't take up space)

This is so interesting to me. I own a large iPad Pro and pencil and didn’t feel that I could write subscripts very easily, kind of like writing with a Crayon. The zooming in and out also caused me to be unable to visualize as well where I wrote something down.

Your comment makes me think I should give it another try. Is there some special note taking App you prefer?

I'm using GoodNotes

> The pencil is a game changer for many things.

The pencil support is nice to have. Game changer? I'm not so sure.

Have you tried it? I think "game changer" is entirely appropriate. It fundamentally transforms the user interface in a way that better reflects the needs of education environments.

As someone who's used many styluses over the years - they're all way too heavy, and the feel of pen or pencil on paper, is still far superior to any stylus to screen that I've experienced.

My younger brother wanted an iPad to do school notes on in University - that lasted about one week, and it wasn't the software, it's just clunky compared to pen and paper still.

When they get the weight down (of both the iPad and the pencil), the screen has texture, and the responsiveness improves by 2-5x, then it'll be a game changer.

For now, it's a useful tool in very narrow scenarios (artists mostly)

Well, as a comparison point I've completely eliminated paper for note taking in classes and general math/engineering work. The iPad with a quality Pencil-aware application (GoodNotes is nice) is better than paper, and doesn't feel any different to me in terms of weight and handling. The added benefit of, for example, being able to lasso and rearrange ink on paper as you work puts it over the top.

I own two iPad Pros, both with pencil support and have two Apple Pencils. I still don't regard it to be "game changing" for education, at least not in its current form.

> It fundamentally transforms the user interface in a way that better reflects the needs of education environments.

Until we see software that reflects this, this hasn't happened. Hardware support is only half the story here. The iPad user experience is still fundamentally largely the same regardless of using the pencil or not.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have and I can see why kids will love drawing with it. I just don't subscribe to the idea it's somehow a game changer yet.

> The pencil is a game changer for many things.

Sure, having a pressure sensitive stylus opens up new options, but it's not a unique iPad feature compared to Chromebooks; as well as high-end models from Google and Samsung, the $349 (regular retail price, not an education/volume discount) Acer Chromebook Spin 11 (2-in-1 form factor) also comes with one.

> Sure, having a pressure sensitive stylus opens up new options, but it's not a unique iPad feature compared to ...

Isn't this kind of an Apple specialty? Something exists but isn't used. They release a version that is good and is actually used.

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