Tim Cook insists Apple Pencil is not a mere stylus

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Tim ditched his Mac for the iPad Pro.
Tim ditched his Mac for the iPad Pro.
Photo: Olivier Hess/The Independent

Tim Cook loves the new iPad Pro so much it’s the only product he travels with now, other than his iPhone.

In a new interview talking about the benefits of the new big-screened iPad, the Apple CEO trumpeted the iPad Pro’s productivity thanks to new multi-tasking software in iOS 9 complimented by the new keyboard and Apple Pencil. Some detractors have dismissed Apple Pencil as a just a fancy stylus, but Cook insists it’s a much more revolutionary product than that.

“We didn’t really do a stylus, we did a Pencil,” Cook explained to The Independent. “The traditional stylus is fat, it has really bad latency so you’re sketching here and it’s filling the line in somewhere behind. You can’t sketch with something like that. You need something that mimics the look and feel of the pencil itself or you’re not going to replace it. We’re not trying to replace finger touch, we’re complementing it with the Pencil.”

The new iPad Pro goes on sale Wednesday, and Apple’s hoping it will be able to rekindle iPad sales which have been slumping for the over the past year. Creatives have come out in droves praising the new tablet for its creative capabilities. Apple’s hoping to bring over more than just artists to the platform though. Cook says iPad Pro will also win over a lot of new PC users too.

“This was a way of making a product that people can do a lot of things with,” said Cook. “I think it will attract a lot of PC users and people who are not currently using Apple products. And I think it will be a reason for people to upgrade who love iPad and who have been waiting for something very different and now here it is.”

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