The SwitchEasy EasyPencil Plus is an iPad stylus that does most of what Apple Pencil does for a lot less money. It even magnetically clings to the iPad Pro, and works with a broad variety of Apple tablets.

I used the stylus for taking notes, sketching and photo editing. Here’s how it stood up to my everyday life.

Apple Pencil makes an ideal holiday gift for any iPad owner. And for a limited time only, you can enjoy a rare $15 discount on the second-generation model. Order today to pay just $114.

November 11, 2015: Apple’s first iPad Pro goes on sale after months of speculation about the giant-size tablet. With its much larger screen, professional-oriented targeting and dreaded (optional) stylus, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro represents Apple CEO Tim Cook’s cleanest break yet from Steve Jobs’ vision for iOS devices.

And it turned out all the better for it!

Most people’s drawing skills peaked in first grade. Which means the diagrams we include in handwritten notes often look like they were drawn by a moderately skilled raccoon. Fortunately, iPadOS 14 offers shape recognition, turning our scrawls into the neat geometric shapes we envisioned.

Using this feature in Apple Notes or Email is easy. But there’s a trick to it. Here’s how to use shape recognition with an iPad and any stylus.

Scribble handwriting recognition in iPadOS 14 is a more complex system than many might realize. Identifying letters and words goes beyond simply examining what someone has written. The iPad uses machine learning to recognize the writer’s intent through how they write, according to Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering.

Alex Knoll is a professional photographer with some serious carpentry skills. When he couldn’t find a desk he liked that matched his budget, he decided to just build one himself. He sketched a plan on his iPad with the Procreate app and bought himself a few long slabs of pine and got to work. With a set of $100 table legs he bought from TableLegs.com, the total cost of the materials came out to roughly $300.

Apple’s entry-level iPad, unveiled Tuesday during the “Time Flies” event, is better than ever with a faster processor and graphics, and gigabit-class LTE. It’s also just as affordable as its predecessor.

Order yours today ahead of its release this Friday for just $329 (or $299 if you’re a student).

Cult of Mac’s Ian Fuchs says new features in iPadOS 14 make the Apple Pencil an indispensable tool — even for people who aren’t artists.

That’s the cover story in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Download it now for that story, plus the latest Apple news, leaks, how-tos and reviews. (In case you hadn’t noticed, Apple’s battle with Fortnite dev Epic Games is getting nasty.)

Back when Apple introduced the Apple Pencil, the company positioned the stylus primarily as a tool for artists. And try as I might, I’ve never been particularly great at drawing. That said, it didn’t stop me from picking up an Apple Pencil to annotate documents, edit photos or use as an alternative way to touch the screen.

Then the Magic Keyboard came along with a fantastic trackpad experience. It offered a different way to interact with the screen without touching it with my finger. But now, with iPadOS 14, Apple has rewritten the story of what Apple Pencil can do, and it’s completely changed how I use my iPad once again.

Samsung’s newly unveiled Galaxy Note 20 Ultra will have to take on the iPhone 12 Pro Max after Apple launches it this autumn.

Samsung’s top-tier handset offers seven features iOS fans should hope will show up in Apple’s next flagship iPhone. But the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra also has some real problems.