Apple may be designing an iPad stylus – and that’s not a bad idea

WASHINGTON: I have a confession to make: I don’t hate the stylus.

That may make me unusual, particularly as a tech writer. But I love pen and paper, still take most of my notes by hand, and I haven’t found a solution that’s let me completely ditch my trusty legal pad and cheap ballpoint pen.

So new speculation that Apple may be considering introducing a stylus as an accessory to its iPad Pro has me very interested.

A stylus would be out of character for Apple, especially considering that its late chief executive Steve Jobs hated them. It was one of his common arguments for killing the handheld Newton, per Walter Isaacson’s 2011 biography of Jobs, because extra pens simply weren’t needed in the age of the touchscreen.

Generally speaking, he was right: the current stylus is mainly a clunky throwback to the Palm Pilot era.

There are a few standouts in the cottage industry of iPad styluses that have sprung up for artists, but for the rest of us, using such accessories is still a fairly infuriating affair.

Which is too bad, because modern note-taking is a mess. Admittedly, this is a big problem for me, given what I do for a living. Notetaking is currently split between the traditional and the hi-tech.

Some important notes we type, whether by e- mail or through something by Google Docs.

Others we jot down on paper and palms in meetings or on the back of napkins when things move too quickly to fumble with a lock code or – heaven forbid – a laptop.

In an ideal world, you’d be able to write or doodle straight on your tablet without thinking, and then send those notes somewhere that lets you easily keep all of it together. To do that now, you’d have to type all of your handwritten notes into an appropriate notes folder. Who has time for that?

That’s the promise of a stylus, or at least of digital handwritten notes.

But so far, the options on offer to fix the stylus problem have their own limitations. Some of them have an annoying delay between when you write and when the writing appears on the screen.

There’s the pricey option of the smart pen, which can convert your handwritten notes on paper to digital text. But smart pens would also leave me in fear of misplacing them.

As for voice notes? Well, those are fine when you’re by yourself, but not exactly great for recording notes when other people are around.

The best stylus solutions come from the Samsung Galaxy series or the Surface Pro 3, which has a multi-function stylus that comes close to being responsive enough to solving the lag problem.

That doesn’t mean that styluses are impossible. At a time when more people are using tablets for work this could be their time. That is, as long as we can overcome the few problems:

● Bad menu design: it can be confusing to switch back and forth between the stylus and your finger on touchscreens.

● Cost: Especially when a stylus is sold separately, it seems like a needless expense or something that’s a pain to keep charged.

They’re easy to lose: And see- ing the empty custom-built place in your phone or tablet where your stylus used to be can be like running your tongue over a gap in your teeth.

Will Apple be able to overcome any or all of these problems? Who knows?

But before you dismiss the whole idea as a anachronistic tool from the past, it’s worth bearing in mind that something that can fill the gap between handwritten and typed notes would be welcome in our personal and business lives.

If Apple, or anyone, can come up with a digital pen that can bridge that gap, more power to them. – Washington Post