Features like gesture support won’t be available

Oct 31, 2018 07:15 GMT  ·  By

Apple has recently unveiled the second-generation Apple Pencil with quite an impressive upgrade lineup, but in pure Apple fashion, these features won’t work on previous iPads.

Basically, the highlights on the new Apple Pencil are the inductive charging and the gestures, but neither will be offered to owners of older iPad models.

While the inductive charging is obviously a hardware-related upgrade, not the same thing can be said about gesture support, which only requires the necessary software to run on the iPad. However, Apple has decided to keep this feature exclusive to the new-generation tablet, which comes with all the bells and whistles in terms of both hardware and software.

In other words, if you want gestures like tap to wake and double tap to switch tools, as well as features like the magnetic storage, wireless charging, and automatic pairing, the only way to go is to purchase a new-generation iPad.

On your old iPad, you need to stick with the Lightning pairing and charging, which after yesterday’s announcements, obviously sound pretty obsolete (though they obviously are not).

Expensive upgrades

Needless to say, upgrading to a new-generation iPad and Pencil is something that everyone would do if it weren’t for the huge prices.

The iPad Pro with 1TB storage costs no less than $1749 in the United States, while the base model is priced at $999 on this market. Apple Pencil 2 will be sold at the Apple Store for $129, which is $30 more expensive than the original model, currently available for just $99.

The first-generation Apple Pencil works with iPad Pro 12.9-inch first and second generations, iPad Pro 10.5-inch, iPad Pro 9.7-inch, and the sixth-generation iPad.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for an alternative 2-in-1 product that also comes with a stylus, there are lots of options on the market, including from Microsoft, who is more or less the pioneer of this form factor.