In today’s blog, I wanted to give some love to the Apple Pencil and talk about the 3 things that I use it for other than it looking pretty on my iPad. I can’t say that I use the Pencil all that much and wish that I did as it is lovely to use, especially when you have a Paperlike screen protector on there. So the three main things that I use it for are
1 Digital note taking
This was one of the main reasons for buying the pencil. I wanted to move to take more digital notes but still write them rather than just typing them and this was perfect for that. There are several good note taking apps and I will capture some of my favs in a future blog most work really well with Pencil. I find that it’s very responsive and has very low latency, It brings the digital note taking experience to life as in most apps you can change the pencil from a pen to highlight etc so you can create notes as you would in a notepad. Of course, it’s not the same as writing on paper but you can make it more like it by adding the aforementioned paperlike screen protector, this gives the screen less of glass and more of a paper feel which is nice.
I don’t take my notes digitally all the time as there is something about pen and paper that I can’t quite get away from. Maybe one day I will commit fully to the art of digital note taking. But what I would say is if you are looking at moving to digital note taking and like the physical act of writing an iPad and Apple Pencil is a great way to go.
2 Editing Photos
So as a budding content creator I take lots of photos of different products for these blogs as well as other social media accounts such as my Instagram page. This means that I have entered into the realm of photo editing which I am still not all that good at. For Editing my photos I use Lightroom on my iPad and having the Apple Pencil makes the process that much easier as it effectively acts as a mouse. It means that I have that much more control when adjusting the exposure of the shot etc. So in this instance, the Apple Pencil really helps to improve my workflow.
3 Sketching & Jotting down Ideas
Bit of a disclaimer here I don’t do this often but I have found having the Apple Pencil really useful on occasion when we wanted to sketch a plan out e.g. when we were replanning our garden layout. In these instances, I just used apple notes and drew out what I wanted, it’s also helpful as you can draw straight lines as well as being able to change from a pencil tip to a rubber so all you need is the one pencil. I have also found it useful when I need to jot down a number, a quick idea or even my shopping list (especially useful when you can’t find a pad).
These are just the main three things that I tend to use my pencil for but I also use it as a mouse/pointer when scrolling through internet pages on the iPad. I wish that I used it more as I really do think that it’s a great accessory for the iPad and it certainly helps with going paperless. I am sure that if you love drawing or do a lot of graphic design work, this would be a key part of your workflow.