There was a time when the stylus was an ordinary accessory which nobody wanted to use, but after Samsung’s continued investments in the S Pen and Microsoft betting big on the Surface Pen, several tech giants have initiated work on their own pens with increased pace.
Apple and Microsoft are going to an epic battle on this side of the market as well, and after Microsoft launched the world’s fastest pen back in May during a Surface event, Apple also unveiled a new Pencil which it now claims is to be the fastest in the world.
The new-age Pencil was launched at WWDC, and it features 20ms of latency, while Microsoft’s new Surface Pen, which also supports a tilt mode, has 21ms of latency.
But it’s on paper, which is obvious that the Apple Pencil is 1ms faster than the Surface Pen, but in real life, the difference between the two is barely noticeable.
Microsoft, however, has also bet big on other features of the Surface Pen, so its own stylus now features 4096 pressure sensitive levels. Apple hasn’t provided any updated figures in this regard, but there’s a good chance the new Pencil gets very close to that figure.
The iPhone maker is now betting big with its launch of the new iPad Pro display to offer the fastest digital pen in the world. The new iPad Pro comes with a 10.5-inch screen that offers a refresh rate of 120Hz and which Apple describes as “the best display on the planet.”
Microsoft has recently made similar claims for the Surface lineup, so the battle for offering the fastest pen around doesn’t come down only to improving the stylus itself, but also other technologies, such as the displays installed on the devices it’s supposed to work with.
The Apple Pencil, for example, is also betting big on iOS 11, an updated version of the mobile OS available on iPhones and iPads and which comes with several improvements for pen input.
