Apple Pencil Could Support Textures In Future Iteration

Apple's stylus for the iPad, the Apple Pencil, allows users to do a lot of things on the company's tablets, most notably on the iPad Pro. The stylus allows creatives to easily create designs, among other things, making for a very useful and powerful productivity tool that can be taken on the go.

A new patent granted to Apple, however, indicates that future Apple Pencil iterations could be able to make users feel like they're using a real writing instrument on a textured surface, like when drawing on a piece of paper using a charcoal pencil.

The patent, titled “Stylus with haptic feedback for texture simulation,” describes a stylus that features components meant to provide haptic feedback to the user when its tip is used on a surface, such as the iPad's screen.

The stylus has a “force-sensing system” that will detect the movement of the tip relative to its body such as when writing on a surface. The haptic feedback system will then be used to “render texture sensations” that will simulate the feeling of writing on a variety of textured surfaces.

The patent claims that users will be able to choose what kind of feedback the stylus can give them. For example, users can choose from a variety of preprogrammed profiles designed to mimic textured surfaces, , such as those found on different kinds of papers (such as canvas, paper and so on).

Users will also be able to choose from a variety of preprogrammed profiles corresponding to a variety of writing or drawing instruments such as pencil, ball-point pen, fountain pen, highlighter, brush and so on.

The stylus will provide haptic feedback at the tip to more accurately simulate the feeling of writing on a textured surface. This will allow the Apple Pencil to provide users with a better feel when writing or drawing. This will be particularly appealing to those who are used to working with various writing instruments and different textured surfaces.

There's no release date for such a technology at the moment. Patently Apple reported that Apple has been working on this kind of invention for years now. This latest patent shows its progress.