When Apple launched its new iPad Pro, it was criticized for adding a over priced stylus dubbed as Apple Pencil. Reason for criticism was its price and Apple itself though it useless while launching first iPhone. Now, there is one more reason to criticize apple for its Apple Pencil. IFixit found that Apple Pencil is almost impossible to repair.
Apple Pencil was not included with iPad and customers will have to buy it separately for $99. Apple Pencil boasts to have so many interesting features which were new for a stylus. Tim Cook also claims that Apple Pencil is much more than just a stylus. It is pressure sensitive and highly responsive. Very good tool for designers. The only disappointing thing is that there is no indicator to show remaining battery. Only way is to enable iOS 9 Batteries widget in Notification Center.
IFixit did a teardown test and found that it is difficult to open and components inside are very hard to remove. Ifixit gave it a repairability score of one out of ten.
IFixit also revealed interesting facts about the build. Insider the outer plastic build, there is an inner metal build to house the key elements of this pencil. It has a lithium-ion battery which is almost impossible to replace and offers. There is also a pressure sensor and logic board. This logic board weighs just 1 gram and is smallest board used in any device. It has ARM-based Cortex-M3 MCU chipset and Bluetooth smart radio. There are also two emitters at the tip to sense the angle and orientation.
Watch this video by iFixit.
In a different test, a video blogger Zach Straley did a bend test to see how much efforts does it take to break the Apple Pencil. He had to put lots of effort to break this Apple Pencil. If you are thinking to order one for you, you can go ahead without worrying.
Wait for few more days for the initial review of the devices.
I personally think that there is no connection between this Apple Pencil and stylus Steve Jobs of Apple hated in past. Steve Jobs was talking about a smartphone scenario when smartphone used to have very limited features. Apple added stylus in its newly launched tablet because of its utilities. Now, designers use tablet for graphics designing where they cannot draw thin lines with finger.
