Full transcript of “No drawing, just writing with the Apple Pencil”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:05 So, I can't draw. Okay. I I truly truly cannot handwrite either. You're going to see that in a second. Please pity me. Why in the world would I buy an Apple pencil? Well, actually, I didn't. I found this. I found it in a hotel in Japan and someone else's bad luck. Sorry. Turns out to me my good luck because an Apple Pencil on an iPad proves to be ridiculously useful even for a writer like me. Plus I get to twiddle with it which which is not to be undervalued. Hello, I'm William Gallagher and this is 58 keys which as ever as always is for writers. Writers like you and me well who use and write on Macs and iPhones
0:50 and iPads. Yes, but this time specifically the iPad and actually writing, I mean handwriting plus some other bits and pieces. Uh do subscribe or support 58 keys on Patreon cuz well there's always so much to talk about and in this case well I'm going to tell I'm actually a little nervous going into this stuff. I know that sounds strange. I mean, it's only an Apple Pencil, but I want to show you fiveish Apple Pencil tips that are nothing to do with drawing and not a lot about terrible handwriting, but there is so much else to say about this little thing. On the good side, what this means is an Apple Pencil is actually remarkably practical and capable. On the bad side, the way it
1:36 works depends on which iPad app you're using. And then I have confused myself terribly switching between them. So, pull it back a little bit. Let's say these are five very broad tips, all of which work if you have the right Apple Pencil and the right iPad. I mean, obviously they would. Obviously, they work. I wouldn't be telling them to you if it didn't work. But there are dozens more tips. And also, as part of that, the thing that's making me uncertain is I know there are more ways to do the things I want to show you. So, you may know a faster route. But for a start, here are five tips that are five ways of using this if you have the right one. And that is a point. I've just said it twice now, but we'll come back to that after I've sold you on buying an Apple Pencil for between 79 and £129 or
2:22 dollars and possibly some hundreds on an iPad to go with it. How much does actual pen and paper cost these days, right? First tip, look, start at the beginning. Here's an iPad. It's cozily asleep, dreaming away. Here's an Apple Pencil. Let's play our game. Just tapping the pencil on the screen wakes the iPad and immediately takes you into a note in the Apple Notes app. Just like that. Um, you can't change that to be some other app. You can though set whether it always, for example, begins with a brand new note or just continues whatever the last note you happen to be working on is. So, uh, by default, actually, I should say you can't do
3:08 anything else. This is not a sneaky way of unlocking your iPad. Somebody can't come up and just touch the P and do it. It only opens that note. And you can stop it doing even that. There is no way to open the iPad like this and then go do anything else on the iPad, open any other app without unlocking. So, it's pretty secure. I suppose it displays that latest note, but your choice is pretty safe. And yet what it means is you can walk around picking up the pad, adding a note as you think of it, putting down, carrying on. Second, once you've unlocked the iPad, right, you can use the Apple Pencil to move around it and in in one way better
3:56 than you can with your finger. So with finger or Apple Pencil, right, you know this, you can swipe between your HomePad screens. What else can you do? You can tap to open app. You can choose buttons. You can scroll about in things. You can do everything except with the Apple Pencil. You can't quit an app. You can't quit an app with the Apple Pencil. And I I mean, it's obviously intentional. I presume the idea is to stop you accidentally coming out an app just because, you know, you happen to be scribbling away right down at the whoops at the bottom or something like that. To quit an app, you have to make a positive choice to use a finger and swipe with that one. So, no access, but also you can't use the Apple Pencil to call up control center. That's another finger
4:42 only option. But when you're on the desktop, right, uh you can swipe between different desktops if you've got them. You can also open widgets and you can do this. I think there's a chance this may change though. Right now, Apple is moving over to the new iPad OS 26. It's in beta testing now. It'll be out properly September, October time. And there's a little inconsistency. The new iPad OS, right, is tremendous. And much of this is down to how readily you can now have multiple app windows open on the screen, move between them, shove them around. I mean, it's excellent. It's I'm using the iPad more because of it. But when you're using fingers to swipe and shove and move around, this shoving thing comes at a cost. It comes at the cost of what was
5:29 a really handy feature. Only if you're using an Apple Pencil, you haven't lost anything. With an Apple Pencil, you can swipe up from the bottom left corner and be t and have taken a screen grab immediately. Or swipe up from the bottom right and you're writing a quick note. You can do this with your finger to an iPad S26. We have to switch off certain great features. So you don't um this used to be the way finger or pencil all the time now really effectively only with a pencil and I really missed the finger swipe up for screenshots. I hope there's a way that Apple can get all of it working and we can finger away. Um Apple Pencil settings though I should say even though you can do this you can choose to have nothing happen. You can choose which of the bottom corners does
6:16 a quick note or does Apple Pencil. Up to you. Third third tip. Call me easily impressed. Right, but I was actually taken a back by this having used other systems. Once it's set up, you can write with your Apple Pencil anywhere on the iPad. So, here I'm writing a website address in Safari's address bar. And I'm not even being all that, you know, careful about getting in exactly the right spot. I'm just starting somewhere over it and continuing to write past it. Now, yes, this just crashed on me every time I tried it out to show you. But I am now using the beta test version of iPad OS 26. And betas, these things happen. It's why you don't use betas. So, why am I? Every time I've done this for myself,
7:02 like, you know, when you're not watching really, it's worked. But the thing of it is for me there's no tapping on a section of the app with your finger and then pressing a button to say I want to handwrite the address. You just start writing. You just start writing an address and it does it. And uh not only in an address bar when you're uh naming a document or a folder when you're filling out a form online. I do that a lot. Signatures as well. There's a way to have all of this switched off actually and arguably there are reasons to switch it off. So, you do need to check something. You need to check whether it's on or not before we start. Why isn't it working? Go to settings, Apple Pencil, and turn on scribble. That is the feature that lets you scribble away anywhere on the iPad. But
7:48 also, while you're here, while you're in the area, once Scribble is turned on, you also get this try scribble feature, and that shows you what you can write and how you can do it and how you can delete and all sorts of things. Fourth tip uh and you might need a coffee now because this is the longest the biggest. It starts with the apps that you can actually write in. So not you know in Safari address bars or naming documents to be a writer you know writing away. Not every app lets you do this and there isn't some list that I can find anyway but Apple notes free form pages omni outliner good notes these all do it. to find out if your writing app of choice does support the Apple Pencil before you go spending the cash on one. Uh, do a
8:33 search. What obvious advice is that? I don't tend to use Google or I use perplexity.ai, but whatever you use, don't trust it. There's money on the line here. Follow the source like this. And in this example, I figure Microsoft is a reasonable source for Microsoft details, although it is Microsoft. Um, a thing I don't like and which does it does keep confusing me actually is that different apps let you handwrite in different ways. If Scribbl is on is turned on for instance then um Omni Outline I love that app that just yeah get on with it. Just start writing and knock yourself out right away. Nothing else to do. Apple notes needs you to first tap on the Apple Pencil icon and then in Apple pages I find if I tap the pencil on the screen yeah it offers let
9:21 me insert a drawing I don't know from drawings the answer in pages if you just want to write and particularly if you want to have your handwriting score converted automatically into type text is to open a page document yeah tap on the screen yeah and then when you get this thing about how you can tap anywhere with Apple Pencil to add a drawing. Yeah, we'll ignore that. Do you also get this like I don't know to describe it's like a toolbar selection panel or something. Call it a toolbar. You get a toolbar at the bottom of the screen which I mean it shows colors and it shows different types of pen you can simulate. But if you tap on the pen type that has an A written on. Look at that. The A that really helped you. the drawing notice goes away and
10:06 instead you are handwriting actual text into your document which will be converted to type text. Choose any other pen type and well you can handr write if you like but it will be treated as a drawing. Your handwriting will not be converted into text. Um you might not want it to be converted into text though. You might like your handwriting and I may now therefore hate you forever. It seems to me that the best app at the moment for doing this for actual handwriting is Apple Notes. Now I mean doubtlessly there are others that I haven't tried and you can do this in pages but it's like with Apple notes is kind of built for it. You can scroll away in Apple notes and your actual handwriting stays actually there
10:53 or it can you can make it stay exactly as you wrote it. But by default since oh well clearly Apple Apple knows best once you've handwritten I find this really peculiar to watch once you've handwritten a couple of words in Apple notes your iPad will smooth out the writing it's called autorefine handwriting and the idea is that still your handwriting but it's a bit neater I mean it's really clever but I suppose because my my handwriting just defeats it so I I'm not really a good judge of whether it's any use or If you find that it isn't, well, you can turn it off. You can turn it off through that pen toolbar thing. Most of the time on the screen, you'll have just is it a toolbar? It's like one little pen type in the corner. It's the pen type that
11:39 you're using. Tap on that and you you get the whole toolbar back including an ellipses three dots icon at the far right. Tap on that and from the menu that appears you can turn off auto refine handwriting. Whether it's on or not though, you you're a writer, so you change your mind about your writing. You want to erase words because they're terrible. You want to in insert cleverer words here, whatever. When you're handwriting like this, so actual handwriting, not having that handwriting convert into type text, you erase words by choosing the eraser on that toolbar. Now, with any pen type or tool here, so there's marker pen, fountain pen, all this stuff. one. You can tap once to select it or you can tap
12:26 it again to bring up some options. With most of the pen types, those options you get are to do with uh the width of the stroke or the opacity of what you're writing on there drawing probably. With the eraser, you can choose pixel or object eraser. Choose object or you will go crazy. Pixel eraser is like rubbing out your text one tiny dot at a time. Object er This is rubbish. Let's get rid of that. Screw it all over. It's actually it's quite cathartic. Yeah. Um but then if you don't want to erase, if you instead want to insert a word, well, you do this. You press the tip of your pencil where you want to add the word and you wait for just a beat, half a beat. You then get this little icon like thing and you can drag the pencil to the
13:13 right and you're clearing up space that you can then write into. While we're at it though, and I did say this fourth tip was longer. You're not counting the tips, are you? You can do this erasing and adding words even when your handwriting is being converted into type text. And I find that much more useful. Certainly more legible. I mean, I would, wouldn't I? I mean, you've seen it now. There's I tried. I tried, but my handwriting is unsalvageable. With some typed text on your screen, you can scribble over what you want to erase and it's gone. And I like that. Or you can circle a word and you get options including delete. Or you can run your Apple pencil tip over one word or two words or sentence whatever you want and that gets highlighted so that you can
14:01 then delete the lot. All of this, right, I think is is most of what you will do most often when you handwrite with an Apple Pencil on an iPad. Converting handwriting into type, arranging actual handwriting, deleting and moving and adding and shoving things around you. I mean, you're right. Really, that's the short way of saying it. That's what you'll do. But then there's one more thing that honestly I never stop. I was going to say impressed. being impressed. I never stop being startled by this. I've got to stop fiddling with Put it away. Last tip. Watch this, please. Here
14:47 is a date that I have scribbled down. I can tap on it and create a calendar event right out it right out of my handwriting. Or here's some maths. I can write that out. And then when I write an equal sign, I get the answer offered to me. And this solve button. Tap that and the answer is written into the document. Ostensibly in your in this case my handwriting and not just when you do an equal sign like that. You can sum a column of figures handwritten figures just by drawing a line underneath the last of them. Draw the line. Tap the solve button. Done. Only when Apple shows this off, it does not show you that solve button. And I I don't I don't
15:33 see why do we have to put up with it. You can do this instead. This is particularly in Apple notes, I should say. It's in Apple notes where the maths and that calendar event thing option definitely work. There may be others, but in Apple Notes, right? You can tap on this ellipses option towards the top of the screen. Tap on maths results might say math results in your country and turn on insert results. You never have to see that totally redundant solve button ever again. And there's a similar thing about the calendar event option, but in this case, I don't think it's very good. I don't think it's very good at all because I spent so I mean I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to get that to work. I at one point I ended up wondering did I have the wrong Apple Pencil? Was it the wrong iPad? It had to
16:19 be newer ones of all this. And yeah, you and I do need to as briefly as we can talk about that in a moment, but it turns out it's just a bug. It's a bug in the iPad OS 26 beta, but it was also in iPad OS 18. So, it doesn't look like it's getting fixed. And the bug is this. Yes, you can write out a date or a time actually, but before you can select it to make a calendar before its data detectors can recognize it. You have to at least scroll away from the screen and come back. And I find I usually have to come out of this note and go back into it before it will work. So, this is a brilliantly quick way to write out a calendar entry. It's just not brilliantly quick. Uh, last topic, last thing, and it's not a tip. It's just tedious, but it's important. You're
17:06 thinking, I am lucky to have found an Apple Pencil in Tokyo. I'm luckier than you think because not only did I find an Apple Pencil in the hotel room, but I found a type of Apple Pencil that will work with my iPad. Uh, this used to be really complicated and I suppose actually it still is, but it is inch by inch getting better. Right now, Apple promotes two types of Apple Pencil, but it still sells four of them. Uh, you can't look at the list and go by price as the oldest and the least useful Apple Pencil kind of comes in the middle of the price range and you can't go by age. I mean, if you happen to I'm sure you keep track of when Apple releases what, but the newest one isn't necessarily as good as one of the oldest ones. I do need to stress that everything
17:53 you've just seen works with all Apple pencils, okay? I mean, why would I show you something that wouldn't? The issue is over which pencil works with your iPad. And the bonus is that some Apple Pencils do much more. Shortest version I think I can. If you already have an iPad and don't have an Apple Pencil, go to apple.com/apple-pencil. That will first show you the two pencils that Apple is pushing. and beneath them there is a list of which iPads each of them works with. If your iPad is only on one pencil's list, I think you know where to go here. If it's on both, I offer that the best option overall if you can is to get the Apple Pencil Pro,
18:38 but it is £129 or dollars, where the other of those two options is £79 or dollars. If your iPad is not on either of these lists, scroll down to the heading that begins um looking for Apple Pencil first generation. You're not. Click on buy Apple Pencil second generation. That's the one to look at next. Scroll way down to the compatibility section. Tap on that and you get a new list. If your iPad is not on that list, okay, go back, click on buy Apple Pencil first generation and do the same thing. You'll get there in the end. Apple Pencil and iPad, they're a pair. They work together. It's not just the pencil doing its doings, which does also
19:25 mean that if you change your iPad, you can have to buy a new Apple Pencil. I mean, there are reasons for it. That isn't Apple trying to dredge. Well, I think it is really, but it isn't entirely that. Speaking of cash, okay, I I don't want you to make it I don't want to make it sounds if I think £79 or £129 is some casual purchase. And I do think I was extraordinarily lucky to find this pencil and to have it be the one I can actually use on my iPad. I go through phases of using it a lot though or not at all for a few weeks. I don't know why. I'll find it immensely useful or just a well just a thing for twiddlingers. I think if the question is overall, is the Apple Pencil worth the
20:14 money it costs? Yes. Is it worth the money for me or for you? Well, I can't know about you, but I'm even less sure about me because But if I do, right, if I do change my iPad and this pencil doesn't work with the new device, I'll at least miss it. And on that decisive note, that's it for this 58 keys. There's so much more to say about Apple Pencil and you may be the one to say it though. So I would really enjoy hearing about well all right go on then show off your handwriting and your drawing talent of your must. But I particularly would like to know if you can tell me about different apps that you can use Apple Pencil in and what are there broader options or finer details that I'm missing that make me use it more. But in the meantime thank you very much for watching now. Take care of yourself.
20:59 write more with a pencil with a with any device you like and I'll see you soon.
