Apple has added a welcome breath of fresh air to its iPad lineup this 12 months, bringing its most inexpensive entry-level model into harmony with its more premium tablets. The 2022 iPad features the now-familiar design language of the iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini. Much more significantly, it also brings the USB-C port over from those models. It’s even available in some fun recent colours.
Unfortunately, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows with the latest Tenth-generation iPad. While it gains some nice improvements beyond the design, including an upgrade to the A14 chip present in the iPhone 12, a greater 12-megapixel (MP) camera, and 5G connectivity, it’s oddly been left behind on the subject of the Apple Pencil — despite selling for $120 greater than its predecessor.
Apple
Can I exploit an Apple Pencil with my 2022 iPad?
Apple’s entire tablet lineup has offered support for the Apple Pencil because the sixth-generation iPad joined the party in 2018. This 12 months’s iPad isn’t any exception. What’s unusual in regards to the 2022 iPad is that it seems stuck previously on the subject of Apple’s stylus.
Specifically, the brand new entry-level iPad still only supports the first-generation Apple Pencil. That’s the stylus Apple introduced with the unique 12.9-inch iPad Pro in 2015, which was supplanted within the iPad Pro lineup by a second-generation Apple Pencil in 2018.
When the iPad Air and iPad Mini adopted an identical design in 2020 and 2021, additionally they gained support for the second-generation Apple Pencil. Apple’s strategy seemed clear: traditional iPads used the first-generation Apple Pencil, while those with the trendy design worked with the improved second-generation stylus.
It was a pleasant theory, but now it seems that wasn’t the playbook Apple was following. The 2022 iPad contains a design much like the iPad Air released earlier this 12 months, yet it doesn’t support the identical Apple Pencil because the more premium model.
Which may be excellent news for some folks considering an upgrade from an older iPad because it means they won’t have to interchange their Apple Pencil. Further, because the first-generation Apple Pencil is $30 cheaper than the second-generation model, it also suits in with the more wallet-friendly pricing of Apple’s more cost-effective iPads.
How do I charge the Apple Pencil on my 2022 iPad?
Sadly, folks with the brand new iPad will miss out on two of the very best features the second-generation Apple Pencil offers: wireless charging and convenient storage.
The unique Apple Pencil relied on wired charging, with power transferred using a Lightning connector on one end. Users could plug the stylus into the iPad’s Lightning port for quick top-ups or use the included female-to-female Lightning adapter to connect with a typical USB-to-Lightning cable and charger.
When Apple introduced the second-generation Apple Pencil, it did so alongside an iPad Pro with flat edges and a magnetic dock on one side. The brand new Apple Pencil magnetically snapped onto this spot on the iPad Pro, which also routinely transferred charging power to it as soon because it was in place.
Certainly one of the explanations the newer Apple Pencil never got here to traditional iPad designs was just because those models offered no option to charge the stylus. The design of those older iPads didn’t lend itself to this magnetic charging as there was no place to dock the Apple Pencil on the tapered edges. Nevertheless, as Apple brought the brand new flat-edged design to the iPad Air and iPad Mini, it also added the magnetic charger, introducing compatibility with the second-generation Apple Pencil to each these models.
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Sadly, despite the fact that the 2022 iPad has the identical flat edges, Apple hasn’t included a magnetic charger on this model, so it’s not compatible with the newer Apple Pencil. Granted, the brand new landscape camera position occupies the spot where the magnetic charger lives on Apple’s other iPads, but that doesn’t mean Apple couldn’t have found someplace else to charge its newer stylus.
As an alternative, the 2022 iPad stays the one current Apple tablet that doesn’t support the second-generation Apple Pencil. This implies those that wish to use a stylus with this iPad will still must charge it the old-fashioned way — either from an external charger or from the port on the underside of the iPad.
Adding insult to injury, the switch to USB-C has made this much more complicated. For the reason that first-gen Apple Pencil still uses a Lightning connector, iPad owners might want to resort to using a in the event that they wish to top-up their stylus from their iPad’s charger.
Apple
As silly because it often looked, you would plug the unique Apple Pencil directly into the underside of a Lightning-equipped iPad. Doing the identical on the USB-C-equipped 2022 iPad will now require you to hold around a dongle and a cable to mate up the Lightning port in your stylus with the USB-C port in your iPad.
Specifically, you’ll need the aforementioned USB-C to Apple Pencil adapter, a $9 dongle with a female USB-C port on one end and a female Lightning port on the opposite. Apple now includes this within the box with recent first-generation Apple Pencils, but you’ll should shell out for one individually when you already own the stylus from a previous iPad model. You’ll then must couple this dongle with the USB-C to USB-C cable that comes with the iPad.
You don’t must charge the Apple Pencil directly from the iPad, so when you already own one — and haven’t lost the tiny Lightning charging dongle that got here with it — you may plug it into a typical Lightning cable and USB power adapter. You can too use that original dongle with a USB-C to Lightning cable, just like the one which comes with modern iPhones, to charge directly from the 2022 iPad.
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