At $99, the Apple Pencil is no Ticonderoga No. 2. And when it was released back in late 2015, it wasn’t an essential accessory, either—at least, not for most tablet-toting lawyers. A sensor-laden stylus that let you write and draw with extremely
high precision, the Pencil was a slick piece of hardware, to be sure. It could sense how hard you were pressing down on it and adjust line thickness accordingly: thin lines for a light press; heavier lines when you really bore down. It had virtually no latency, so unlike a more traditional stylus (or your finger) there wasn’t that small but annoying delay before your penmanship appeared on the screen. Yet when it launched, the Apple Pencil worked only with the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, and the apps supporting it were largely focused on drawing or drafting. So most of us could put that $99 back in our pocket.
