- I initially liked the experience of writing on glass - its fast and the responsive but quality seriously suffers - letter roundness and stroke subtlety is lost to become spider-scrawl. This meant that reading it back later became a deeply unpleasant and difficult experience reducing the value of writing anything at all. I committed to it and it didn't seem to be a technique issue but a combination of the zero friction pen/screen interaction and how strokes are recorded and rendered. The one thing I did not try was a screen protector to add more friction.
- electronic store of handwriting did not not prove useful. It became a worse experience than flicking through loose leaf paper which you can layout, rearrange, pin up etc. There is no handwriting recognition or anything to add value like searching. If I ever wanted to make ink digital, I could take a photo in 2 seconds.
- There is something psychological and so special about ink, paper, flow experience. When you write with ink, you make a mark on the world. The experience and art is lost on a screen. Its also pretty weird when the screen gets hot and it increases the time you are staring closely at a screen which is more fatiguing than taking a break to stare at paper.
- IOS is just a bad productivity platform - copy text out of a webpage/ebook into notes? Ugh. Get a pdf onto the iPad. Ugh. It hobbles the user at every turn. Delight turns into impotent rage at anti-user design decisions to keep you buying media from Apple. I found I either wanted real text notes and all the high quality text tooling I am used to on a laptop or the real pen and ink experience for the flow and flexibility.
A week later, I returned the 12" pro and pencil - the initial wow-factor turned into loathing. Its worse than the cheapest pen and paper.
With traditional pen/paper, it leaves your computer fully available for research, videos, or quick references without having to switch around. Great products overall, but the experience is still lacking in that regard.
'The Apple'? Apple is the name of the company, not any particular product or feature. What do you mean it should be compatible with all iPads?
What is Tim Cook's vision for education? Nobody fucking knows. One year Apple is trying to sell iPads claiming it's "whole new kind of computer" then a few months later they are wondering "what's a computer". Without a compelling vision the iPad will continue to flounder.
p.s. I want a 7.9" iPad Pro
[1] there is no open source .txt equivalent for hand written notes. We'll need one if OneNote/Apple Notes ever takes off