Apple New Hovering Pencil Feature is a Missed Opportunity for IPad Accessibility Improvement

Apple released their brand new iPad Pro line with M2 processor with a new feature called Hovering Pencil supposed to work with the latest pencil. Apple Pencil now get detected before it hits the screen of the iPad . Apple‘s Note app shows how this works,

The pencil indeed is detected before you hit the screen but it needs to be very very close to it… a third of an inch maybe… This is already a problem for people with low vision. I was hoping for an inch or so. At that distance, the pencil could have been used as a mouse on the screen instead of using a finger and hoping it falls in the right location. The screen detection is too weak to make it useful to us.

I did ask a sighted friend to use the pencil and describe what he sees. When the pencil gets close to the screen, a ridiculously small icon shows up under the penci to show the

size of the brush you are about to use. Even he had trouble to see this

Apple said they are impatient to see what app developers will do with this… my guess : not much .