Procreate team praises Apple Pencil Hover feature on M2 iPad Pro
In October, Apple launched a new generation iPad Pro featuring the M2 chip. However, M2 iPad Pro also comes with a new exclusive feature called “Apple Pencil Hover,” which enables a new experience when the accessory moves across the screen. For the team behind popular app Procreate, “it’s hard to go back” after using Apple Pencil Hover on the new iPad Pro.
In an article published by Apple, the developers of Procreate shared their thoughts on the new Apple Pencil Hover feature. For those unfamiliar, Procreate is an illustration app for the iPad, launched in 2011. The app now has an iPhone version and was awarded “App of the Year” by Apple in 2018.
What the Apple Pencil Hover changes for users and developers
But what do they think of Apple Pencil Hover? According to Procreate CEO James Cuda, the Hover feature helps artists and creators draw with even more precision. “The ability to not make a commitment or damage the artwork is transformative,” says Cuda.
With this new technology, the iPad can detect Apple Pencil when the tip is up to 12mm above the screen. Developers can use the Hover feature in their apps for various purposes, such as showing a preview of where the user is drawing, selecting menus, and more. And for Procreate’s chief product officer, Claire d’Este, it makes the experience of using apps much more “playful.”
I find myself scrolling up and down menus just to see how it responds. There’s something so nice about everything that lightens up when I’m thinking about what to do next.
In Procreate, users can take advantage of Apple Pencil Hover to extend images or extend animations directly from their thumbnails. The color picker and menu buttons respond as the user moves Apple Pencil over them, and it also works with canvas. d’Este highlights the ColorDrop feature to preview colors using the Hover feature.
A second target was the app’s ColorDrop feature, which instantly fills a section of your artwork when you drag and drop a color onto it, paint-by-numbers style. Using Apple Pencil hover, people can preview what the artwork will look like before committing to a color, speeding up the process dramatically. “If you’re doing ink work—comic art, for example—that’s huge,” d’Este says.
Now, the Procreate team strongly believes that the Apple Pencil Hover “solves a lot of things” for creators and that anyone using the feature will have a hard time going back to an experience without it.
More about Procreate
Procreate for iPad is available in the App Store for $12.99. The Pocket version for iPhone costs $5.99. Both apps require a device running iOS 15.4.1 or later.
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