Apple Pencil / MS Surface Pen

[GarryPettet]

Hi all,

Is it possible to utilise the Apple Pencil on iPad and/or the MS Surface Pen on Windows Surface device to draw in a canvas? I have a app idea that needs to harness a stylus and would work on an iPad and a MS Surface.

[DaveS]

technically… yes you can…

UIKit reports touches from Apple Pencil in the same way it reports touches from the user’s fingers. Specifically, UIKit delivers a UITouch object containing the location of the touch in your app. However, a touch object originating from Apple Pencil contains additional information, including the azimuth and altitude of Apple Pencil and the amount of force recorded at its tip.

I believe “Xojo for iOS” reports the location information, but it probably doesn’t report the rest…

[Jeff_Tullin]

Is it possible to utilise the Apple Pencil on iPad

Yes… to your app it feels like a finger.
I bought one purely to test.
Never get it out of the box these days.

[GarryPettet]

Thanks for the info. Does anyone know if that’s the same for the surface pen?

[Tim_Jones]

Just tested a simple app with the Surface Pro 2 and the pen is recognized like a finger or clicked and drug mouse.

[GarryPettet]

@Tim Jones: Thanks mate.

[Christian_Schmitz]

You can use MBS Plugins to get touch and pointer events. See blog post:

https://www.mbsplugins.de/archive/2017-10-20/Windows_Touch_Events

[GarryPettet]

Nice. Thanks Christian. I hadn’t seen those in the plugin before!