Among the many many iPadOS 26 options Apple plans to unveil at WWDC subsequent week, one curious addition stands out: Apple Pencil reed calligraphy, as reported by Bloomberg. However what does that really imply?
Final yr, Apple launched the Apple Pencil Professional, bringing squeeze gestures, barrel roll detection, and haptic suggestions to its stylus lineup for the primary time. Now, with iPadOS 26, it’s pairing these {hardware} upgrades with a brand new software program characteristic that’s certain to resonate with Arabic customers and calligraphy fans all over the place.
A number of weeks in the past, Mark Gurman reported on his Energy On e-newsletter that Apple had “been increasing its retail footprint” within the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and India, and that Apple was on observe to announce two options that may please customers in these areas:
“One is a extremely superior bi-directional keyboard for shifting between Arabic and English. The opposite is a digital reed calligraphy pen for Apple Pencil customers.”
The primary is fairly self-explanatory, however the second caught many Western customers off guard, particularly those that’ve by no means dabbled in calligraphy.
An Arabic reed pen, or qalam, is a standard writing software utilized in Islamic calligraphy, recognized for its skill to create elegant, flowing strokes with various thickness.
And whereas the Apple Pencil has had strain sensitivity assist from the beginning, it has by no means natively supplied a digital brush that really mimics the writing stream of a standard qalam, till now.
If Apple will get the simulation proper, this new brush will replicate the thick-and-thin strokes attribute of Arabic calligraphy, increasing the Apple Pencil’s vary to accommodate a a lot wider cultural and inventive spectrum.
This angled-cut type can be broadly utilized by calligraphy fans, enabling the daring, expressive letterforms that give many scripts their distinct visible rhythm.
It’s nonetheless unclear whether or not this new digital brush will probably be unique to the Apple Pencil Professional, or out there on different fashions as nicely. However with WWDC simply across the nook, we’ll quickly discover out.
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