There are various different ways you can use the Apple Vision Pro, but Apple may be about to add an extra way for you to interact with the virtual world — a stylus. That’s right, according to a new rumor from MacRumors, a future version of the Apple Pencil stylus may be compatible with the Vision Pro headset.
MacRumors notes that few details are known, but the purpose of adding Apple Pencil support to the Vision Pro makes perfect sense. Presumably you’d be able to use the stylus to draw or write within VisionOS, much as you would with an iPad screen but without any of the same display limitations.
Imagine using your desk, or any other flat surface as a sketching pad or a notebook. You simply draw with the Apple Pencil as you normally would, and the results are instantly digitized in your space. But compared to using something like your fingers or a mouse, you should be able to take advantage of the Apple Pencil’s extra hardware, which includes pressure and tilt sensitivity.
Whether you’ll be able to use the stylus to draw 3D objects in the air is unclear. That is something a lot of VR and AR headsets currently offer, and I’d be surprised if there wasn’t something similar on the Vision Pro App Store. But there could still be a benefit to creating those images with a specialized tool, rather than waving your hands around in the air.
So why settle for having an iPad as a canvas, when the world could be your canvas? That’s exactly the kind of thing Apple would likely say if/when they announce this feature.
Unfortunately it's unclear whether Vision Pro compatibility will extend to the Apple Pencil 3. That version of the stylus is rumored to be arriving alongside the iPad Pro 2024, which is expected to be announced at some point before the end of April.
That said, it’s not as though Vision Pro support will have to rely on brand new Apple Pencil hardware. Apple could add the feature as a software update at some point in the future, though it’s equally unclear when that will be. VisionOS 2 is expected to appear at WWDC 2024 in June, and with it a bunch of extra changes and upgrades for the Vision Pro headset. Who knows, maybe stylus support will be one of them?
We can’t say for sure, but it’s certainly fun to think about. In the meantime be sure to check out iPad Pro 2024 and WWDC 2024 hubs to see all the latest news and rumors about the two.
