This is Technology Bytes, episode 129 for August 24th, 2025.
Technology Bytes is a microcast, where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So this week I’m rehashing something I spoke about before, and that is the Apple Pencil.
This is the device that Apple sells with the iPad Pro, with the iPad Air.
Is there something else in there?
Anyway, it is a device that allows us to write on the iPad, taking notes, drawing pictures, lots of different applications that use it.
And it has a lot of cool features in it, lets you know where your pencil’s at on the screen, it gives some highlights if you’re using it, kind of like a mouse.
It lets you know what the pencil tip looks like, so if you have it tipped over, you can kind of see you’re drawing on edge.
There’s lots of tools that can be used, and they’ve done a good job, I feel like, making the Apple Pencil useful in very many different types of situations.
And so I just was, that was brought to my attention this week, and I will tell you about that in a few minutes.
So many people that I listen to, tech podcasts, and many of them have iPad Pros, they’re Apple nerds, that’s the ones that I listen, the podcasts that I listen to anyway when it comes to technology, because that’s what I enjoy.
And they often don’t use the Apple Pencil, they think it’s, they’re not artists, so it’s not useful for them, and they maybe use their iPad in a keyboard case, so they do mostly typing, and many think that they, well, many say, I mean, that they just don’t ever use their Apple Pencil.
Well, when I bought my wife an iPad Air, I made her buy an Apple Pencil, but she doesn’t use it either, and I think it’s because she doesn’t use the iPad like I do, she doesn’t take notes on it that much, but I think if she used it just a little bit, she would find more uses, and I think that might be the case for everyone.
So I use my iPad at work a lot.
It is my mobile computing device in the production environment in which I work.
I don’t always use the Pencil in that environment, but in meetings, I use it constantly.
I’m always taking notes, I’m always highlighting or taking notes on PDFs or other type documents and tracking projects and goals and all those kinds of things, so I use it pretty extensively, and I use the Pencil a lot as well.
And I don’t really think about it anymore.
I think one of the people that I work with said, it just seems like that the iPad and that Apple Pencil are just an extension of who Joel is.
It’s just what he has in his hand, and it’s just like a natural, almost like he’s writing on a notebook or a piece of paper, and that’s really the way I feel, and it is how I use my iPad Pro at work.
There are times where I use the keyboard on the screen to type notes into orders and keeping track of things like that, and even then, mostly I do that because I forget that I could just write it out with my Apple Pencil and it would turn it into typed text, and that would probably work just as well, if not better at some point in that use.
But sometimes I just forget about that, and I’m pecking away on the keyboard, which really is kind of slow on the glass screen.
But in that, it is a device that people are used to me having in my hands.
They understand when I’m writing on it that I’m not doing something that keeps me from paying attention to them, but I’m taking notes so that I remember what the conversation was about or what the meeting was about, and it’s a super useful tool to me.
So one of the ways that I use my iPad at work is doing reviews of my employees.
And I don’t know, there’s something about writing in a review form and the person knowing that that’s my handwriting, that I took the time to write it out.
It just seems a little more personal than typed text.
And so I use it quite a bit for that.
And then it’s also super useful in that same environment when it comes to signing these reviews and other documents at work.
And it’s just a matter of me signing and putting a date, and then I hand it to the employee and they sign the review and put in a date, and I hit print and hand it to them.
And I’ve been doing that for some time, but this past couple weeks, I did a couple reviews for people who have only been here at my work for 90 days, and so they are not used to this process at this point.
And it was quite interesting because in two different situations, different people, different departments that report to me, and both individuals who are the managers of the person being reviewed and the person being reviewed said, oh, now I can see why Joel uses that.
That’s really cool.
Maybe I need to get one of those.
They don’t quite understand the cost because iPad Pro, which they wouldn’t have to get, you could do the iPad Air, but as you may know, iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil is running you right up against a computer type prices.
But it was interesting to see people who don’t use it on a daily basis recognize the coolness of that feature and that Apple Pencil as a tool and how easily it writes.
And I think they were amazed at resting their hand on the glass and not having to worry about that, about how smooth the action was and what it looked like, like you’re actually using a pen on paper.
And so it’s just a tool that just reminded me in those use cases for people who are not in the Apple ecosystem that Apple really does make cool products.
Well, that is all I have for today.
If you have comments, suggestions, or questions, you can send them to technologybytesatmarigfamily.com.
As always, I want to thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast, and I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
