Scribble
July 13, 2020 at 9:38 PM by Dr. Drang
I installed the public beta for iOS 14 on my “secondary” iPad (2016 9.7″ Pro) last week. So far, I’ve had one inexplicable crash but no other problems. Because it’s my secondary iPad, the 9.7″ doesn’t get used hard. It’s more the content consumption iPad, while the 2018 12.9″ Pro is the content creation iPad. But I have tried some content creation using Scribble. I wrote the main point of my review in Scribble itself:
I had high hopes for Scribble, but I really dislike having my words whisked away from me before I’ve completed a thought. Maybe I’ll get comfortable with it after a while, but I’m surprised Apple thought this was the right user interface. Am I an oddball for wishing I could write out a full sentence and then have handwriting converted?
Secondary impressions:
- The handwriting recognition is quite good. I was all the more impressed with it given that my lettering on the 9.7″ is messier than I’d like. I find writing on glass difficult because I’m used to more friction between (lowercase) pencil and paper. The (uppercase) Pencil has a tendency to get away from me. To combat this, I put a “paperlike” screen protector on the 12.9″, which makes sketches and handwritten notes made on that device much more legible. I didn’t bother buying one for the 9.7″ because I didn’t think I’d need it on the consumption iPad.
- The only recognition problem I’ve seen—which didn’t happen when making the above recording—is difficulty interpreting my Is. They often come out as + or ≠, neither of which make any sense to me. I think my Is are among the most legible letters I write.
- Sometimes part of a letter doesn’t get drawn on the screen, something I’ve never seen with the Pencil before Scribble. Smooth tracking has always been the hallmark of the Pencil. Presumably, Scribble is using up cycles as it interprets the previous word and sometimes stops tracking the Pencil for a fraction of a second. I suspect this won’t be a problem on more recent and powerful iPads.
- Pausing while writing can cause Scribble to think you’re starting a new paragraph. This reminds me of Siri’s intolerance of pauses when I’m trying to dictate. You’d think Apple’s Californian designers would be more laid back, man, and allow some room for thought to, like, breathe.
