Apple announced that iOS 11 will be available to download on the iPhone and iPad on September 19th. Apple iPad Pro users will benefit from a number of new enhancements that were just announced today. Instant Markup lets you take a screenshot and annotate it with the Pencil, and a “Mark Through PDF” option lets you convert any screen to a PDF file that you can write on. Inline drawing is another new feature that lets Apple Pencil users tap anywhere in a note or email and handwrite a message. Any typed text will automatically format around the handwritten section, making it easier to combine type and scribbles in one message.
Editing a screenshot is likely the feature that many people will employ. Instead of downloading a eighty page contract just to add a signature, print it out, scan it and then email it is simply jumping through too many hoops. Instead, you can just take a screenshot of the signature page, sign it and email it. You can also do a millions of other things, scap a screenshot of a website you like and make some changes and send it over to your designer or even make annotations to an ebook.
I think a very underrated feature is being able to handwrite your replies via email. You could just scribble out your reply, instead of using the touchscreen. I grew up with physical keyboards and then used Blackberry smartphones for a decade. When I started to use iOS devices, my emails became shorter because typing on a touchscreen is difficult to write eloquently. I suppose this is why many people write three or four word replies and include a multitude of emojis. I will definitely start using my Apple Pencil more to handwrite messages because it feels more natural.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
