The Suppliers Behind the Apple Pencil Pro

Posted3 months agoActive2 months ago

o4c

30 points

15 comments

quartr.comTechstory

calmneutral

Debate

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AppleSupply ChainHardware

Key topics

Apple

Supply Chain

Hardware

The article examines the suppliers behind the Apple Pencil Pro, sparking discussion on Apple's manufacturing ecosystem and component sourcing.

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01Story posted
Oct 25, 2025 at 1:14 AM EDT
3 months ago
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Nov 1, 2025 at 6:34 PM EDT
8d after posting
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Nov 1, 2025 at 9:58 PM EDT
2 months ago
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Discussion (15 comments)

Showing 15 comments

WillAdams

2 months ago

2 replies

I still wish that Apple had just licensed Wacom EMR --- as it is, I have to use a Wacom One w/ my MacBook so that it will fit in w/ my Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Book 3 Pro 360, and Kindle Scribe (all of which use the same Wacom EMR stylus technology).

mrkpdl

2 months ago

1 reply

Do EMR pens generally support barrel rotation? No barrel rotation would rule them out for my use case (painting and illustration/being able to rotate the brush head)…

WillAdams

2 months ago

The Intuos/Cintiq pens do.

Time was, Wacom did a variety of stylus shapes/designs ranging from tracing pucks for CAD to airbrush-like ones which mimicked the dual action setup on high-end units.

dotancohen

2 months ago

I'm with you in this one. I'm using an S24 Ultra with the EMR pen right now. Same pen works with my Boox E-Ink tablet.

And I have an EMR pen collection to rival my fountain pen collection. Any device I buy must support them.

not4uffin

2 months ago

1 reply

I somehow forgot that the Apple Pencil Pro was a real product.

At first, I thought this story was satire/fake.

ChrisMarshallNY

2 months ago

1 reply

It works extremely well. I have a couple of Pencil Pros (both generations), and a couple of iPads.

I haven't used the Wacoms, though, so I have no comparison points.

I find that it works almost miraculously. I'm an artist (as is my wife), and we find it's almost perfect.

amelius

2 months ago

1 reply

Wacom EM-resonance works better in many ways.

ChrisMarshallNY

2 months ago

Cool. I don't know. I have an old Wacom Bluetooth tablet, and it had a noticeable lag, but it was also quite old.

The lag -even milliseconds- can be enough to ruin the experience for an artist. The iPad/pen lag is not noticeable. That said, I think the graphics app probably has more to do with it, than the hardware.

I think "faceless" wired Wacom tablets had no noticeable lag at all (we had a couple, at my old job). I have never used one of their Cintiq tablets, though.

RicoElectrico

2 months ago

1 reply

    Collaboration fuels innovation: Apple's reliance on specialized third-party suppliers, such as TSMC and Bosch, enables it to focus on refining design and user experience while leveraging the technical expertise and R&D of its partners for advanced components.
    Outsourcing is a strategic necessity: The complexity and cost of producing certain components, such as chips and sensors, make it impractical for Apple to develop everything in-house. By outsourcing, Apple taps into specialized knowledge while staying competitive.
    Suppliers are key to Apple's success: Companies like SiTime and Texas Instruments provide essential components that allow the Apple Pencil Pro to deliver high performance, showcasing the importance of Apple's global network of partners.

Excuse me, this is how almost every high tech company works? Feels like an LLM wrote it, especially considering how empty it is, reiterating the same thing 3 times with different buzzwords.

RicoElectrico

2 months ago

    At the time, Intel believed the mobile phone processor market was too small to justify the immense R&D investment required to deliver on Apple's request. Designing chips is an incredibly costly endeavor, and Intel assumed that the volumes wouldn't be large enough to cover those costs. In hindsight, this decision would go down as one of the biggest missed opportunities in business history. Otellini later admitted that Intel had drastically miscalculated, underestimating potential demand by 100x.

Admittedly this one is funny given the "Intel lifecycle" as my colleagues who are Intel alumni put it: acquire a company for a mountain of cash (much more than it'd cost to develop an SoC back in 2000s) only to fumble its potential. And the current CEO might be continuing this lunacy if rumors about AI startup acquisition are true.

mikestew

2 months ago

Oh, FFS, let’s at least link to the original information instead of this AI slop: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Apple+Pencil+Pro+Chip+ID/173106

At least that has part numbers and stuff.

nerdsniper

2 months ago

This is obvious AI slop and should be flagged. No part numbers were even identified.

delta_p_delta_x

2 months ago

It's worth noting that the overwhelming majority of suppliers in this list are domiciled in Europe, which has quite the monopoly over the MCU, custom IC, control logic, and power IC market.

Mistletoe

2 months ago

Apple Pencil Pro sounds like an SNL skit roasting Apple.

> Apple Pencil Pro adds even more magical capabilities to help bring your ideas to life. New advanced features make marking up, taking notes, and creating a masterpiece more intuitive than ever.

neuroelectron

2 months ago

$130 is a lot of profit for a plastic stick and outsourcing increases that to the maximum. With this cash flow, they can deny skill to competitors with strategic hiring.

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ID: 45701506Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 1:08:48 PM

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