Welcome to 2019, everybody, the year when mankind has advanced to such a state that we’re forced to recharge pencils. Although to be fair to Apple, the Apple Pencil is a tad more sophisticated than your average HB.
To be clear, we’re talking here about the original Apple Pencil. The second-generation Apple Pencil is much easier to charge – it attaches magnetically to your iPad and charges itself.
The original Apple Pencil – which is still the only Pencil compatible with the latest iPad mini for instance – is more of a pain to charge. But there’s a hard and easy way to do it.
The hard way to charge your Apple Pencil
Many reviewers make the mistake of claiming the only way to charge your Apple Pencil is to plug it into the Lightning port on the base of the iPad. This is most definitely the hard way to do it, for two reasons.
First, it means if you want to use your iPad, you’ve got to deal with a six-inch Pencil poking out the bottom of it. Secondly, the Pencil only seems to charge properly when the screen is on. And given it’s awkward to hold the iPad with the Pencil in it, that’s a proper PITA (look it up).
The easy way to charge your Apple Pencil
The Apple Pencil comes with a small dongle that’s so small you could easily miss it inside the box (I did for the first six months of ownership).
You plug one end of this dongle into your iPad charger cable and the Pencil goes in the other.
The Pencil charges in no time whatsoever – ten minutes will get you back to 75% charge – and your iPad doesn’t have an awkward stick poking out the bottom of it.
The difficult bit is not losing that tiny dongle.
NOW READ THIS: How do I check the Apple Pencil battery level?
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