The last week or two I’ve been using the Apple pencil increasingly for navigating around the iPad Pro. I know I’m a little bit late to the game and a holy war has already been fought with Apple to retain this ability. At the time all of that went down, I thought it was silly and didn’t foresee myself using my Apple Pencil to scroll, swipe, and otherwise tap on my iPad. Somehow, nonetheless, I ended up trying it out and to my own surprise, I like it.

One of the reasons pencil navigation is nice is because of the length of the Apple Pencil, I can easily scroll through lists and check off boxes with very little movement of my hand. This workflow is particularly useful for the morning sweep through OmniFocus and email. Strangely, I never find myself using the Apple Pencil on the springboard or otherwise navigating between applications.

If you own an iPad Pro and have held off on the Apple Pencil, I’d encourage you to give one a try. You can pick them up at the Apple Store and they have a two-week return policy so if it really doesn’t work for you, you’re not out any money.

I think Apple made a mistake with the initial launch of the iPad Pro with all the emphasis on using the Apple Pencil for fine art. While obviously it’s good for that, I find a lot of uses for it that have nothing to do with art.