Designer Takes the Wait Out of Apple Pencil, 3D Prints Replica Available on MyMiniFactory

Simone Fontana

So while it’s exciting anytime Apple releases a new product–and we’re all ready to get out our camping gear and sleep overnight on a city block to be first at it–the Apple pencil was ironically unveiled to the public with the shadow of Steve Jobs and his edict that the stylus equals death hanging over it.

Surely, many of us can agree that the stylus is often a groan-worthy pain, but sometimes a necessary and convenient evil as well for completing some projects with the required precision and verve. While we won’t see the iPad Pro and Apple Pen actually out until November, the remake of the stylus is touted to be something quite new and different–and probably will be. But just because there is a holdup in Cupertino doesn’t mean 3D printing enthusiasts haven’t already beaten Apple to the punch and produced their own pens independently–and way more affordably.

You can’t have anything but admiration for the making community. When they want something, well, they just make it themselves. And you can’t beat that — it’s old-fashioned values mixed with a super high-tech world. So when news of the Apple iPad Pro coming out in November with the accompanying pencil broke, needless to say everyone was a bit crestfallen in thinking they’d have to wait so long to buy. Simone Fontana wasted no time however, in designing a replica in 3D and releasing it to all for immediate download on MyMiniFactory.

Fontana is a 3D designer and web developer who now makes his home in London. Passionate about the art of digital design and the craft of 3D printing, and a maker whose designs we’ve delighted in covering before, he believes it is the future–and in the here and now, he’s the only one giving us access right now to grasping onto the look and feel of the Apple pen.

“After [I] saw yesterday the presentation of the ipad Pro and the Apple Pencil, I was curious to see and touch this new device Apple create[d] but it will release in November,” Fontana told 3DPrint.com. “I decide to look at some videos and photos and figure out the right size of the pencil, [then I started] to design it in Rhino 3D. Now everyone [who] is curious like me can print it in less than 90 minutes and understand what it looks like.”

 

While we haven’t actually 3D printed one out yet, it looks as if Fontana did a perfect job of recreating the Apple pencil in style and dimension.

He invited you to “be one of the first to test the Apple pencil” by downloading his file and having a stab at it yourself. This design is currently one of the featured designs at MyMiniFactory.  Have you downloaded and printed this model out?  Let us know in the 3D Printed Apple Pencil forum thread on 3DPB.com

The Apple Pencil