While relevant, to be fair he meant as the primary method of interacting with and navigating a handheld device, as in needing a stylus to scroll through your email, make calls, etc. This 'pencil' is simply for painting and drawing on a tablet, arguably a different scenario.

I Agree. I just could not resist posting this quote. :)

Actually Pencil looks nice and I always wondered why Apple did not release such a device itself.

Refer to the quote that you posted earlier.

Probably that was the reason why Apple did not have the courage to do so, but it is obvious that it creates additional value for some people. Especially designers and illustrators, I think.

Also relevant to any student that does math and has to write equations (every person in the 1st world.)

Also relevant to every student who needs to read a book and highlight passages and annotate (every person in the 1st world).

Also relevant to every person who wishes to draw a diagram to communicate their idea (every person in the world).

I don't think it's a lack of courage preventing them. I imagine that they genuinely believe in the statement.

I would say that quote is not relevant at all.

I think he also said he'd rather die than launch a 7-inch tablet.

As long as we're reminiscing, I don't remember Apple ever actually launching a 7-inch tablet have they?

8" 4:3 screen = 34% more real estate than 7" 16:9 screen.

He didn't seem to have a vision for tablets replacing pen/paper notebooks. The tech is here and prices are getting low (e.g. dell venue pro 8 with a stylus for ~$400); soon mainstream consumers will go fully digital and trash physical notebooks. Apple still can capture this opportunity, but they need to get past this idea that stylus==bad.

I'd guess the first company to get a 10" tablet with a good notebook application and stylus for under $300 will be the big winner in the classroom for the long run.