Inkwell, or simply Ink, is the name of the

handwriting recognition Handwriting recognition (HWR), also known as handwritten text recognition (HTR), is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwriting, handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens ...

technology developed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Comput ...

and built into the

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

operating system. Introduced in an update to Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar", Inkwell can translate

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

, and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

writing. The technology made its debut as "

Rosetta Rosetta ( ) or Rashid (, ; ) is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Rosetta Stone was discovered there in 1799. Founded around the 9th century on the site of the ancient town of Bolbitine, R ...

", an integral feature of Apple Newton OS, the operating system of the short-lived

Apple Newton The Newton is a specified standard and series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc. from 1993 to 1998. An early device in the PDA categorythe term itself originating with the Newtonit w ...

personal digital assistant. Inkwell's inclusion in Mac OS X led many to believe Apple would be using this technology in a new PDA or other portable

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being computers ...

. None of the touchscreen iOS devices – iPhone/iPod/iPad – has offered Inkwell handwriting recognition. However, in

iPadOS iPadOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple for its iPad line of tablet computers. It was given a name distinct from iOS, the operating system used by Apple's iPhones to reflect the diverging features of the two product lines, suc ...

14 handwriting recognition has been introduced, as a feature called Scribble. Inkwell, when activated, appears as semi-transparent yellow lined paper, on which the user sees their writing appear. When the user stops writing, their writing is interpreted by Inkwell and pasted into the current application (wherever the active text cursor is), as if the user had simply typed the words. The user can also force Inkwell to not interpret their writing, instead using it to paste a hand-drawn sketch into the

active window A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunctio ...

. Inkwell was developed by

Larry Yaeger Larry Steven Yaeger (born 1950) is a former Apple Distinguished Scientist and Full Professor of Informatics at Indiana University Bloomington, currently employed at Google. Outside of academia he is best known for designing the handwriting recogni ...

, Brandyn Webb, and Richard Lyon. In macOS 10.14 Mojave, Apple announced that Inkwell will remain 32-bit thus rendering it incompatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina. It was officially discontinued with the release of macOS Catalina on October 7, 2019.

References

External links

InkSpatter
a blog which discusses pros and cons of Inkwell MacOS user interface Handwriting recognition {{mac-stub