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iapplelove

Suspended
Nov 22, 2011
5,324
7,638
East Coast USA
I was planning on getting one until several minutes later when they revealed 3D Touch for the iPhone 6s. Once you've used 3D Touch, it's hard to go back to not having it. Releasing a brand new flagship product without the latest tech is a big mistake.

Funny you post this, it's my thoughts exactly. It would be nice to have it for a year before the next one comes out however we all know the next pro will have just about every apple gimmick feature under the sun
 

newdeal

macrumors 68030
Oct 21, 2009
2,510
1,769
NO. everyone... EVERYONE.. has said it has near zero latency. calm down.


The video seems to show that the latency is much higher with the pencil than it is when he uses his finger. Maybe that qualifies as near zero to some people but its pretty clearly visible
 
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baryon

macrumors 68040
Oct 3, 2009
3,878
2,929
So you charge the pencil via Lightning? How the hell does that work - you have to charge it from your iPad?? But then you can't really use the iPad while it's charging the pencil because it sticks out at the bottom, but also you can't charge the iPad while it's charging the pencil because you've clogged up its only port... Why not just have a female lightning port in the pencil, instead of male, so that it can charge from any iPhone charger without having to stick out from your iPad?? That way you can charge the pencil and the iPad separately at the same time, and you can still keep using your iPad while the pencil is charging.

I can see people working with the pencil, then when it runs out of battery, setting it aside to charge and continuing the use the iPad. Or at night, wanting to charge both the iPad and the pencil at the same time. None of this seems possible! Or do you have to get up in the middle of the night when your iPad is charged, unplug it, plug in the pencil, go to sleep again, then wake up again when the pencil is charged and re-plug the iPad to charge it again as it lost charge to the pencil...?

Did they not think this through or am I missing something here? Or does the pencil charge so fast it's not an issue? (15 sec charge = 30 min of use but how long do you have to charge it to get the full 12h of use? And when are you supposed to charge it (obviously not at night when you charge your iPad)?
 
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mw360

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2010
2,032
2,395
So you charge the pencil via Lightning? How the hell does that work - you have to charge it from your iPad?? But then you can't really use the iPad while it's charging the pencil because it sticks out at the bottom, but also you can't charge the iPad while it's charging the pencil because you've clogged up its only port... Why not just have a female lightning port in the pencil, instead of male, so that it can charge from any iPhone charger without having to stick out from your iPad?? That way you can charge the pencil and the iPad separately at the same time, and you can still keep using your iPad while the pencil is charging.

I can see people working with the pencil, then when it runs out of battery, setting it aside to charge and continuing the use the iPad. Or at night, wanting to charge both the iPad and the pencil at the same time. None of this seems possible! Or do you have to get up in the middle of the night when your iPad is charged, unplug it, plug in the pencil, go to sleep again, then wake up again when the pencil is charged and re-plug the iPad to charge it again as it lost charge to the pencil...?

Did they not think this through or am I missing something here?

It's terrible design. Unbelievable that it could come from the same designers as MagSafe. On the other hand it looks like a 12 hour charge would take only 6 minutes.
 

MrX8503

macrumors 68020
Sep 19, 2010
2,292
1,614
this is why--this is WHY--they gave the iPads to disney and had them draw and periscope it. exactly. why make a comment about this when the very article and linked video is the answer to your whining??
Because I don't want to use periscope!! Give me a web video.

NO. everyone... EVERYONE.. has said it has near zero latency. calm down.

Saying and showing are two entirely different things.

No. The refresh rate has nothing to do with lag. The video you posted is only at 30hz and it looks pretty close to perfect. Even at 5 frames a second, it would just look like the box under his finger is flashing, but always perfectly under his finger.

What? It has everything to do with it. It's called input lag.
Though screen refresh rate plays a role, I think that the surface point detection eliminates the gap. As the screen can detect where the pencil precisely is and skip to that point. I imagine the iPad pro has the processing power to do that.

That's interesting if that works. Hopefully someone does an in depth review of this. This would be something that sets the iPad Pro apart from all other competitors.
 
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bbeagle

macrumors 68040
Oct 19, 2010
3,541
2,981
Buffalo, NY
Look at the last five seconds of the video in the article when he draws the tail of the pig. There you have your answer.

Be afraid.

Great job at fear mongering.

If you paid attention to the videos, the latency in the 2nd five minutes has to do with the beta software they're using, nothing to do with the hardware. The first piece of software works without a lag, the 2nd piece of software (53 pencils, I think it was called?), has a lag in pretty much anything he does. And the person behind the scenes talks about how this is all beta software. (The first piece of software actually crashes while drawing)

But, good job at taking this all out of context.
 
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urkel

macrumors 68030
Nov 3, 2008
2,795
917
I was planning on getting one until several minutes later when they revealed 3D Touch for the iPhone 6s. Once you've used 3D Touch, it's hard to go back to not having it. Releasing a brand new flagship product without the latest tech is a big mistake.
3D Touch is Apples only big UI advancement since iPad 1.0. So, while its easy to debate "why" its missing, the fact still remains that a major interaction element was omitted.

The defenders will claim that "No product is ever complete since next year will introduce something new", and that certainly holds true for iPhones. But when it comes to iPads (and especially iPads tipping the $1000 mark) then you have to think of a 3-4yr stretch rather than an annual upgrade.
 

RickInHouston

macrumors 65816
May 14, 2014
1,457
2,210
They all have a look on their faces, "I wonder how this compares to the Surface Pro with a full OS"?

They just don't look into it.
 

Kroo

Suspended
Jul 17, 2015
222
307
A bit off topic, but the video of the guy testing the iPad Pro is again a perfect example why vertical video should be forbidden and punished. We constantly see half of the iPad cropped, but instead a huge part of the useless table surface.

These videos make me :mad:...


So annoying........

Say NO to vertical videos.


 
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mw360

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2010
2,032
2,395
Look at the last five seconds of the video in the article when he draws the tail of the pig. There you have your answer.

Be afraid.

Don't jump to conclusions. Watch the video again. Theres no obvious latency until he switches apps.

Great job at fear mongering.

If you paid attention to the videos, the latency in the 2nd five minutes has to do with the beta software they're using, nothing to do with the hardware. The first piece of software works without a lag, the 2nd piece of software (53 pencils, I think it was called?), has a lag in pretty much anything he does. And the person behind the scenes talks about how this is all beta software. (The first piece of software actually crashes while drawing)

But, good job at taking this all out of context.

I thought the latency was immediately noticeable as he switched to the pen tool in Paper. That same latency is visible using Paper & finger right now on an iPad Air 2. Even if the Pencil has a zero latency, each app still needs to be coded well enough to keep pace with the hardware.
 
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Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,147
31,204
how was that not a big mistake?
By calling it a mistake you're assuming Apple intentionally left it out. What if if Apple wanted to esentially proof of concept it on the iPhone first? What if there were supply constraints with the Touch ID sensors and Apple needed every one they could make for iPhones? Perhaps this year it's the same with Taptic Engine or the display technology being used. Or maybe marketing decided 3D Touch should be iPhone exclusive for one year. Nobody knows.
 

macnewbie91

macrumors 6502
Jul 24, 2015
322
193
I love the iPhone, but the iPads are terrible quality. The iPad's feel so cheap. The screen seems like flimsy plastic, and the back (even though it's the same as the iPhone) feels like tin, mostly because of the size of the device. On top of it, other than the recently introduced multitasking, the operating system is basically a blown up iPhone OS.

The tablet needs to be thrown back to the drawing board and re-designed, both with the hardware and the software.
 
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EvilT

macrumors newbie
Oct 7, 2015
1
1
I currently work with a 2015 MBP 13", an iPad Air2 (bought last year) and now an iPhone 6s...
I admit when Apple announced the iPad Pro I was like 'nah.. Don't need this', and I still think so.
BUT: I think we see some preety cool future coming up the horizon.
Just imagine some of the features/ technologies evolve and get merged.
The taptic engine, and 3D touch as extension along with the pressure sensivity could just get refined (like more pressure sensibility, and finer steps of physical feedback) to for example simulate drawing on paper rather on glass via 'micro'vibrations while moving a future Apple Pen, and hence create an even deeper 'relation' for someone working with this tool. I see the iPad Pro really in the space of content creation, not consuming like my Air tbh... So my bet is that within the next 2 iterations of the iPad Pro we will see something like this, bringing creative's interaction with a 'paintable screen' to a sole different level.
I have seen people working with the Wacom display tablets and they were cool... Like 3 years ago... They looked like finger painting on an iPad 1 tbh, with crazy lag and and a noticable distance between pen tip & drawing point.
The Pro is not a product for me, but it might end up to become Apple's 'S-Class' for technology in the long run, so not necessarily the iPhone will stay the product which get's everything first... We'll see, looking forward to it :)
 
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Rogifan

macrumors Penryn
Nov 14, 2011
24,147
31,204
I love the iPhone, but the iPads are terrible quality. The iPad's feel so cheap. The screen seems like flimsy plastic, and the back (even though it's the same as the iPhone) feels like tin, mostly because of the size of the device. On top of it, other than the recently introduced multitasking, the operating system is basically a blown up iPhone OS.

The tablet needs to be thrown back to the drawing board and re-designed, both with the hardware and the software.
What iPad are you using? The Air 2 screen is much better because the air gap is gone. IMO the iPad 3, Air 1 and mini 3 shouldn't have been released. The A5X chip wasn't powerful enough for the Retina display, the Air 1 had the screen gap which made it feel plasticky, no Touch ID and only 1GB RAM and the mini 3 was just a mini 2 with Touch ID. Hopefully Apple is on a path now where they announce new iPads when they're ready rather than on a set yearly schedule.
 

thekeyring

macrumors 68040
Jan 5, 2012
3,485
2,147
London
I think the iPad seems deceptively simple. It's clearly a capable tablet, but people see the static icons on the home screen - now stretched out across a 12.9" screen - and assume it's not a very advanced OS.

Also, didn't Steve Jobs once say 9.7" was the smallest screen you could have for a tablet? He seemed to leave open the possibility for a bigger tablet.

Last thought: Most people say iOS needs more iPad-only features. I hope this is starting to happen. In one update, Apple added split-screen multitasking, picture-in-picture and introduced a larger iPad with a Wacom-esk stylus. If they have more in store along those lines for next year, that'll be great.
 
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martygras9

macrumors 6502
Aug 13, 2007
264
73
So you charge the pencil via Lightning? How the hell does that work - you have to charge it from your iPad?? But then you can't really use the iPad while it's charging the pencil because it sticks out at the bottom, but also you can't charge the iPad while it's charging the pencil because you've clogged up its only port... Why not just have a female lightning port in the pencil, instead of male, so that it can charge from any iPhone charger without having to stick out from your iPad?? That way you can charge the pencil and the iPad separately at the same time, and you can still keep using your iPad while the pencil is charging.

I can see people working with the pencil, then when it runs out of battery, setting it aside to charge and continuing the use the iPad. Or at night, wanting to charge both the iPad and the pencil at the same time. None of this seems possible! Or do you have to get up in the middle of the night when your iPad is charged, unplug it, plug in the pencil, go to sleep again, then wake up again when the pencil is charged and re-plug the iPad to charge it again as it lost charge to the pencil...?

Did they not think this through or am I missing something here? Or does the pencil charge so fast it's not an issue? (15 sec charge = 30 min of use but how long do you have to charge it to get the full 12h of use? And when are you supposed to charge it (obviously not at night when you charge your iPad)?
It's not a perfect solution by any means, but one could always plug the pencil into another iOS device.
 

TechZeke

macrumors 68020
Jul 29, 2012
2,454
2,287
Dallas, TX
+1....
To be fair though, Disney has actually had some pretty good movies and TV shows with female leads being written well, (Incredibles, Brave, Kim Possible, Recess, Gravity Falls, numerous others.) Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon have had a few good female-lead/co-lead shows. (Korra, Avatar, The Wild Thornberry's, Powerpuff Girls, Teen Titans, Clone Wars, Young Justice, Justice League, Juniper Lee.) Obviously much more room for improvement, but I am liking the more equality happening in film, animation, and tv in the past decade.

Kal.
Personally, I don't get why so much attention is placed on portrayals in the media. Women can come complain to me when there is a male black engineer/geek that doesn't have a muscular 6-pack as the main lead character.
 

Atomic Walrus

macrumors 6502a
Sep 24, 2012
878
434
Tech journos suck at stylus impressions. Even after today's MS announcement, all the major press hands-ons just have the author scribbling randomly on the screen.

"OK, guess it works!" is about the extent of their commentary, it seems. Frustrating to say the least. I wanted to know if pen jitter has been resolved, is it that hard to plan a brief test of such a thing???

Tech journalists rarely know enough about what they're looking at to say anything meaningful, especially about something like a stylus. At best they'll write the name of their site in huge balloon letters, say "it seemed to work fine, but I don't know if I'd use it," and move on. I suppose if you were capable of being an engineer you probably wouldn't be a tech journalist in the first place.

The one thing I hear them parroting when talking about pen input is the number of pressure sensitivity levels. Not only is this one of the less important stats about a stylus (latency, accuracy, linearity, minimum activation pressure, these are all more important than pressure resolution), it's also marketing nonsense.

There's a reason this stat is always a power of 2: It doesn't refer to anything except the number of bits used to handle the pressure data. It tells you nothing about the precision of the sensor itself. Any sensor will have a min/max range and a "resolution," the minimum difference in force it can detect. The trick is that while a given sensor may only realistically have 300 levels of pressure sensitivity, you can use an 11 bit integer (0-2047) to represent it and say "our system supports up to 2048 levels of pressure." The PEN SENSOR may not, bit the "system" does. Wacom does it this way so I expect the rest of the industry to stick with it.

So my point is that you basically can't trust the tech sites to tell you anything meaningful about a pen digitizer. Have to wait for real artists to buy the thing and assess it. Even then it can be hard to pick out the signal from noise (guys I drew a stick figure it works great I don't know what you're complaining about).

It seems like there is quite a bit of input latency with the Pencil. Is it really that great to use this for professional drawings?

Lag is really hard to assess on these videos because there are 3 primary sources which you can't separate unless the device has an OS-level cursor visible (like most systems running Wacom hardware).

-Core tracking latency. Includes hardware communication latency, any interpolation done at the hardware/driver level before the input is handed off to software. We'll also put the system's overall input lag (display lag, etc.) in here because you can't change it with software.

-Software performance lag: Brush engines are heavier CPU hitters than you might believe, and in cases where the brush engine is bottlenecked by the CPU (generally single core) you'll experience extra lag.

-Software interpolation lag: Some brush engines are laggy by design (example: Artrage). They may need to buffer some number of input events in order to achieve a certain effect, like simulating materials.

So since all three of these potentially contribute to lag and the Pencil doesn't implement an OS-level cursor there's no way to tell what you're seeing. Is the Pencil laggy, or is the brush engine from the app not optimized well? Maybe only some brushes are laggy because they use more interpolation? Are other drawing apps more responsive? Impossible to know without actually testing it in more detail.
 
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