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Centris 650

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Dec 26, 2002
576
308
Near Charleston, SC
While I've been an Apple fan boy since '88 I have been sorely tempted by the surface pro 2 to produce my side art projects. (Microsoft really messed up the SP3 from some reviews I've read. Some artists returning their SP3 and going back to the 2) I'm looking for portability and I would like to stay in the Apple ecosystem so, to my knowledge, I'm out of luck. That is until (I HOPE) the iPad Pro debuts. I do have some concerns about Force touch and if it can really give a smooth varied line stroke. From what I understand Force Touch is different than the digitized screen in devices like the Cintiq. I've delayed any purchase of any kind of portable to draw on until the iPad pro is released or the New Year.

If you're an artist, are you interested in this mythical iPad Pro? What are your concerns or hopes for the device?

Techie type people-what are your thoughts on force touch and what can we expect to see as line variation, drawing smoothness, etc?
 

Liffey

macrumors regular
Feb 2, 2010
178
38
I work in concept art. What I need is full Photoshop with Cintiq caliber stylus. If it offers that I will make iPad Pro my first tablet. Otherwise I will probably get Surface Pro 4 when it comes, though I would much rather keep my devices Apple for continuity sake.
 
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Nausicaa

macrumors 6502a
Jan 11, 2007
607
283
It's something I want badly, and a portable workstation is something I've avoided buying for a while now because nothing has really gotten everything right in comparison to the iPad. The iPad's principle strength IMO is the hardware design. The iPad form factor is ideal from size, aspect ratio, weight to build quality, and extends to the internals which by their nature require no fan and run silent with long battery life. It's able to take quite a bit of travel abuse and is a comfortable size.

This is mostly why I've been hoping for an Apple stylus solution. I love the Surface in theory, and have used all the models extensively, even having bought and returned one. Yet the device has never really felt ready for prime time, and each model has been plagued with issues from software to hardware. I will say in terms of form factor the new Surface 3 is almost there, and hopefully a Surface 4 with some more powerful internals and Windows 10 would finally get it right. I also am optimistic that MS bought n-trig, so stylus support can be improved (no squigly lines, better accuracy, etc.)

The problem is even with all that, it's still not better than a Cintiq. I have a 13HD and the quality and feel of the pen is unmatched by anything else I've used. The Cintiq Companions are nice, but suffer from many of the hardware problems the Surface does. Too big and heavy, loud fans and runs hot, poor battery life. Although mercifully, no overengineered kickstand.

So yeah, I feel Apple is well primed because the hardware is unmatched. If I'm being honest I even love the lightweight OS. The art software available for iPad is already very good, and all I really want for portable use, where the complexity of full PS just isn't needed IMO. Unfortunately the capacitive screen just really limits the performance of 3rd party styluses. It's workable but FAR from ideal, and official stylus support that actually works well would be an outstanding addition to the product - and not just for art. It seems tragic there are so many nice notetaking apps out there which are actually quite popular but perform like total ass, if we're being honest. Not even close to replacing a notepad.

Of course my dream device has always been a true digital sketchpad that eschews the bloat of everything else in this category. Just something like iPad form factor, with nothing but a suite of apps or single drawing program that is the core of the whole device. Maybe a web browser too :). I'm still sad we'll never get to see the MS Courier, because that product came closest.
 
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Badrottie

Suspended
May 8, 2011
4,317
336
Los Angeles
Im a touch up artist and I am not sure about iPad Pro because there are many cheap 3rd party apps that is no match for Photoshop for Mac/PC.
 

mw360

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2010
2,066
2,476
It concerns me that Apple screwed Wacom with the iPad Air 2. They changed the screen digitiser (probably to something lower quality) which left Wacom scrambling to get their styluses to work properly. AFAIK they still haven't succeeded. Similarly Apple screwed Wacom with Mavericks and upwards, denying the Wacom driver enough CPU priority to work as well as it once did. These things wouldn't have happened if Apple cared about artists anymore.

I also don't think Force Touch is coming to any iPad this year. iPhone often gets the new goodies a year before iPad gets them (eg TouchID)
 

ackmondual

macrumors 68020
Dec 23, 2014
2,446
1,151
U.S.A., Earth
It concerns me that Apple screwed Wacom with the iPad Air 2. They changed the screen digitiser (probably to something lower quality) which left Wacom scrambling to get their styluses to work properly. AFAIK they still haven't succeeded. Similarly Apple screwed Wacom with Mavericks and upwards, denying the Wacom driver enough CPU priority to work as well as it once did. These things wouldn't have happened if Apple cared about artists anymore.

I also don't think Force Touch is coming to any iPad this year. iPhone often gets the new goodies a year before iPad gets them (eg TouchID)
Was the Ipad Air 2 actually slated to get pen stylus input, or was that just wishful thinking? AFAIK, they were always dead set on NOT having a stylus for any of the iDevices.
 

Commy1

macrumors 6502a
Feb 25, 2013
731
77
Canada
I would love the ability to have a tablet with decent drawing capability, but being a jewellery and metal artist it wouldn't really be a huge feature. What I'd like most is NFC so I could take payments on the fly, a fast fast processor and more ram so that when Adobe inevitably reveals an upgrade from CC I can run it easily for years. I really hope that September is the reveal...
 

Night Spring

macrumors G5
Jul 17, 2008
14,848
8,031
Force touch on the Apple watch just tells the difference between two levels of touch -- regular, and force. It acts like a second mouse button. I don't think it will help at all with drawing.
 

s2mikey

Suspended
Sep 23, 2013
2,490
4,255
Upstate, NY
I'm curious how it will feel in hand and how easy or hard it will be to carry around all day. My current Air is sooooooo incredibly portable that it'll be hard getting used to anything larger or heavier. Of course, more power and features costs weight. I get that.

Hmmm.....
 
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