As you all know, the new TB 15' MBP has been graced with a trackpad nearly the size of an ipad mini. While this is certainly great for actual gestures, I'm concerned that this may pose a problem for palm rejection - it seems difficult to type without resting the palms at least somewhat on the trackpad. Could anyone elaborate on their experiences?
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New 15' MBP owners - how much of an issue is the palm rejection?
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Ive seen various opinions on this, I think it will come down to your typing style. Generally people haven't been having problems though.
It can be a pain with the 15" if you use touch to click as I do. Trackpad is so large there's no way around resting parts of your hands on it. For example, my pinkie is now on the pad while it never used to be so I have to lift 2 fingers up to do a 2 finger scroll when I used to only have to lift one. I think over time I'll learn to adapt and hold my hands in a different way, but on the whole I feel that the new track pad is actually an ergonomic step backwards from the 2015 model.
To add to that, the touch bar further adds to the ergonomic issue as you can't rest any of your fingers up there as you will accidentally press it. You'll also have to be far more accurate when pressing the number keys lest you press something up there.
On the whole, I'm using it very gingerly and it feels more comfortable when I switch back to using my 2009.
To add to that, the touch bar further adds to the ergonomic issue as you can't rest any of your fingers up there as you will accidentally press it. You'll also have to be far more accurate when pressing the number keys lest you press something up there.
On the whole, I'm using it very gingerly and it feels more comfortable when I switch back to using my 2009.
I'm typing on it now, and my palms rest on the trackpad. At worst sometimes the cursor moves but it doesn't affect typing. They explained at the Apple Store that the track pad is designed to ignore resting palms. While I can't imagine there won't be any issues, it has been a non issue for me thus far.
I've had no issues as far as I know. I had a little bit of a right-click thing going on but I don't think it had anything to do with my palm.
Palm rejection is flawless just like on all previous trackpads (regardless of settings, touch to click, enabled gestures etc). Trackpad's firmware is always able to recognize palm even if you try to mess with it on purpose. You can even use it with another hand while resting your palm on it.
I just reached forward putting both palms on the laptop to start typing and I scrolled down the page. Guess I'm using it wrong.....
I'm having some problems with it on day 1. My right palm is leaning on it at times and I'm having trouble with clicks. Guessing I'll get used to it. Ditto for the keyboard which is pretty noisy.
slightly OT but, is anyone glad for the larger trackpad? do you see an advantage to it? haven't encountered one yet myself, but when it was presented, I just didn't understand why it needed to get bigger. I have a 2012 13" Air and I've never thought the trackpad was too small. I liked it when way back they got rid of the buttons and made the surface a little bigger but I'm not sure about this.
I thought the old one was perfect and the larger one was a concern as I tested the new Pros at the store. I'm guessing that the larger one has a real purpose and just takes getting used to.
Makes it a little easier for me to do some gestures. Big hands.
I'm guessing they're going the bigger is better thing, and the asthetic proportion of it in relation to the rest of the interface. I wouldn't be surprised if they're also going for some lofty goal such as "one day the whole laptop face will be one unified interactive surface" or such and that both touch bar and trackpad size will infinitely increase.
Mostly I feel their aiming at giving people more space to click and swipe however they like. I can say that in my case this is trumped by the combination of having a reduced dead surface to rest your hands, and palm / wrist rejection that is currently not up the task.
And with using laptops on everything from work desks to couches to walking around, there are a lot of ways to touch the device and many of them should not result in a high ratio of unintended commands. The trackpad from Apple has been the best trackpad for over a decade, But now theyre making it harder to use.
I hope they're doing lots of work with touch rejection at the moment, perhaps because of the rumored bezeless iphone8, and that some of that tech and know how makes it into the MBP via firmware update.
Or perhaps they could give us system preferences options to tweak its response, say reduce the active area.
For typing, the size of the trackpad has not been a problem for me, since I do not rest my palms in that area.
Where it has affected me a little is when I am simply reading something on the screen and only my dominant hand (my right) is on the computer, i.e. to scroll through a document of webpage. In those cases I have accidentally touch the lower-left corner of the touchpad with my palm while trying to perform a basic gesture on it with my finger or fingers.
Where it has affected me a little is when I am simply reading something on the screen and only my dominant hand (my right) is on the computer, i.e. to scroll through a document of webpage. In those cases I have accidentally touch the lower-left corner of the touchpad with my palm while trying to perform a basic gesture on it with my finger or fingers.
I guess the palm rejection is so aggressive now that they have nerfed 3 finger drag. It no longer works after you've been typing for any length of time, and it takes a minute to come back. Really annoying.
I also wish the left click / right click with a bit more centered....the way it is now, left click is 95% of the trackpad, to right click you need to click on the bottom right corner only. Wasn't an issue on the old macbook with the smaller trackpad. Will probably get easier as my muscle memory develops, but it's still a lot of hand travel when you're doing something hundreds of times a day.
I'm sure all of this will get ironed out in software updates...
I'm sure all of this will get ironed out in software updates...
3 finger drag has some weird glitch....on mine it will reliably always work if you start it from the lower right area of the trackpad. If you start it in the middle or left side it won't do anything. After getting it going from the right side it starts to work over the whole trackpad but still sometimes won't on the right. But I don't have any other fingers or hand on the trackpad so I'm not sure what causes the issue.
I've found that if I actually make my 3 fingers horizontal in line then it works everywhere from the start. But I usually do the gesture with the 3 fingers at a 45deg angle and that is where it has issues.
I've found that if I actually make my 3 fingers horizontal in line then it works everywhere from the start. But I usually do the gesture with the 3 fingers at a 45deg angle and that is where it has issues.