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Pixar development team tests iPad Pro & Apple Pencil, says palm-rejection is perfect

Michael B. Johnson, who heads the Pixar team that develops the tools used to create its animated movies, tweeted that his team had been given the chance to test the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil – and described palm-rejection as perfect.

Lovely of our friends from Apple to stop by to let us take iPad Pro & Pencil for a test drive […]

It has perfect palm rejection as far as we were able to see … 

When the launch presentation failed to show a hand resting on the iPad screen, some had wondered about the ability of the device to handle palm-rejection – ignore the touches the screen would detect simply from the palm, heel or side of the hand resting on it while drawing. From the comment made by Johnson in response to a question, it appears there is nothing to worry about.

Johnson’s team focuses on developing tools used in the early stages of movie development, and says their job is to “understand the best way to jumpstart the process of quickly building the prototypes of our films,” suggesting that the iPad Pro and Apple Pencil might see a role in developing early sketches of future animations.

Apple finally announced the long-awaited giant iPad earlier this month, with pricing ranging from $799 to $1079 when it goes on sale sometime in November.

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Comments

  1. Alex Moran - 9 years ago

    That’s all I needed to hear. So I’m in South Africa who’s going to send me one ?

    • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

      Apple, once you get on their website and order/pay for one, just like everyone else, buddy. :-) Living in South Africa doesn’t automatically grant you free computer equipment. Good try though.

      • Balcis (@balcis) - 9 years ago

        unless he doesn’t get to a school with an amateur-ly made clock.

      • Michael Perry (@Alticus) - 9 years ago

        I believe his comment was more a long the lines of “Usually Apple products aren’t available in South Africa, not in a store or to ship to from ordering online. So who would like to ship me one that I can buy from them?”.

  2. Iven Tenz (@ivenalot) - 9 years ago

    How many Apple Watches can you spot in this picture.

    • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

      Not all of them have a watch, nor is the photo taken where we can actually see if they have a watch and if so, which one.

    • ishan24 - 9 years ago

      There is one with the person who is wearing white shirt, specs and having cup in his hand. Am I right??

  3. rogifan - 9 years ago

    Watch the video on the Pencil. That showed resting palms on the screen.

  4. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 9 years ago

    Well, I think it’s a safe bet that Disney is going to buy a boat load of these. :-)

  5. tush4r - 9 years ago

    Awesome!

  6. Jake Becker - 9 years ago

    But I thought Apple abandoned the pro market.

    • mikhailt - 9 years ago

      There’s nothing that makes this device a Pro model, there’s no fast speed external capacity to let creative works with their TB/PB-worth of assets. There’s no way you can do a lot with only 32-128GB of internal storage. iCloud is not the solution for this either.

      If they added TB3 port to iPad Pro, then and only then, we can talk about this being for Pro a bit.

      • Paul Andrew Dixon - 9 years ago

        I had a similar thought to you when i heard about it… in fact i said to my friend that they should have called it “ipad plus” because essentially thats all it is…

        an ipad pro would run both ios and osX… it would also have more expandability than a regular ipad, such as more storage and at least usb C…

        It is currently just a large ipad with slightly better performance and a pencil, which they could have included on all other models.

        as for TB3 – why?… just use USB-C…it could be used for charging, for storage, data transfer, connecting to screens etc

      • mikhailt - 9 years ago

        TB3 already adopted USB-C as its controller standard, so TB3==USB-C + TB3 data transport protocol. In other words, by using TB3, you also gain access to the super fast 40Gbps speed in addition to the USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps).
        Transferring high quality 4k media will be better on TB3 than USB 3.1 Gen 2. In addition, since iPhone 6S is confirmed to use a SSD-type controller for its higher quality NANDs and can read/write at 200Mbps+ seq, I suspect iPad Pro has a much better version since iPad Pro is the only one with the controller being marketed on its feature page, not the iPhone 6S.

      • Martin McCully - 9 years ago

        Take a look at the astropad app – makes it much more usable in a studio environment.

  7. cdm283813 - 9 years ago

    Still too much for what you can get on a Windows 10 two in one and that’s coming from an iPad Air 2 owner. I see this more for “special markets” than the average Apple consumer.
    Apple really should have brought the pen and case to the iPad 9.7″ models and add 3Dtouch. That would have made me upgrade my Air 2. And with 3dtouch being the obvious feature that will be added to future iPad’s why should I jump at this tablet?

    • 1sugomac - 9 years ago

      Sorry bro. This isn’t about you.
      If you don’t like it, wait for the iPad Pro mini.

    • Windows 10 and Surface Pro are a poor laptop and a poor tablet and not even close to iPad Pro and pencil.
      Having an iPad Air doesn’t entitle you to not know what you are talking about.

      • srgmac - 9 years ago

        The surface pro is probably Microsoft’s only decent hardware product that they have made themselves (besides the Xbox stuff).
        If you’re going to have a “professional” grade tablet, it needs some kind of external storage — SD card preferably.

      • Windows 10 is an awesome OS whether you like it or not – check out the reviews. The Surface Pro has had incredible reviews, whether you like it or not. Yet you maintain that the iPad Pro, which you have NEVER used or probably even seen, is better.

        The iPad Pro and Surface Pro cannot be compared. They are completely different, have different uses, different operating systems and different users. They both have great points and not so great points – get used to it.

  8. Terry Ambrose - 9 years ago

    I’d love to hear from a lefty. I don’t see anyone drawing left handed in the picture above.

  9. uniszuurmond - 9 years ago

    Alex, I’m also in SA and was also waiting to hear just this. Great minds! And yes, I also need one.

  10. Ali Hamodi - 9 years ago

    Just like the ipad is in decline in sales because the fans are happy with their old ipad device. Same will happen with the ipad pro but at a faster pace because business market is not a bunch of fans.

    • furutan - 9 years ago

      I’m in the marketing department of a major window shutter manufacturer. All of our sales guys and half our IT guys have iPads and they use them at work every day. Around half of our dealers use iPads for designing shutters in the home (with live updating previews – consumers love this). The other half use laptops. The iPad in a grippy case makes better sense than a laptop in such situations.
      As for myself, I demo websites at weekly meetings on one and on a daily basis I use Hype for HTML5 animation with the Hype iPad app running so that I can view my work live on the iPad as I create it. I don’t even have to hit a preview button.
      As a consumer, however, I don’t have that much use for an iPad. The very first time I saw one, my first impression was that it was too small. I’ve been waiting for the larger size for five years. The larger size makes great sense for one-on-one presentations to consumers. I stick with a laptop in iPadesque situations. Having to hold the iPad around the house (easy chair, reading / viewing videos in bed, etc.) is tiring.

  11. You have 10 guys from pixar using the pencil and iPad pro and the only feedback is that the palm rejection works?????? WTF!

  12. Paul Andrew Dixon - 9 years ago

    What’s wrong with pencil and paper…lol…

Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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