iPad Pro Shows Off Apple Pencil Pro Digital Shadow Design
1 Facebook Reddit
In a rare interview, key Apple designers reveal why they gave the new Apple Pencil such a digital shadow and how this is part of their overall goal for the iPad Pro
When Apple released the newest iPad Pro with the M4 processor, it also introduced the new and well-received Apple Pencil Pro. What it didn't do was point out a design feature that users were excited about. When an iPad Pro user writes by hand on the device, the Apple Pencil Pro appears to cast a fountain pen-like shadow. Or, if the user is painting, a brush shadow.
Apple only did this because of its obsessive attention to detail. But now Apple's Steve LeMay, who oversees human-machine interaction, says it wasn't just done because it looked good.
“Before, we had to rely on your own memory [of which tool you chose,” Lemay told French technology site Numerama (translated). “We've come up with a digital shadow that will make you feel like you're holding a real pencil. This will convince you that it is a piece of paper.”
Lemay also said that simply adding haptic feedback to the new Pencil “was one of the biggest challenges.” Apple Design Studio had to “rethink the entire [Apple Pencil] architecture.”
Making the iPad Pro thinner was also difficult, the designers said, but one of them, Molly Anderson, called it the number one priority for the device.
“Portableness is at the heart of the iPad,” Anderson said. “In 2010, our goal with the first iPad was to create a piece of magic glass, a piece of digital paper, [and we've] never been closer to that original idea.”
Anderson also says that getting to this shape required going through many different projects — and we do it in collaboration. “Our habit is to meet people in the studio,” she said, “to put models on the table, sketches on the walls.”
The result is what AppleInsider calls luxury technology in an incredibly thin package. package. The 2024 iPad Pro M4 is on sale now, and reputable Apple resellers are discounting every model in our 11-inch iPad Pro M4 Price Tracker and 13-inch iPad Pro M4 Price Tracker.
Follow AppleInsider on Google News.
