My friend got the 16" MacBook Pro this week, he says the trackpad has 120Hz touch sensing just like the newer iPhones. Is this true? It felt super smooth and responsive but I have no way of knowing if that means it's using 120Hz touch sample rate. Anyone have any info on this? I know the display is still only 60Hz but this would still be nice, which is why they do it on the newer iPhones
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the 16" Pro trackpad has 120Hz touch sensing rate?
- Thread starter bryanrs
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That's what I said but he said the iPhone X has a 120Hz touch sample rate and Apple never advertised it for some reason, and as far as I can tell that's true.
Junkw here is more info. The improvements will be subtle but worthy. Let's hope for a 120Hz refresh rate in the next Pro https://wccftech.com/iphone-xs-120hz-touch-sample-rate-explained/
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Sorry for double posting but here is official info from Apple, scroll down to
Table 2-4 Touch Input
https://developer.apple.com/library...iOSDeviceCompatibility/Displays/Displays.html
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If Apple had that but didn't advertise it, i'd believe it. It'd definitely explain why Apples trackpads have largely always been considered the best if they had a higher touch sensing rate than their competition (exactly how much higher it is isn't really important for this speculation). It's the kind of feature that is objectively good to have for anything touch related but there's no way to really demonstrate it visually without having someone just try it and a touchpad with a lower touch sensitivity side by side. It's just not a "marketable" feature. They already kind of have that problem with advertising a screens refresh rate. You can't actually show it. All they are marketing is the higher number (60hz vs 90hz vs 120hz and so on) and saying "everything looks smoother/more fluid!". There's even less to work with when marketing the track pads sensing rate (whatever it may be).
This is common. The windows "precision" trackpads also have a 120hz polling rate. (mines at 135hz apparently) It makes the trackpad more accurate when clicking small buttons, especially when moving your finger/fingers fast. Nothing to write home about lol
The higher the sample rate, the more responsive the trackpad. Since frequency is the inverse of time (cycles per second) and speed is measured in distance per unit time, the higher the sampling frequency, the shorter the distance that can be measured. Likewise, acceleration is distance per unit time per unit time, and once again the ability to measure acceleration is also a function of sampling frequency.
Here is a thought experiment:
Imagine that the trackpad was sampled once per year. You could dance and sing and run your finger all over the trackpad for a full year, and nothing will happen, until exactly one year was up, and then, the location of your finger on the trackpad would be recorded.
Imagine that your trackpad was sampled once every 60 seconds (.167 Hz). You could move your finger all over the trackpad for 59 seconds, and none of your finger movements would cause your mouse pointer to change location.
Now... imagine a 1Hz rate. Your finger movements are captured once every second. A quick movement of your finger across the trackpad would not be captured.
I think you get the picture by now. Higher sampling rates result in greater sensitivity to motion, and an increased ability to measure acceleration. Sampling rate matters because the higher the sampling rate, the more natural the mouse movement.
Joe
Here is a thought experiment:
Imagine that the trackpad was sampled once per year. You could dance and sing and run your finger all over the trackpad for a full year, and nothing will happen, until exactly one year was up, and then, the location of your finger on the trackpad would be recorded.
Imagine that your trackpad was sampled once every 60 seconds (.167 Hz). You could move your finger all over the trackpad for 59 seconds, and none of your finger movements would cause your mouse pointer to change location.
Now... imagine a 1Hz rate. Your finger movements are captured once every second. A quick movement of your finger across the trackpad would not be captured.
I think you get the picture by now. Higher sampling rates result in greater sensitivity to motion, and an increased ability to measure acceleration. Sampling rate matters because the higher the sampling rate, the more natural the mouse movement.
Joe
I made series of testing apps for pointing devices, if anyone had a MacBook Pro (M1 2021 or newer), please take a test and share the testing result with us:
In my experience, exquisitely designed touch sampling rate helps for better UX:
+ touch sampling rate SHOULD NOT be less than 60Hz thus to avoid flickering when scrolling/dragging/zooming/rotating
+ touch sampling rate SHOULD be integral multiple of screen refresh rate thus to ensure VSync coalescing evenness (those rates won't exert a negative impact to VRR frame pacing if high enough)
+ touch sampling rate is NOT RECOMMENDED to be more than 2x rate of screen response time, as that can just gain marginal benifit
In my experience, exquisitely designed touch sampling rate helps for better UX:
+ touch sampling rate SHOULD NOT be less than 60Hz thus to avoid flickering when scrolling/dragging/zooming/rotating
+ touch sampling rate SHOULD be integral multiple of screen refresh rate thus to ensure VSync coalescing evenness (those rates won't exert a negative impact to VRR frame pacing if high enough)
+ touch sampling rate is NOT RECOMMENDED to be more than 2x rate of screen response time, as that can just gain marginal benifit
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