12/2/2023 0 Comments Apple multitouch trackpad![]() ![]() If you need that pen, if you need to produce that kind of art or design, you need to stay with Wacom, much as if you need the feel of that mouse you need to stay with the mouse. While newer Wacom devices offer multitouch support their history and tradition is in pen-based, sensitivity-based, angle-based input. If you already have one of those devices, and one of the trackpad simulating apps, as long as you don't find it too cumbersome or battery draining to keep launching and using the app, you'd be trading functionality and flexibility, convergence and coolness for the convenience and independence of a dedicated device. iOS apps, Magic Mouse, and Wacomĭoes it invalidate iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad trackpad apps? Not at $69. That way if the battery goes dead in the middle of podcast, I'm not scrambling, I'm just plugging it in like an old fashioned peripheral. Shove a LiOn battery inside and have the door open into a micro USB port and let me plug it in when I need and want to. I'd still like a real, rechargeable peripheral from Apple. Rechargeable-ishĪpple is also selling a re-charger along with a pack of 6 NiCad batteries that you can use with Magic Trackpad, Magic Mouse, Apple Aluminum Keyboard, or pretty much anything else that takes AAs. Obviously, those gestures are all here for Magic Trackpad. In my Magic Mouse review I complained Apple left a lot of gestures out. ![]() Three and four fingers you'll just have to learn. Two fingers will scroll (like the iPhone does in frames) but everywhere. One finger will move you around but not select or swipe. That creates a level of mental overhead you don't experience with the very different mouse. Some things are similar and others different. If you have an iPhone but have never used a MacBook trackpad, it will be mixed bag of hurt. The gestures, while not intuitive, work well once you get used to them. ![]() I can tell nary a difference between my MacBook Pro's built-in trackpad and this Bluetooth one. A swipe from side to side sends the cursor flying from edge to edge. I've experienced no lag, no loss of signal, no interruption in interactivity. If I grant that I'm an anomaly, a freak, or a fanboy, however, then let me break it down into the tangibles. I tried to capture the feeling of using Magic Trackpad at the beginning of the review. That's one of the huge advantages you get if you've sold your soul to Apple hardware - they've brought you along, trained you, and made you accustomed to their technology step-by-step, year after year. (I'm using it to write this review, right now). So, needless to say, I had zero learning curve with the Magic Trackpad. I spend 12 to 18 hours a day using some form of Apple multitouch. I've been using an iPhone and Macbook since 2007, I currently use a 2009 Magic Mouse and a 2010 iPad and MacBook Pro. Four fingers let you swipe up/down for Exposé and left/right to tab-switch between apps. Three fingers let you swipe to navigate (think going from one picture to another in Photos) or dragging (moving windows around). Two fingers let you scroll (with inertia - I heart inertia), rotate, pinch to open and close, screen zoom (with toggle key, move preferences, and image smoothing checkbox), and secondary click. One finger gestures include tap to click, dragging, drag lock, and secondary click (assignable to either bottom right or bottom left corner). If you like to tweak, though, you have the option. ![]() Between work and home, desktop and laptop, I use enough machines that I've just found it simpler to stick with the defaults. Tracking speed, double-click speed, and scrolling speed can all be adjusted from slow to fast. If it is, if you think like I do that nothing Apple releases exists in a vacuum, then hang on to your pinches and swipes the review starts after the break. So if this isn't something you're personally interested in, no worries, hit up the next post. Two actually, as often as I can spare them. With rumors of Apple TV going iOS and my persistent fantasy that Apple will replace DashBoard and Front Row with an iOS layer, what they do with multitouch for Mac is definitely something I want to keep an eye on. iOS comes from Mac OS and if Apple has shown us anything over the years it's that they're the best in the business at leveraging advances back and forth between the two. "Wait, this is an iPhone and iPad blog, why are you talking about a Mac peripheral?" Because.
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