Apple’s Magic Trackpad: Magic or Hype?
Apple introduced their $69 Magic Trackpad last week, and the delivery gnomes were pretty fast in getting one to me. I unpacked mine this morning and hooked it up (by Bluetooth, of course; it’s wireless) to my Mac. I’ve been trying it out for a while, and I find it to be a very interesting device, not without some drawbacks.
First of all, the Magic Trackpad is quite large. If you have a recent Apple keyboard (the aluminum one with the white keys), it’s the same depth as the keyboard, and is on the same angle. Compared to Apple’s wireless keyboard, the trackpad is almost half as wide; compared to their wired keyboard, it’s just a bit wider than the number pad and the two columns of keys to the left.
But it’s a sleek device, with a very smooth surface that offers very little resistance. You can set it up either parallel to your keyboard, or, as I have found to be a bit more efficient, on an angle. Obviously, it works on either side of your keyboard; I’m a righty, so I’ve put it there.
If you’re familiar with Apple’s multi-touch trackpads on the company’s laptops, there’s not much that’s new here. There is one thing you can do, however, that is quite practical: you can set either a lower-right or lower-left corner press to activate contextual menus (the equivalent of a right-click or Control-click).
The Magic Trackpad offers a number of gestures, which are shown in the Trackpad preference pane. (You’ll need to connect the device, then run Software Update to get the necessary software.) As before, these gestures are demonstrated with small videos, so it’s easy to understand what it does. There are a total of 12 gestures you can perform, from taps to swipes.
Now I used a trackpad with a desktop computer way back in the old days; the late 90s. I had a device that was quite small and that had two buttons in front of the touch pad. I really liked this, but it eventually stopped working as drivers weren’t updated. So the idea of using a trackpad on a desktop computer seems natural.
The Magic Trackpad, however, is quite large, and I’m finding it hard to get my hand in an efficient position. For now, I’ve found that if I actually center my fingers it the lower-right corner of the device, rather than using all of its space, I’m more efficient. My hand can rest more easily on my desk, and my thumb doesn’t accidentally touch it. For everything I’ve been doing this morning, it works well, and I can see getting used to it. While I’ll miss the extra buttons on my Logitech mouse, which are programmed to do certain actions in a few applications, the more comfortable hand position with the trackpad may win out. At the same time, I’ve switched from the wired keyboard to the wireless model; I have had both for a while, but even though I don’t type numbers often, not having the number pad kept me from using the wireless keyboard. But the trackpad is better positioned with the smaller keyboard, so I’ll try out this setup for a while.
All in all, the Magic Trackpad is nothing special, since Apple’s laptops offer the same features; if you have a laptop, you won’t be surprised by much. I’d have preferred if it was a bit smaller; I don’t see that people need such a big target. But the ability to not have to move a mouse can be more efficient – and more ergonomic – so I think this device could be a good choice for many people.
Update: It’s been a month now, and the Magic Trackpad has become second nature. I’m very comfortable with it, and don’t plan to go back to using a mouse.
I’m hooked on the trackpad on my MacBook Pro, mostly because of the multitouch gestures (two finger scrolling is the greatest thing ever invented!), so if I ever get a desktop Mac, I will definitely look into getting a Magic Trackpad to use instead of a regular mouse.
You should checkout BetterTouchTool (http://blog.boastr.net/). It lets you set up all kins of gestures to do things in programs, so you could probably use that to replicate the behavior of your old mouse. According to the blog, the author is still working out the kinks with the Magic Trackpad, but I’ve been using it with my MacBook Pro trackpad for some time, and it’s been great.
As for the size, maybe it seems like overkill if you are just using it as a mouse, but when you start doing four-finger swipes, the extra space is really nice. Take it from someone who uses four-finger swipes on an older MacBook Pro (early 2008) with a smaller trackpad.
The Trackpad is super, no more mouse. It’s better for your hand and wrist, and puts less strain on them. I’m trying to find a good tool that allows me to type or write numbers, that would be extra cool. Shouldn’t be hard as this is fully programmable via mac. I’ve seen a multigesture soft for the mouse before, when magic mouse came out, so I guess someone will make it.