Magic Trackpad?

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Would be easy to do as the Wacom devices are the same thing but I really doubt Apple will do it.

Can't wait to hear the commentary on the new hardware. No more nVidia, not suprised by that move actually.
 
Can't say I'm really interested in this thing, especially at $69. But then I already have a multitouch input device, so...
 
As an owner of the BT keyboard and magic mouse, I think this thing needs to be attached to the keyboard. It could then double as a htpc keyboard very nicely. There is some market for multi-touch, but most people don't like the magic mouse's shape, and the trackpad just feels like a poor mouse substitute and not useful enough to justify having it and a mouse at once.
 
Anyone else sick of the "magic" branding on this stuff? It's a simple, elegant trackpad, just call it the "Apple Trackpad"

I love my magic mouse, but it sounds ridiculous to say it's my "magic" mouse.
 
ryken said:
Anyone else sick of the "magic" branding on this stuff? It's a simple, elegant trackpad, just call it the "Apple Trackpad"

I love my magic mouse, but it sounds ridiculous to say it's my "magic" mouse.
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It's called marketing.
 
ryken said:
As an owner of the BT keyboard and magic mouse, I think this thing needs to be attached to the keyboard. It could then double as a htpc keyboard very nicely. There is some market for multi-touch, but most people don't like the magic mouse's shape, and the trackpad just feels like a poor mouse substitute and not useful enough to justify having it and a mouse at once.
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If it was somehow able to be mounted into the left/right side of the small Apple BT keyboard I could see some value for HTPCs or something but for desktops and laptops this is just fucking useless. Anyone find it humorous that everyone loves Apple track pads but they haven't come close to making a decent mouse in 20 years?
 
SixtyWattMan said:
If it was somehow able to be mounted into the left/right side of the small Apple BT keyboard I could see some value for HTPCs or something but for desktops and laptops this is just fucking useless. Anyone find it humorous that everyone loves Apple track pads but they haven't come close to making a decent mouse in 20 years?
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I think the magic mouse is a decent mouse. It integrates very well with OSX, despite not being suitable for gaming. That being said, it's only decent as many people find in uncomfortable and all other apple mice can DIAF.
 
SixtyWattMan said:
If it was somehow able to be mounted into the left/right side of the small Apple BT keyboard I could see some value for HTPCs or something but for desktops and laptops this is just fucking useless. Anyone find it humorous that everyone loves Apple track pads but they haven't come close to making a decent mouse in 20 years?
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Ironic as hell that Microsoft can come out with good mice on a regular basis and Apple, THE tech design company of our time just never does.
 
heatlesssun said:
Ironic as hell that Microsoft can come out with good mice on a regular basis and Apple, THE tech design company of our time just never does.
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Apple comes out with things that look nice, I don't think ergonomics was ever a big concern for them.
 
If you in any way like the Macbook Pro trackpad and own a Mac desktop, I would consider buying this thing.

For desktop usage in OS X, it is fantastic, and in some ways it is better than a normal mouse. It is better than the Magic Mouse in that it supports way more functions. Gestures and multitouch take the place of five buttons, being able to scroll pages in any direction is great (especially in Final Cut or anything with horizontal scrolling), easy Expose and app switching, the thing takes up far less space then a mousepad, etc etc.

That said, no way I would use this for games, but that's why I don't have one for my gaming PC. If I did want to use one on my PC I'd also keep my mouse plugged in and use that when I wanted to, and otherwise use the trackpad for everything else.

It is a huge productivity boost for many tasks. That said, the numerous multitouch gestures and functions are built into OS X and they work across all applications. I haven't used it in Windows but I suspect that it would work like the Macbook Pro trackpad, in that in Windows it would be limited only to two finger gestures, which means no three finger swipe to go back/forwards, no drag select, and obviously no expose or fast app switching. This would be a big problem unless you used third party applications that add multitouch trackpad functionality to Windows beyond two fingers.

I keep my Steelseries mouse plugged in but its a great alternate input device.
 
heatlesssun said:
Ironic as hell that Microsoft can come out with good mice on a regular basis and Apple, THE tech design company of our time just never does.
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Its bizarre, Apple produces some of the best software and hardware interfaces of any company, and yet their mice up until the Magic Mouse have all sucked. Bad. That said, Microsoft mice IMHO aren't that great either, certainly no better than other companies that sell mice. The last one I liked was the Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 I had ten years ago. I much prefer the high end Steelseries mice, and even though I don't use them I'd also recommend Logitech before the Microsoft mice.
 
I think I could actually put one of these to use, sitting between the keyboard and mouse.
 
Serpico said:
I haven't used it in Windows but I suspect that it would work like the Macbook Pro trackpad, in that in Windows it would be limited only to two finger gestures, which means no three finger swipe to go back/forwards, no drag select, and obviously no expose or fast app switching. This would be a big problem unless you used third party applications that add multitouch trackpad functionality to Windows beyond two fingers.
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Just a couple of points of clarification since others have expressed intrest for this device in Windows, Windows 7 Home Premium and above support up to 10 points of multi-touch (you would need an application that actually knew how to handle that and few do natively in Windows at the moment) depending on the driver and actually support diretional flicks, so you actually only need to flick directionaly with one finger to navigate back and forth in a web browser for instance. Drag and select also can work with only only finger tap tap, holding and then dragging. So I would imagine those these would work out of the box without any additional software with this pad. Now as you did mention, you can add get third party tools that do a lot more, like macro playback based on custom gestures or even characters, like launch Firefox by finger writing "ff" for instance.

One thing that you could with the stock gesture support for instance bring up the Alt-Tab menu with a directional flick. Different from a Mac but very effective. I do this kind of stuff all the time on my tablets.
 
Serpico said:
Its bizarre, Apple produces some of the best software and hardware interfaces of any company, and yet their mice up until the Magic Mouse have all sucked. Bad. That said, Microsoft mice IMHO aren't that great either, certainly no better than other companies that sell mice. The last one I liked was the Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 I had ten years ago. I much prefer the high end Steelseries mice, and even though I don't use them I'd also recommend Logitech before the Microsoft mice.
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Some of the classic microsoft mice are fantastic. In fact most of their mice in general are fantastic.

Good ergonomics, nice price points, good performance. There have only been a few I have not been impressed with, but many more which are excellent. The original MS Wheel Optical Mice are awesome....cheap, light weight, and built tough.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1BE9X6B6RFPG9SF1VK9E
 
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Looks like Better Touch Tool will support the new trackpad, which is a very good thing. For those of you with a magic mouse or multitouch trackpad, you NEED to get better touch tool.
 
Most of the gestures you guys are talking about have a 1-finger gesture on a mouse. Also the Magic mouse is complete crap, it's completely unergonomic. Microsoft will come out with their multitouch mouse like the one they demoed a few years ago and show Apple how you shape a fucking mouse.
 
SixtyWattMan said:
Most of the gestures you guys are talking about have a 1-finger gesture on a mouse. Also the Magic mouse is complete crap, it's completely unergonomic. Microsoft will come out with their multitouch mouse like the one they demoed a few years ago and show Apple how you shape a fucking mouse.
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Oh boy, that mouse from a few YEARS ago is really gonna show apple!
 
ryken said:
Oh boy, that mouse from a few YEARS ago is really gonna show apple!
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Considering I have mice from 5-8yrs ago that still show apple, I don't think it is too far out there.

Apple is great at a lot of things, but they sacrifice design for usability in some cases and their mice are a prime example....they are shaped like shit.
 
heatlesssun said:
Just a couple of points of clarification since others have expressed intrest for this device in Windows, Windows 7 Home Premium and above support up to 10 points of multi-touch (you would need an application that actually knew how to handle that and few do natively in Windows at the moment) depending on the driver and actually support diretional flicks, so you actually only need to flick directionaly with one finger to navigate back and forth in a web browser for instance. Drag and select also can work with only only finger tap tap, holding and then dragging. So I would imagine those these would work out of the box without any additional software with this pad. Now as you did mention, you can add get third party tools that do a lot more, like macro playback based on custom gestures or even characters, like launch Firefox by finger writing "ff" for instance.

One thing that you could with the stock gesture support for instance bring up the Alt-Tab menu with a directional flick. Different from a Mac but very effective. I do this kind of stuff all the time on my tablets.
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I think you mean Windows supports use of multi touch through third party applications, but it doesn't support mutlitouch like os x supports multi touch. Multi touch on os x is system wide, a function of the os, on windows, its a function of the application, not the os.
 
SixtyWattMan said:
Most of the gestures you guys are talking about have a 1-finger gesture on a mouse. Also the Magic mouse is complete crap, it's completely unergonomic. Microsoft will come out with their multitouch mouse like the one they demoed a few years ago and show Apple how you shape a fucking mouse.
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I thought the Magic Mouse was very unergonomic too..until I used one. My Logitech MX Revolution now sits in a box unused since the day I tried the Magic Mouse (came with my iMac, thought I'd hate it).
 
SixtyWattMan said:
I think every other mouse manufacturer is already showing Apple. :p
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showing them their lack of multi-touch. you obviously hate apple and have never used a magic mouse for longer than a couple minutes at a best buy, so I doubt you can shed much light on its everyday function or feel.
 
ryken said:
showing them their lack of multi-touch. you obviously hate apple and have never used a magic mouse for longer than a couple minutes at a best buy, so I doubt you can shed much light on its everyday function or feel.
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I've never seen anyone use an Apple mouse, ever. I wonder what the reason for that is.
 
Its supporting functions are, yes, but it's not actively used by the os, except by third party drivers, and software, but the functions themselves are not implemented by Microsoft, just provided for use.
 
jrdonnaruma said:
I think you mean Windows supports use of multi touch through third party applications, but it doesn't support mutlitouch like os x supports multi touch. Multi touch on os x is system wide, a function of the os, on windows, its a function of the application, not the os.

Its supporting functions are, yes, but it's not actively used by the os, except by third party drivers, and software, but the functions themselves are not implemented by Microsoft, just provided for use.
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This, it is an important difference between the two operating systems, and one that I'm fully aware of since I use both. Again, it will be up to third party software to make it usable systemwide and consistently across all applications. Btw, there are such applications like Better Touch Tool on OS X which further extend and allow you to customize multitouch functionality.
 
ryken said:
showing them their lack of multi-touch. you obviously hate apple and have never used a magic mouse for longer than a couple minutes at a best buy, so I doubt you can shed much light on its everyday function or feel.
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His deep-seated resentment for Apple makes it hard to take anything he says about them seriously. Him and Daggah are in a fanboy contest. :p
 
Serpico said:
This, it is an important difference between the two operating systems, and one that I'm fully aware of since I use both. Again, it will be up to third party software to make it usable systemwide and consistently across all applications. Btw, there are such applications like Better Touch Tool on OS X which further extend and allow you to customize multitouch functionality.
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Not really sure I get the point here and take this as a question more than anything. Both Windows 7 and OS X at the operating system level can generate windows messages from touch input devices (in the case of Windows 7 there's of course official support for touch screens and well as pads) and both have a certain level of systemwide handling of those messages like scrolling and zooming. But even in OS X not all applications will handle those messages the same say. Does iWorks or Safaru rotate pages with the roatation gesture for instance?

I am simply asking a question and I my point is that I think that you're making some distinction here between Windows and OS X that doesn't really exist. No I don't use OS X but I do use Windows on a two point multi-touch screen everyday and I think that anyone who does wouldn't understand the distinction that you're making here, that's all.
 
heatlesssun said:
Not really sure I get the point here and take this as a question more than anything. Both Windows 7 and OS X at the operating system level can generate windows messages from touch input devices (in the case of Windows 7 there's of course official support for touch screens and well as pads) and both have a certain level of systemwide handling of those messages like scrolling and zooming. But even in OS X not all applications will handle those messages the same say. Does iWorks or Safaru rotate pages with the roatation gesture for instance?

I am simply asking a question and I my point is that I think that you're making some distinction here between Windows and OS X that doesn't really exist. No I don't use OS X but I do use Windows on a two point multi-touch screen everyday and I think that anyone who does wouldn't understand the distinction that you're making here, that's all.
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I think he means that the OS doesn't make any use of the multitouch features. I also don't consider 2 finger to really represent multitouch because the only 2 finger gestures that work are scroll. When the OS showcases features like multitouch, users expect more out of applications, so they use the new feature as well. We've seen that with advanced taskbar features of Windows 7 (and Vista?). As soon as more Microsoft applications began using the right-click info feature, developers started using it as well. I think the perception is that multitouch feels more "native" on OSX than it does on Windows.
 
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