Magic Trackpad: “Swipe me!”
For the record, I do most of my work on a MacBook Pro. One reason I was able to break the spell cast by Dell and live happily ever after in Steve Jobs land is the Mac’s magical multi-touch trackpad. He/she that masters it—and it doesn’t take much—will enjoy effortless web navigation, healthy wrists and knuckles, truly higher productivity, and never having to shlepp their mouse in endless circles on their desks.
So it is amusing to read the conflicting headlines on Apple’s announcement yesterday to introduce this Mac technology to PC users in the form of the Magic Trackpad. Over at Silicon Alley, Dan Frommer lobbed this headline at the Apple gadget: “Hands On With The New Apple Magic Trackpad: It’s Weird But Could Be Useful.” At TechCrunch, MC Siegler has, for my money, a more insightful take: “Apple’s Magic Trackpad Signals The End Of The Mouse Era.”
I realize writers don’t necessarily choose their headlines, but Frommer is pretty clear that he thinks the Trackpad is kind of a novelty — an incense candle for those that need to connect with their Mac spirituality.
He is wrong.
TechCrunch’s Siegler points out that the multi-touch Magic Touchpad will be larger (by 80%) than the embedded MacBook pad and will be wireless, powered by AA batteries and communicating using BlueTooth. All good moves to help PC-centric types get used to this silvery slab.
And once they master two-finger scrolling, pinching, and four-finger context swipes, there’s no going back to their mouse. Apple will be indirectly training a lot of PC users to learn the gestures needed for iPad, iPhone, and what ever else is coming out of Apple. Siegler sees the Magic Trackpad, for example, being used as a remote with the Mac mini video device for TVs. Clever, on Apple’s part.
The Magic Trackpad will retail for $69.
I’m going to buy one for my decaying Dell Dimension.
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- Hands On With The New Apple Magic Trackpad: It’s Weird But Could Be Useful (businessinsider.com)
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