1st the hardware is capable cause in linux u can use up to 10 fingers...
What about fingers and toes? Can it support 20 touch gestures?
We must complain until it does.
21 touch gestures...
1st the hardware is capable cause in linux u can use up to 10 fingers...
I can confirm the four finger gesture is possible on pre-October 2008 laptops, and I currently have four finger Exposé and Application Switching working on my January 2008 MacBook Air.
Here's what I did:
My girlfriend recently bought a new unibody MacBook. Just for kicks, and being insanely jealous of her four finger Exposé ability I installed the system it came with on my 1st gen MacBook Air.
(This required hacking Apple's installer to ignore machine checks to avoid the "Mac OS X cannot be installed" obstacle. The method to do that is here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/371302/ )
This got the latest, slightly updated 10.5.5 system (with the energy efficient bulb in the System Preferences) on my first generation Air.
However, I was disappointed it didn't show "Four Finger gestures" in the Trackpad system preference, just the old standard gesture. I had a hunch it was possible though, so...
I then examined the kernel extension "AppleUSBMultitouch.kext" (the one installed with the new 10.5.5 unibody OS X).
This Info.plist of this kext contains several entries for what looks like different makes of trackpads. I noticed that some of them had two keys that the others did not:
<key>TrackpadFourFingerGestures</key>
<true/>
<key>TrackpadSecondaryClickCorners</key>
<true/>
I didn't know which model trackpad my Air has and it didn't really matter, as I copied those keys to all entries.
Once the AppleUSBMultitouch.kext was modified (and permissions restored), I rebooted and, hey presto!, there is the Four Fingers entry in the System Preferences.
Four finger Exposé on my January 2008 MacBook Air now works just as it does on the unibody MacBook.
(Secondary click, where you click the bottom right corner of the trackpad to get a right-click, is also there, but only seem to work in combination with the Air's physical button - haven't worked that one out yet, and don't really care as I am used to soft two finger clicking for right-click.)
I suspect this would work on all later model multitouch trackpads.
<SNIP>
(Secondary click, where you click the bottom right corner of the trackpad to get a right-click, is also there, but only seem to work in combination with the Air's physical button - haven't worked that one out yet, and don't really care as I am used to soft two finger clicking for right-click.)
I suspect this would work on all later model multitouch trackpads.
Nope there is not, I will be speaking to apple sales about this. False advertising.
If the hardware is capable of registering multi-touch (or even 10 fingers), does anyone know of any third party work to enable 4-finger swipe? what about manipulating even older trackpads (last gen-macbooks)?
ADD: here's your demonstration of 11 fingers registered on a macbook pro using linux. this is using the newer, 3 finger multitouch hardware, i believe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeLUxsvIVuU
michaelb's post above just proves that there's absolutely no reason for Apple not to enable four-finger gesture support for Early 2008 MacBook Pros and Airs in a future software update. The hardware clearly supports it.
Well, no reason other than marketing.
If 10.5.6 comes out and there's still no new gesture support for the older trackpads, then I guess we'll all just have to do what he did, only by fiddling with the kexts in the combo updater instead.
While Apple likes to differentiate old models from new, I'm actually surprised at how they're handling this.
Apple prides itself on its user interface and user-friendliness. This should extend to their input methods too.
It could be very bewildering and for someone moving from one computer to another, and having certain gestures not recognized.
The move from scrolling to multitouch is obvious progression, and is fine to be used as differentiation between models, but something as subtle as a single multitouch gesture should NOT differentiate one machine from another. I would expect it of Windows, but not OSX.
MichaelB
Can you explain in more detail how to use four-finger expose in the 1stgen macbook air? I bought mine in June 2008 and I really think the four-finger gestures are useful.
Where do you find the kernel texts you were talking about in your post? Could you give me a quick step-by-step procedure on enabling the four-finger gestures for MBA 1st gen?
Thanks
dukeblue17
ok... it appears that we will have to wait to have the four fingers gestures on the old mbps.... bad luck
I tried enabling the gestures on my Early 2008 MacBook Pro using kext files and pref panes that a friend of mine gave me from his new MacBook, and following michaelb's instructions in the post above.
Not only did the new multitouch gestures not work, I managed to disable all multitouch functionality on my trackpad and also disabled the special functions on the f-keys on my keyboard (brightness, volume, etc.). I was only able to restore the previous functionality by re-applying the 10.5.5 combo updater.
I think I may make more progress later, if in addition to the files listed above I can get my MacBook-wielding friend to send me another file, MachineSettings.framework. The new trackpad prefpane was refusing to load because it was looking for an updated version of this file with support for corner clicking on the trackpad, which is what caused my trackpad's multitouch to be completely disabled. I'm still not sure what the deal was with my f-keys conking out on me.
If the procedure works, I will list detailed step-by-step directions detailing what I did. If it doesn't work, I'll say so, and also try to figure out why.
I followed michaelb's procedure above and grabbed the following files from a friend's brand-new MacBook: