I'm using my MBP connected to a 22" monitor, keyboard and mighty mouse.
Just sayin'.
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Apple's 'Magic Trackpad' Apparently Approved by FCC
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I'm using my MBP connected to a 22" monitor, keyboard and mighty mouse.
Just sayin'.
Maybe as a wireless eNotepad? Copuled with handwriting recognition software. Would definitely encourage me to bring my MBP to school for note taking. save lots of money on paper, pens and space.
What about controlling your Apple TVSet top box from the couch using the trackpad to select Icons or movies?
Ha Ha, you people are going to feel really silly when it turns out to just be a numeric keypad. I hope it is because my wife (the accountant) keeps bugging me to get her one so she can use it with quickbooks on our macbook.
Scrolling wheel works just fine. In case of laptops, when there is no mouse, trackpad is a decent substitution but not much more than that. Pinch/tap is primarily a cell phone thing. With decent size screens it's rarely needed. All applications that do need it (CAD, photo editing) have specialized features to do it with mouse with much higher precision than gesture would ever allowed.
Functional keys, mouse buttons (like Ctrl-MB1 click) can do all that. Besides, because of the nature of desktop OSes (interfaces) we still need the notion of a pointer (mouse).
I hope this is a sign that new iMacs are on the way. They are needing a refresh so bad and I won't even consider one until refreshed. Potential Mac Pro owners must be going insane with their wait.
Pleaaaaaase Apple, my 7,1 needs replaced.
Pleaaaaaase Apple, my 7,1 needs replaced.
Are you joking?
A good multi-touch trackpad will be the END of the mouse and perhaps for a better world. With a trackpad you can do a lot more things and if it's rightly tweaked and on a big surface, creativity is the only limit. The possibilities are limitless.
The future though is not here yet. I would love to see an Optimus Tactus equivalent before I throw away my mouse. Combining a keyboard with a huge trackpad, while having the interface shown up like buttons and some sort of feedback (Apple has recently filed a patent for this as well) might be a dream human interface coming true!
This is great! Having multi touch capability on the entire mac line... developers would have a larger incentive to add multi touch support to their programs.
Nice! Why can't we get a PC equivalent?
There actually is a keyboard with trackpad for PC.. but looking forward to this.. would be nice if we could also use a pen on it for sketching
I've always hated trackpads, but since I got my MacBook Pro I realised that I just hate PC trackpads, and that actually I now prefer trackpads to mice. Mice aren't always accurate, especially since optical mice came in. The surface on which you use them influences the tracking speed and accuracy, and getting a mousepad that positively influences that is very difficult.
I think it would be awesome to have desktop computers with trackpads, as now I feel that I miss the trackpad each time I use a regular mouse. I mostly use a pen tablet for precise work, but it's just too precise for normal OS usage (for example, double clicking is difficult because it isn't always possible to click twice at the exact same location due to the enhanced precision).
The only thing I hate on trackpads now is dragging and dropping. Sure, there's drag-lock, but Apple's implementation sucks, because it delays your single and double-click by like half a second in case you want to drag and not click. So the best way to do it is press the trackpad down, but then you can't move your finger much, so you have to use your other hand, which is clumsy. I think that what Apple should do is make the entire trackpad clickable, and not just the bottom portion like now. There should be no hinge at the top and you should be able to easily click the trackpad anywhere while moving your finger, just like with a normal mouse.
I would love this device and I think it would be great to have iMacs with this instead of a mouse.
I think it would be awesome to have desktop computers with trackpads, as now I feel that I miss the trackpad each time I use a regular mouse. I mostly use a pen tablet for precise work, but it's just too precise for normal OS usage (for example, double clicking is difficult because it isn't always possible to click twice at the exact same location due to the enhanced precision).
The only thing I hate on trackpads now is dragging and dropping. Sure, there's drag-lock, but Apple's implementation sucks, because it delays your single and double-click by like half a second in case you want to drag and not click. So the best way to do it is press the trackpad down, but then you can't move your finger much, so you have to use your other hand, which is clumsy. I think that what Apple should do is make the entire trackpad clickable, and not just the bottom portion like now. There should be no hinge at the top and you should be able to easily click the trackpad anywhere while moving your finger, just like with a normal mouse.
I would love this device and I think it would be great to have iMacs with this instead of a mouse.
According to two people familiar with the matter, Apple will launch a revolutionary TV product in Q4. Some says it will be a TV including apple TV, VOD, etc.
This looks like the remote control to me.
By the way this is pure speculation, I just love the "people familiar with the matter" expression
This looks like the remote control to me.
By the way this is pure speculation, I just love the "people familiar with the matter" expression
Sounds good for those with a cluttered desk. Since my MBP has a trackpad, I'll get a might mouse or a macic mouse. But if I had an iMac, Mac mini, or a Mac Pro, I would buy a Magic Trackpad. I hope it costs $69 like other Apple wireless mice and keyboards
Why do people keep saying this would be perfect for AppleTV?
A trackpad needs a cursor to work. AppleTV (especially if it goes to iOS) has no cursor. Rudimentary swiping to scroll and tapping to select is the best this could do.
How could one expect to use iOS apps/games on AppleTV with this? It would be difficult to judge exactly where a spot on the trackpad correlates with the image on your TV, so accuracy would be terrible.
This product doesn't have a display like the iPhone/iPod Touch to let you know where to tap, so it would be fairly useless as an AppleTV remote.
As a desktop mouse alternative though, this has promise. Just don't expect Wacom functionality. Pen-input tablets can track the stylus even when it's not actually touching the pad. That's what makes them usable. I seriously doubt that this item will have that kind of hardware. It will be touch input only. We all know how Mr. Jobs feels about styluses after all.
A trackpad needs a cursor to work. AppleTV (especially if it goes to iOS) has no cursor. Rudimentary swiping to scroll and tapping to select is the best this could do.
How could one expect to use iOS apps/games on AppleTV with this? It would be difficult to judge exactly where a spot on the trackpad correlates with the image on your TV, so accuracy would be terrible.
This product doesn't have a display like the iPhone/iPod Touch to let you know where to tap, so it would be fairly useless as an AppleTV remote.
As a desktop mouse alternative though, this has promise. Just don't expect Wacom functionality. Pen-input tablets can track the stylus even when it's not actually touching the pad. That's what makes them usable. I seriously doubt that this item will have that kind of hardware. It will be touch input only. We all know how Mr. Jobs feels about styluses after all.
My thoughts exactly.
Absolutely would be of benefit for an iOS TV or Apple TV. I could also use one for the iPad. Imagine hooking up the iPad to a television or mount it in a display and you could control it from a few feet away.
Chris
Absolutely would be of benefit for an iOS TV or Apple TV. I could also use one for the iPad. Imagine hooking up the iPad to a television or mount it in a display and you could control it from a few feet away.
Chris
My money's on...
...this being an external trackpad for the rumored new 11.6" MacBook Air.
The smaller form factor of the rumored new Air could make it tough to fit a reasonably-spaced keyboard along with a decent size trackpad, so this could be sold as an external "normal-sized" trackpad to supplement the tiny 3cm x 3cm touchscreen that will be the onboard tracking device for the Air
...this being an external trackpad for the rumored new 11.6" MacBook Air.
The smaller form factor of the rumored new Air could make it tough to fit a reasonably-spaced keyboard along with a decent size trackpad, so this could be sold as an external "normal-sized" trackpad to supplement the tiny 3cm x 3cm touchscreen that will be the onboard tracking device for the Air