Intertial scrolling in older models?

[mikethebigo]

I have the last-gen 13 inch MBP. I tried out the inertial scrolling today on the new models at the Apple store, and I have to say it's pretty sweet. I know it's totally a software thing and not a hardware limitation, so I was wondering if anyone had a hack or knew a way to transfer that ability to older models. Any info would be great, thanks!

 

[kjaxplicit24]

I have the last-gen 13 inch MBP. I tried out the inertial scrolling today on the new models at the Apple store, and I have to say it's pretty sweet. I know it's totally a software thing and not a hardware limitation, so I was wondering if anyone had a hack or knew a way to transfer that ability to older models. Any info would be great, thanks!

Pretty sure there's nothing as of yet. But you could download smartscroll.

 

[rgarjr]

I am also waiting for the inertia scrolling option here.

 

[Tiki35]

Smart Scroll is awesome.

 

[Dayv]

Does anyone know for sure if the inertial scrolling on the new models relies on any actual new hardware built into them? It seems to me like this could easily be pushed out by Apple in a software update for at least the previous unibody generation.

 

[mikethebigo]

Does anyone know for sure if the inertial scrolling on the new models relies on any actual new hardware built into them? It seems to me like this could easily be pushed out by Apple in a software update for at least the previous unibody generation.

I honestly almost don't know how it could be a hardware issue. I feel like the only difference is how the OS handles the input. I'm not an Apple engineer though.

 

[todd2fst4u]

this would seem fairly doable considering that it was possible to bring the trackpad preference pane from the late 2008 mbp to the early 2008 mbp to do 4 finger gestures.
see here:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/582801/

i think someone with the inertia scrolling needs to upload their AppleUSBMultitouch.kext maybe?

 

[panzaman]

There you go:

I am under the impression that the new MacBooks trackpad has a different ID from the Unibodies 2008/2009 models.

This is how I think how it works, in the KEXT .plist you'll find different configuration values depending on the trackpad ID, the Kext will look at your macbook work out the trackpad ID and establish what behaviour to use, (inertial/no inertial). If somebody can work out the different trackpad IDs for all the different macbook models then would be very easy to go in the .plist file and swap numbers around in order to activate the feature on older models.

 

[saxman]

Given Apple's track record, I doubt they will enable it on older models even if the hardware supports it. I just retired a 12" powerbook that was hardware capable of supporting two-finger scrolling that Apple never enabled over it's close to 6-year lifespan (and two OS upgrades). I used a program called iScroll to enable it. I would guess smartscroll will be your best option