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Macbook trackpad pinch-zoom is erratic! Any tips?

ero87

ero87

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 17, 2006
1,196
1
New York City
Hey friends,

I always assumed the pinch-zoom on the macbooks just wasn't very precise, because mine isn't. Even if i'm extremely deliberate trying to enlarge text in Safari, for instance, it always zooms 3 or 4 times instead of just 1 notch. But when I went to the apple store the other day, the macbooks there dont' have this problem! One "pinch" zooms in one notch. I got my macbook in the fall of 2008 (the day they came out), could it be that they've updated the hardware? Is there something I can do adjust the sensitivity of the pinch feature?

Thanks :)
 
Just do finger stretches 15 min a day ( 20 reps). I've increased my usability with the track pad by 5% doing this.
 
there's nothing you can do, other than just be careful, I'm afraid. I only noticed the problem when I began using Safari 4 beta. If you're using Safari 4, and the pinch thing really bothers you, I think switching back to Safari 3 helps.
 
bozz2006 said:
there's nothing you can do, other than just be careful, I'm afraid. I only noticed the problem when I began using Safari 4 beta. If you're using Safari 4, and the pinch thing really bothers you, I think switching back to Safari 3 helps.
Click to expand...
Yea its only in Safari 4.
 
I have been saying, millions of time in this forum, Firefox beta is much superior to Safari when it comes to multitouch gestures. try firefox and you will be amazed with the precision.
 
I've had a similar problem... I find it easier to enlarge things rather than shrink them. If I use my index and middle finger it seems to do better than with my thumb and index finger (probably because I'm using the side of my thumb or something) but its kind of awkward. I don't use the feature much, I pretty much leave it at one size.
 
Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is excellent when it comes to pinch-zooming, far better than Safari.
 
nubee said:
Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is excellent when it comes to pinch-zooming, far better than Safari.
Click to expand...

Seriously guys, he was looking for help with his problem, not another browser shoved down his throat.

Like another poster said, the pinch-to-zoom feature is currently overly sensitive, and I certainly seem to accidentally invoke it 3 or so times a day. Command-0 takes things back to normal size. It's definitely not bad enough to make me leave a superior webkit-based browser, for what I consider an inferior gecko-based browser with a faked cocoa UI built in XUL.

Other options - in Safari, under view, choose "Zoom text only", which mimics the way safari 3 zoomed the page text, not the entire page.

Also - although there is no preference to disable pinch-zooming, you can intercept the pinch event and make it do nothing with a utility like MultiClutch
 
Yep, its just Safari 4 beta that is overly sensitive. Changing the Zoom option to Text Only is a good work around for now. Hopefully it'll be sorted out by the time the non-beta is released.

For other apps (Preview, etc.), the pinch-zoom seems to work quite well.
 
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