deskthority

I feel like typing on my new RealForce, so I've decided to write some reviews.

Last month, I had surgery on a finger on my right hand. This made it difficult/impossible to effectively use a standard mouse. Rather than gimping along or taking sick leave, I decided to purchase some pointing devices which would give me some functionality with my left, non-dominant, hand. For my office desk, I chose a Kensington Slimblade trackball. For home, I purchase an Apple Magic Trackpad for use with my Macbook. This review is about the latter.

Briefly, the pros:

+ Gestures are natural and useful
+ Easy setup
+ Large, smooth tracking surface feels good and provides plenty of room, even for a dual-head setup
+ Bluetooth connection makes it easy to switch which side of the keyboard it's on
+ Tactile click option is handy when going from Macbook to trackpad
+ Super sleek/modern design looks great (on its own or with other Apple products)

The cons:

- Requires Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) -- I had to upgrade from Leopard
- Bluetooth connection requires batteries
- Super sleek and modern design doesn't match everything the Deskthority/Geekhack crowd might want to use
- Glass surface can get cold

The Magic Trackpad is not my first trackpad. I used a Cirque Glidepoint for a while before switching to a Logitech Trackman Marble FX for several years. Having used a variety of Apple laptops for the last 10+ years, I've grown used to trackpads and generally have no beef with them. Still, I was a little skeptical about laying out $70 for the Magic Trackpad.

The trackpad itself is up to Apple's typically high build quality standards. It is heavier than it looks owing to the all-glass touch surface, but this just makes it feel like even more of a quality piece. One of the problems I had with the Cirque touchpad was that it was so light it was easy to accidentally push across the desk. The weight of the Magic Trackpad in combination with the very effective rubber feet ensure that this doesn't happen.

While I was somewhat skeptical about the device when it first debuted, I have to admit that I've somewhat fallen in love with it. The gestures make browsing and navigating documents an extremely pleasurable and efficient experience. Three fingers to go back and forth through browser history. Scrolling with inertia. Four fingers up and down to access the desktop or Expose. It all became second nature after a day. The gestures became so natural that I keep trying to use them on my pre-multitouch Macbook trackpad!

Another nice feature is the ability to use three fingers to drag. Rather than the normal tap+hold action to click and drag, the trackpad supports simply dragging with three fingers to accomplish the same thing. Slick! Unfortunately, you can't have three finger browser navigation as well as three finger dragging turned on.

It's true that many of actions you'd perform with the trackpad can be performed just as quickly, if not more so, with key combinations. However, in today's mouse-oriented desktop environments, I often find myself with a hand on the pointing device. Being able to use gestures is like having hotkeys or keyboard shortcuts for your pointing device. There are third-party drivers which can enable a multitude of other gestures. I have not tried these yet, but that seems to be a promising route for getting even more out of the trackpad.

General mousing around poses no problem, but fine movements can be a little difficult to pull off. I have the same complaint about the trackballs I've used in the past. Either due to their inherent design or simply because I've used them for so long, it seems like it's easier to make fine adjustments with a mouse. In my work, this issue comes up mostly when I am trying to select text. While harder than a mouse, I find it easier than using the Slimblade trackball. However, this is a minor nit to pick and doesn't keep me from getting my work done. Gamers will most likely want to stick with their mice, but I don't think Apple intended this device for gaming.

All in all, I'm very happy with the trackpad. I use the built-in gestures frequently, and the surface feels great beneath my fingers. I can't imagine using my Mac at a desktop without the Magic Trackpad.

Thanks for the review. I'd actually be interested in this Apple product, if it weren't for the fact it is not compatible with non-Apple OS.

The origin of Apple gestures, they bought the Fingerworks company and the patents:

webwit wrote:The origin of Apple gestures, they bought the Fingerworks company and the patents:

Interesting. I did not know about the Fingerworks company. What's it like to type on such a keyboard? One of the things I guess I don't like about the trackpad is that tapping can be jarring since there is no give to the surface. I have the same issue typing on the iPhone screen. Now, I've just trained myself to tap more lightly.

I didn't type much on it, but I really liked it for the gestures, best pad I have. When I used it, I only use the keyboard function for short combinations so I don't have to move back from "mouse" to the mechanical keyboard often (I used both at the same time). Funny you mention that about the tapping, I found two of those boards for very little money while they sell on ebay for very, very much money. The first one was from a guy who claimed he only used it for a month, but it hurt his fingertips, so he put it away and forget about it for years. It is a flat, hard surface (although it has fabric, not glass). But I think it's also a matter of not tapping too hard, it's not an ordinary keyboard. But I haven't used it for a month for typing, so I don't know. All I know is people paid outrageous prices (I've seen it go twice for over $2k on ebay, typically they went for $500 - $1500 but I haven't monitored it for a while) because they need this keyboard for ergonomic reasons and they are no longer for sale new. Unless they were collectors.

Though I can't for the life of me remember where, I could swear that I stumbled on a cracked Windows version of the software for the Apple Magic line. I was looking into their mouse specifically, so the version I'm thinking of might not cover the newer trackpad. Still, it might be worth looking into. I'll see if I can find the link sometime tomorrow.

I'm sure someone has made some sort of *nix driver for that thing already.

I must admit I find the idea of the thing rather interesting, except touchpads really aren't my thing.

I never even got used to the Opera mouse gestures like 10 years ago. I guess I am just too old fashioned for this hipster rubbish!

webwit wrote:Thanks for the review. I'd actually be interested in this Apple product, if it weren't for the fact it is not compatible with non-Apple OS.

The origin of Apple gestures, they bought the Fingerworks company and the patents:

I've never found apple products to be "high quality", QUITE the opposite (not to mention overpriced, it probably costs them a few cents to make it from china's FOXCONN). And since the majority of their products use cheap aluminum, they dent 'real easy.
RE: fingerworks, yeah, Apple just steals things and then recycles it in an unergonomic fashion with tacky looks and glossy surfaces.

The Apple Magic Trackpad is just mediocre at best. Nothing special or revolutionary, and enforcing the "apple only" compatibility thing. So you have to buy Apple's butchered version of unix to run it.

Also... trackballs CAN be used perfectly for gaming... don't know where you're going with that one.

I've never cared for Apple's touchpads. They're too glossy and smooth and there's too much friction when my fingers move along them. I prefer the "rougher", matte-style touchpads.

But the gestures on that thing are interesting. I've done stuff with touchpad gestures recently. One of my laptops has got a Synaptics touch pad, and I was able to find a program that let me do the "pinch", drag, etc. gestures in Windows 2000.

I know that on Apple's laptops, they use Synaptics touchpads as well. I wonder if this is the case with the Magic Trackpad. If it is, then it should be able to work in Windows.

microsoft windows wrote:I've never cared for Apple's touchpads. They're too glossy and smooth and there's too much friction when my fingers move along them. I prefer the "rougher", matte-style touchpads.

Have you used the more recent trackpads that don't have button on them?

There is very little friction on them at all, and it's something Apple claim to have spent a lot of time and effort researching. They're actually glass rather than plastic or whatever anyone else is using.

I think multi-touch gestures are fantastic on OSX—but only when you customise them with BetterTouchTool. A lot of the standard gestures are frankly useless, and gestures in general are under-utilised in OSX. When working on a laptop with custom gestures, it can really speed things up and improve productivity.

It's a real shame that there doesn't seem to be proper driver support for any of this in Windows. I know Windows 7 is supposed to support multi-touch, but I have never seen it in action so I don't know how good it is, or isn't. I do know that Apple doesn't seem to care at all though, as even just regular trackpad movement is not handled nearly as well running Windows compared to OSX.

One thing I really dislike about the new Apple trackpads though is that the trackpad itself is the button for clicking. Over time I have found the trackpad to loosen up and it's not nearly as nice to use. I can't imagine that Apple would ever bring back a physical button, but I would much rather see them simply switch to tap-to-click only and make the trackpad a lot more sturdy as a result. I prefer to use tap-to-click on them now (I used to prefer using the button) but once the trackpad loosens up it doesn't feel so great.

Thanks for the Better Touch Tool info. It really improves an already great product (Apple Magic Trackpad). I'm looking to merge the trackpad with a keyboard mod, but I haven't figured out how to accomplish this elegantly.

Definitely get BetterTouchTool to create custom gestures and make things much more efficient.

I haven't used the magic trackpad but love the trackpad on the macbook pros. My only complaint is that they work loose over time due to the click functionality. I think they should just use tap-to-click and remove another point of failure.

It's amazing how much quicker you can perform everyday tasks with gestures. I have to say I hate the default pinch to zoom feature. I find it not only useless but actually obtrusive.

I use a pinch in to close tabs/windows, a twist left/right to switch tabs in the browser, pinch out to reload the page. Three finger tap to open a link in a tab. Four-finger swipe for exposé, five finger swipes to change spaces.

Work loose? I think I understand what you are saying. I have not had an issue nor do I know anyone who has, but if it is an inherent problem, it would certainly suck. It would be interesting to see

I have always liked touchpads..and I really like the Apple Magic...the size lets you use gestures more easily without being too big like a Wacom Bamboo. I don't notice any latency issues, but that doesn't mean they can't possibly exist at some point. I've seen a fascinating mod using 2 Apple Magics so that each finger has a "key" on the pads, left hand/right hand...really neat stuff.

Don't know if it will be an issue with the magic trackpad but on the MacBook Pros after a while when you tap to click the trackpad "rattles" a bit. When new it's solid and doesn't move at all. Has happened on more than one for me.

Non-issue if you use the physical "button" to click, but I would prefer if they moved to tap-to-click only and lost the switch under the trackpad to make it more robust.


Apple trackpads have been awesome for years now. I've never found a PC trackpad that has been remotely as good to use. I think software plays a large part too, if you boot Windows on a Mac the trackpad control is nowhere near as good as it is in OSX.

Interesting about the "work loose". Can you take it to an Apple store?

I use Windows on a Mac for some proprietary software, but that's on an iMac. I will be switching that software to my Macbook Pro soon. It makes sense that the drivers/software may not be dialed in.... bummer. Maybe a third-party offering may improve the performance?

It's just the nature of being a mechanical device, it wears over time. That's why I wish they would move towards tap-to-click only. Perhaps in the next refresh of the line. I expect we will be seeing a redesign next time around anyway. (early 2012)

Considering how touch-focused they are these days I would not be surprised if they did it. The less mechanical parts they have, the fewer points of failure there are, it would be in their interests to do so. I would be happy if they did that as much as possible. Lose the hard drive (SSD/flash) make the trackpad solid, replace the eject key with a power key (as they did with the Airs) and who needs an optical drive in 2011?


As for the trackpad, I haven't found anything great to "fix" it in Windows. It isn't terrible, but it's just not nearly as good as it is in OSX, and last time I used it, there was no multitouch support, just two-finger scrolling.

NewGuy wrote:It's just the nature of being a mechanical device, it wears over time. That's why I wish they would move towards tap-to-click only. Perhaps in the next refresh of the line. I expect we will be seeing a redesign next time around anyway. (early 2012)

I have not tested the Magic Trackpad but I have several members of my family using Mac Books Pro and I honestly think the most interesting thing in their trackpad is their clickability. Tap-to-click is an error prone feature I systematically disable when I use trackpads.

NewGuy wrote:As for the trackpad, I haven't found anything great to "fix" it in Windows. It isn't terrible, but it's just not nearly as good as it is in OSX, and last time I used it, there was no multitouch support, just two-finger scrolling.

Isn't there a driver for the trackpad in Bootcamp that should solve this issue?

VladTepes wrote:I have not tested the Magic Trackpad but I have several members of my family using Mac Books Pro and I honestly think the most interesting thing in their trackpad is their clickability. Tap-to-click is an error prone feature I systematically disable when I use trackpads.

With the old trackpads that had a button below them, and when I first switched to the new trackpad I used the click, but after a while I switched to tap-top-click and much prefer it now. Because the trackpad is much larger than most, tap-to-click hasn't been an issue for me like it has been on older trackpads.

VladTepes wrote:Isn't there a driver for the trackpad in Bootcamp that should solve this issue?

There is a bootcamp driver, but the trackpad simply doesn't work nearly as well in Windows as it does in OSX, and the driver does not appear to have multitouch support.

I think some Ubuntu developers made a Linux driver for this contraption.

I remember evince had some support for "inertial scrolling" in its source code, though I'm not sure if the feature was completed and/or enabled. If some DE embraced the magic trackpad in many apps I'd be all over it.

At work, I use a magic trackpad (on a mac) as a secondary device, left of the keyboard, while using a mouse as the primary device on the right hand side. This works great for me. (I can't see using the trackpad as the only pointing device.) The trackpad's scrolling gestures are really useful, though you can get a similar effect with certain Logitech mice with the metal free-scroll wheel.