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Magic? Meh… But It Is A Nice Desktop Trackpad, and It Is The Future

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010  |  Tom Carmony

Apple's new Magic Trackpad

Apple’s latest round of product announcements included a range of updates to existing lines such as the iMac, the MacPro and LED Cinema Displays. But mixed in amongst those heavy hitters was the introduction of a new desktop-based input peripheral, the Magic Trackpad.

Yes. We’ve got yet another “magical” Apple gadget.

Following the Magic Mouse and the magical experience of the iPhone 4 (am I missing anything else?), the Magic Trackpad brings the multi-touch capabilities of Apple’s current notebook computers to the desktop. This new trackpad is reportedly 80% larger (seems about right) than the trackpad on the MacBook Pro, and offers all of the same multi-touch functionality as Apple’s portable devices. From the comfort of your desk.

So is the experience truly magical? That’s probably a bit much. Will Mac users be abandoning their mice in droves? Some most certainly will. Is this a sign of things to come? Absolutely.

Look, from performance and functionality standpoint, anyone who has used a recent MacBook or MacBook Pro (all of which incorporate at least some degree of multi-touch via their trackpads) knows what you’re getting here. The Magic Trackpad works as advertised. Paired with the recent Safari 5.0.1 update and the multi-touch software update that Apple pushed out yesterday, it brings some fun new touches (pun intended) to the desktop computing experience. The inclusion of inertia scrolling (vertical scrolling that slows down at the tail-end of a scroll, mimicking natural momentum), is a particularly nice feature.

I picked one up at our local Apple Store Wednesday evening (the last one on the shelves) and have been playing with it throughout the evening. I can definitely see using the device for the majority of my non-keyboard input, but not exclusively. Despite it’s strengths, a multi-touch trackpad simply can’t replicate the degree of precision capable with a high-end laser mouse. As a designer, there are tasks that require this level of precision, and for those, out comes the Magic Mouse. But for day-to-day use (email, web browsing, most app functionality), the Magic Trackpad will work like a charm.

The key takeaway here is all about forward thinking. The Magic Trackpad is another step in Apple’s slow and steady transition of our computing experience to touch. The touch experience began with the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007, followed since by the iPod Touch, multi-touch trackpads on the MacBooks and MacBook Pros, the (multi-touch) Magic Mouse, the introduction of the iPad, and now the Magic Trackpad. Steve Job, Apple and its design team are slowly but surely evolving the everyday computing experience of the typical consumer away from the 25-year-old keyboard/mouse combination and toward a multi-touch based input environment.

Does that mean the mouse’s days are numbered? No. There will always be markets for the precision control provided by a mouse. Designers, visual artists and gamers need that level of precision. For them, there will probably always be some iteration of a mouse input device marketed by someone (however niche that product may become).

But for the general consumer? Five years from now, the typical consumer’s computing experience will be almost entirely touch-based. And Apple is leading the way.

 
 

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