4 ms·

There mice may suck but I am in love with the multi-touch track pad. I don't use a mouse at all anymore. For me at least they have killed the mouse. The 2 fing

by kls 16y ago

There mice may suck but I am in love with the multi-touch track pad. I don't use a mouse at all anymore. For me at least they have killed the mouse. The 2 finger slide to scroll, 3 finger slid to page up / down, 2 finger right click make it an amazing tool. My productivity has skyrocketed on the track-pad. They have now released a peripheral track-pad for desktop machines. I recommended to a friend of mine that I freelance with and he was sold almost instantly. It is night and day. Anyway, the point is I agree mice may be the one area where I prefer Microsoft's offerings to Apple's. I have never met an Apple mouse that I liked, but for me the mouse is dead I could never go back after using the track-pad. Link for those of you unfamiliar with it: http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/ http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/

TamDenholm 16y ago
This is pretty interesting, my own personal experience with trackpads on laptops have been quite poor. Not the quality of the trackpad itself just it being highly annoying having to move the mouse around with one, i always like to plug in an external mouse. One of the main things i dislike is it not naturally being on my right, obviously all laptop makers couldnt do this because of the lefties of the world. The other issue is the actual size of the trackpad on a laptop, its too small, again, not easily fixable on a laptop. So i suppose the external trackpad would solve both these problems, but until i try it out, i'm not sure if i'd like it or not. Certainly interesting though.
- powrtoch 16y ago
  You say "on a laptop" in the general sense, leading me to wonder if you've tried Mac trackpads recently. I used to feel just like you do, but Apple's trackpads honestly are vastly superior products to any others that I've used. I know this sounds like fanboyism, but that's just been my experience. FWIW, I agree completely that Apple's actual mice are awful.
- kls 16y ago
  Apple's trackpad is vastly different from a traditional trackpad. It is a multi-touch device similar to the iphone but without the display. There are no buttons the whole thing is a button. You swipe two fingers to scroll up/down click the pad to click. 2 finger click to right click, the list goes on. The point being, it is nothing like a traditional trackpad experience and for me personally it is superior to a mouse. If I used a desktop, I would use the peripheral trackpad no doubt, I could no go back to a mouse now. Another poster mentioned above that they slowly realized that they stopped using their mouse, that is what happened to me as well. One day I realized that I just never pulled my mouse out of my bag anymore. I really think Apple has done a poor job of marketing this one, as I think most that have used it would agree, it is a mouse killer. I do 3D work as a hobby from my old simulation days, and now days I use Blender, the pan, room, rotate is so natural with a trackpad it is unbelievable. And for Photoshop it is a huge productivity booster. It is also nice in an IDE where I spend most of my time because you can navigate select and modify all in single hand stroke. If they ever add gestures for copy / paste I won't know what to do with myself.
JunkDNA 16y ago
Same here. I have despised trackpads on all windows pc's I've owned over the years. I always carried around a little wireless laptop mouse for use away from my desk. When I switched to Mac at work, I realized I never had the urge to use a mouse while away from my desk. That's when I started paying attention to how good the trackpad really is. Even when I work from home for an entire day, I don't connect a mouse. I wonder how long it will be before Apple stops making mice entirely and switches completely to touch-based input. I suspect that time is not far away.
teilo 16y ago
The Magic Trackpad + BetterTouchTool is a great combination. I absolutely love the 3-finger drag. Use it all the time. With BetterTouchTool I now have 3-finger clicks for middle-clicks, and 4-finger swipes for Spaces. Tons more gestures are possible, but this is enough for my purposes. Having the touchpad off to the side rather than in front of the keyboard makes all the difference in the world. I quickly found myself more productive on it, then on my venerable Kensington Expertmouse trackball (which is now reserved for games).
- kls 16y ago
  I did not know about BetterTouchTool, wow thanks a lot for cluing me into that one. Just when I thought it could not get any better. The one that was killing me was not being able to set gestures because I would love to have copy / past. I can have it now.

by kls 16y ago

TamDenholm 16y ago

This is pretty interesting, my own personal experience with trackpads on laptops have been quite poor. Not the quality of the trackpad itself just it being highly annoying having to move the mouse around with one, i always like to plug in an external mouse. One of the main things i dislike is it not naturally being on my right, obviously all laptop makers couldnt do this because of the lefties of the world. The other issue is the actual size of the trackpad on a laptop, its too small, again, not easily fixable on a laptop. So i suppose the external trackpad would solve both these problems, but until i try it out, i'm not sure if i'd like it or not. Certainly interesting though.

powrtoch 16y ago
You say "on a laptop" in the general sense, leading me to wonder if you've tried Mac trackpads recently. I used to feel just like you do, but Apple's trackpads honestly are vastly superior products to any others that I've used. I know this sounds like fanboyism, but that's just been my experience. FWIW, I agree completely that Apple's actual mice are awful.
kls 16y ago
Apple's trackpad is vastly different from a traditional trackpad. It is a multi-touch device similar to the iphone but without the display. There are no buttons the whole thing is a button. You swipe two fingers to scroll up/down click the pad to click. 2 finger click to right click, the list goes on. The point being, it is nothing like a traditional trackpad experience and for me personally it is superior to a mouse. If I used a desktop, I would use the peripheral trackpad no doubt, I could no go back to a mouse now. Another poster mentioned above that they slowly realized that they stopped using their mouse, that is what happened to me as well. One day I realized that I just never pulled my mouse out of my bag anymore. I really think Apple has done a poor job of marketing this one, as I think most that have used it would agree, it is a mouse killer. I do 3D work as a hobby from my old simulation days, and now days I use Blender, the pan, room, rotate is so natural with a trackpad it is unbelievable. And for Photoshop it is a huge productivity booster. It is also nice in an IDE where I spend most of my time because you can navigate select and modify all in single hand stroke. If they ever add gestures for copy / paste I won't know what to do with myself.

JunkDNA 16y ago

Same here. I have despised trackpads on all windows pc's I've owned over the years. I always carried around a little wireless laptop mouse for use away from my desk. When I switched to Mac at work, I realized I never had the urge to use a mouse while away from my desk. That's when I started paying attention to how good the trackpad really is. Even when I work from home for an entire day, I don't connect a mouse. I wonder how long it will be before Apple stops making mice entirely and switches completely to touch-based input. I suspect that time is not far away.

teilo 16y ago

The Magic Trackpad + BetterTouchTool is a great combination. I absolutely love the 3-finger drag. Use it all the time. With BetterTouchTool I now have 3-finger clicks for middle-clicks, and 4-finger swipes for Spaces. Tons more gestures are possible, but this is enough for my purposes. Having the touchpad off to the side rather than in front of the keyboard makes all the difference in the world. I quickly found myself more productive on it, then on my venerable Kensington Expertmouse trackball (which is now reserved for games).

kls 16y ago
I did not know about BetterTouchTool, wow thanks a lot for cluing me into that one. Just when I thought it could not get any better. The one that was killing me was not being able to set gestures because I would love to have copy / past. I can have it now.