I have to admit, Apple's Magic Mouse is an acquired taste. If, when you use your mouse, you tend to place your fingers on the buttons, then you can't use this mouse, since even tiny movements can be registered as finger gestures. Well, when Apple released the Magic Trackpad years ago, I was perplexed. Why would anybody want that? I always taught that the trackpads on laptops were inherently compromises. Remember those early Mac laptops using Trackballs, and how trackballs outside of laptops waned in popularity?
Well, as a kind of odd twist, Windows 8 does work better with a trackpad than a mouse, since it depends so much on gestures to emulate a touch screen surface. And, in a strange case of Apple envy, Microsoft released the (horribly named) Wedge Touch Mouse. Also, even Logitech just released the Touchpad T650.
I still feel like a touchpad is a compromise compared to the balance a mouse provides between precision and speed. A mouse may not be amazing as a "gesture" device (excluding the Magic Mouse, scroll wheels are clunky), and configuring buttons on it is very 90s, but it's a great amazing input device. In a way, trackpads for desktops do represent a transition in user interfaces towards touch and gestures, and maybe I'm just too adamant of that destination.
Published on November 9, 2012 at 20:55 EST
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