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From: Ben Shimmin on 2 Aug 2010 03:49
Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk>:
> James Dore <james.dore(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>> It's great, and nicer to use than the touchpad on the MacBook Pro, as it
>> is more sensitive to tap-to-click, and the actual button click action is
>> softer. The multitouch gestures are really useful, but there aren't enough
>> of them! I want clicks on three (for Spaces) and four fingers (Desktop).
>
> OK, well, I went and tried one, and was sold on it. It is still wireless
> but there isn't anything else like it around so i got one.
>
> It is great for the desktop, really great.
>
> Still need a mouse to play starcraft II though!

I just don't get it. How is it better than a mouse in general usage?

I love the trackpad on my MacBook Pro -- it's the best trackpad I've ever
used on a laptop, by a country mile -- but I'd still rather use a mouse.
Yes, the gestures are quite handy, but they don't make up for the
control and finesse that a mouse provides and a trackpad, for me, lacks.

Do I have to try one to see what the fuss is about?

b.

--
<bas(a)bas.me.uk> <URL:http://bas.me.uk/>
`Zombies are defined by behavior and can be "explained" by many handy
shortcuts: the supernatural, radiation, a virus, space visitors,
secret weapons, a Harvard education and so on.' -- Roger Ebert
From: Ian Piper on 2 Aug 2010 04:32
On 2010-08-02 08:49:48 +0100, Ben Shimmin <bas(a)llamaselector.com> said:

> I just don't get it. How is it better than a mouse in general usage?
>
> I love the trackpad on my MacBook Pro -- it's the best trackpad I've ever
> used on a laptop, by a country mile -- but I'd still rather use a mouse.
> Yes, the gestures are quite handy, but they don't make up for the
> control and finesse that a mouse provides and a trackpad, for me, lacks.
>
> Do I have to try one to see what the fuss is about?

I agree - I use the trackpad on my MBP but I find a mouse much more
practical: it does seem a little perverse to bolt a trackpad onto a
machine that doesn't need one.


Ian.
--
Ian Piper
Author of "Learn Xcode Tools for Mac OS X and iPhone Development",
Apress, December 2009
Learn more here: http://learnxcodebook.com/�
--�

From: James Dore on 2 Aug 2010 05:10
On Mon, 02 Aug 2010 08:49:48 +0100, Ben Shimmin <bas(a)llamaselector.com>
wrote:

> Woody <usenet(a)alienrat.co.uk>:
>> James Dore <james.dore(a)new.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> It's great, and nicer to use than the touchpad on the MacBook Pro, as
>>> it
>>> is more sensitive to tap-to-click, and the actual button click action
>>> is
>>> softer. The multitouch gestures are really useful, but there aren't
>>> enough
>>> of them! I want clicks on three (for Spaces) and four fingers
>>> (Desktop).
>>
>> OK, well, I went and tried one, and was sold on it. It is still wireless
>> but there isn't anything else like it around so i got one.
>>
>> It is great for the desktop, really great.
>>
>> Still need a mouse to play starcraft II though!
>
> I just don't get it. How is it better than a mouse in general usage?
>
> I love the trackpad on my MacBook Pro -- it's the best trackpad I've ever
> used on a laptop, by a country mile -- but I'd still rather use a mouse.
> Yes, the gestures are quite handy, but they don't make up for the
> control and finesse that a mouse provides and a trackpad, for me, lacks.
>
> Do I have to try one to see what the fuss is about?

It's entirely subjective, but for me, the fact that I don't have to move
my elbow or wrist very much are the main things. I can't use mice for any
great length of time (as in, more than ten minutes) as they give me pains
in the arm. I have used a static trackball since Logitech made the perfect
one (Trackman wheel), even going as far as having an ADB version sent to
me by a mate in the US (not sold here at the time). But, I am a big user
of multi-touch. Personally, I think it is the most awesome development in
UI I can recall. Now, I'm not doing precise things much of the time, and I
can see where a mouse or stylus would be advantageous when doing things
like graphics work, but then I might up the zoom level a bit, and increase
accuracy that way. So, it's not a panacea that will suit all - no HID is -
but it is a significant step forward. SWMBO at home was initially very
anti - but two days later, she got used to it, and when it dawned that it
worked just like the iPhone, it all made sense. Suddenly not having to go
to the scroll bars, or forwards/backwards, have made a real difference.
Pinch/Zoom and Rotate are brilliant. As you learn more multiple-finger
combinations, it makes more and more sense, in a way that multiple mouse
buttons don't, since your fingers don't need to be in the right place for
them to work. I always found that multi-buttoned mice (or trackballs in my
case) never quite had the buttons in the right place. In the case of the
Magic Mouse, I actively dislike the side button(s) - where you pinch the
mouse to do something. It activated too frequently s I just moved the
mouse, so I always turned it off. There's no problem with this on the
trackpad, and your fingers don't have to find the buttons, or the areas
deignated for them, which might just be out of your natural reach. It is
enough that there are one, two, three or four contact areas [1] on the
pad, their relative position is unimportant.

There are a couple of immediate advantages: One of the problems with
trackpads is the limited space, and that there is no direct positional
relationship between your finger and the position of the cursor on screen
- putting your finger at certain coordinates does not put the pointer
there, IYSWIM. This has been a problem when dragging or scrolling items,
previously. If you reached the edge of the trackpad, you had to lift your
finger (dropping the dragged item) and reposition. Certain kludges exist,
such as Drag Lock or making things 'sticky' so that they were only
released by the cursor when you clicked again. I found this less than
smooth, and it was less good than mouse or trackball behaviour, where you
could pick up the mouse with one hand while keeping the button held, thus
keeping hold of your dragged item while repositioning the mouse.

Magic Trackpad - or maybe multitouch - does away with this. Dragging can
be a two-fingered operation, with one finger keeping the item held, while
the other moves it. Your first finger can remain static and the second
finger moves the selection: You don't run out of trackpad space, you don't
drop the item, and there is no clunkiness with Drag Lock or Stickiness.

You really do have to try it to see it working. What I have taken ten
minutes trying to describe (poorly) will be obvious in an instant when you
get your fingers on one.

[1] - We had a presentation from Apple at our recent Oxford IT Support
Staff conference, where they were talking about multitouch. One of the
throwaway comments that intruiged me was that " we have eleven possible
contact areas in our multitouch toolkit, our competitors have at most
three." So: that's all ten fingers aaaaannnnnd......?!

Cheers,
James
--
Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
From: Woody on 2 Aug 2010 05:50
Ian Piper <ianpiper(a)mac.com> wrote:
> On 2010-08-02 08:49:48 +0100, Ben Shimmin <bas(a)llamaselector.com>
> said:
>
>> I just don't get it. How is it better than a mouse in general usage?
>>> I love the trackpad on my MacBook Pro -- it's the best trackpad I've
> > > ever
>> used on a laptop, by a country mile -- but I'd still rather use a
> > mouse.
>> Yes, the gestures are quite handy, but they don't make up for the
>> control and finesse that a mouse provides and a trackpad, for me,
> > lacks.
>>> Do I have to try one to see what the fuss is about?
>
> I agree - I use the trackpad on my MBP but I find a mouse much more
> practical: it does seem a little perverse to bolt a trackpad onto a
> machine that doesn't need one.

Maybe it is one thing that you do have to try it yourself.
It is really good on the iMac, I am completely sold on it. You forget
about most of the user interface, you can application switch, scroll
both ways, select and all those other things in a way which is so much
more natural than a mouse (which is impressive as it is an interface
designed for mice).

--
Woody
From: Ben Shimmin on 2 Aug 2010 10:07
James Dore <james.dore(a)new.ox.ac.uk>:

[...]

> You really do have to try it to see it working. What I have taken ten
> minutes trying to describe (poorly) will be obvious in an instant when you
> get your fingers on one.

Thanks very much for taking the time to write this.

I do agree that the multitouch stuff (scrolling on web pages in
particular) does sound very handy when I think about. The only problem
for me is that I do sometimes use drawing packages (Illustrator and Flash
in particular, and sometimes Photoshop too), so it may not be a good fit
for me all of the time.

I will give one a whirl next time I'm brave/wealthy enough to set foot
inside an Apple store.

> [1] - We had a presentation from Apple at our recent Oxford IT Support
> Staff conference, where they were talking about multitouch. One of the
> throwaway comments that intruiged me was that " we have eleven possible
> contact areas in our multitouch toolkit, our competitors have at most
> three." So: that's all ten fingers aaaaannnnnd......?!

Fnarr.

b.

--
<bas(a)bas.me.uk> <URL:http://bas.me.uk/>
`Zombies are defined by behavior and can be "explained" by many handy
shortcuts: the supernatural, radiation, a virus, space visitors,
secret weapons, a Harvard education and so on.' -- Roger Ebert
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