Well, Apple’s laptop introduction yesterday was an incremental step forward. The devices look great, but any leap forward in laptops will have to wait.
They did do something subtle and brilliant, though. I’ve been moaning for decades about the absence of a proper second mouse button on Apple’s computers. With the new MacBooks, Apple found a way to add a second button without desecrating the precious industrial design. The track pad itself is a real, physical, press-it-and-it-clicks button. Press it with one finger and it’s a regular click. Press with two fingers for the right-click operations. (There’s a chance that there will be a lot of false right clicks, if the user fails to assiduously lift all other fingers before clicking. Something to look out for.)
Another great side effect of combining the mouse button with a multi-touch panel is that it greatly simplifies clicking and dragging when using a trackpad. Before, this was a two-handed operation, one hand pressing and holding the button, and the other one doing the drag. Now, the user can press and drag with one finger. It’s more direct, and it neutralizes one of the advantages of an external mouse, which had this capability ever since Englebart’s day.
Combining the mouse button with a multi-touch panel has other potential. Double-clicking, still difficult for many users, can go away: instead, click with three fingers. Triple clicking was always pretty ridiculous, but the equivalent, click with four fingers, is more tolerable. You can zoom, pan, change the volume, scrub a video, by pressing with multiple fingers and dragging horizontally, vertically or diagonally. These are my off-the-cuff thoughts, not what’s been announced. Apple says:
The amazing new trackpad doubles as a button — just press down anywhere and consider it clicked. No separate button means there’s 39 percent more room for your fingers to move on the silky glass surface. Now that Multi-Touch gestures have come to MacBook, all the function is in your fingers. Use two fingers to scroll up and down a page. Pinch to zoom in and out. Swipe with three fingers to flip through your photo libraries. Rotate to adjust an image with your fingertips. Using the new four-finger swipe gesture, swipe up or down to access Exposé modes and left or right to switch between open applications. If you’re coming from a right-click world, you can right-click with two fingers or configure a right-click area on the trackpad. The more you use the Multi-Touch trackpad, the more you’ll wonder what you ever did without it.
(By the way, is it possible to use a stylus with the conductive glass touchpad?)
There’s only one little issue. Most of us use our laptops on a desk, right? And most of the time when working at a desk a mouse is still preferable, right? So all this track pad goodness is only an occasional benefit, until the future mouse is invented. [Update 10/21/09 The future mouse has been invented.]
Perhaps if the new trackpad is such a huge win, a 3rd party company (or dare I say even Apple) will come out with a USB version of it. Especially if they could make a paper-thin version and use a force-feedback device (perhaps some sort of Piezoelectric material) to simulate a physical click when pressed. I find my finger has much more dexterity and precision than my whole hand moving a mouse. I’d buy one.