Reviews for Magic Trackpad

I've already got a Magic Mouse, and that's been great, but I have been thinking of upgrading to a Wacom style pen & tablet.

I discovered the Magic Trackpad on the Apple Store, and thought that could be the best of both worlds: ease of use of a mouse and the precision of the pen & tablet.

I have been using the Magic Trackpad for a few hours now, and slowly getting used to it; also lots of tweaking of the options in the control panel too!

The two issues I've noticed so far:

1. The incline of the pad itself. I know it matches the keyboard nicely, but that tilt is making my wrists hurt already. I've put a platform under it to raise the lower edge to ease the strain, and that seems to be working.

2. It's not as precise as I can be on my mouse, although my fingers aren't fat, it does require some accuracy to pin point the Bezier point, or click a tiny radio button, etc. I'm now using an iPad stylus on it and that seems to work brilliantly!

3. Possibly some kind of pressure settings could be added, as the pad can detect my finger just hovering above it. It's truly amazing, but I'm constantly selecting stuff I don't want to or swiping pages online by mistake!

Over all though it's an excellent purchase. Not a bad price too.

Ok, I've had the trackpad for six months now and it's a nice piece of engineering. I like the scrolling and tracking speed and its other functions are great. BUT... it's so pressure sensitive!! Tracking and scrolling can be adjusted but not the pressure. It's so frustrating because I find that I have to be extremely careful not to rest my fingers on the pad. If I do, pages disappear into the ether, or other functions come on the screen. Also the pressure required to operate it seems to vary of its own accord. In spite of these gripes I still like it and if it wasn't for the pressure issue I would have given it 5 stars.
Experiment with it at the store before buying.

This is a brilliant bit of kit, (must admit though anything will the apple logo on it i love!!!) but it is, i love using a track pad, and even though used a mouse all my life, (except with laptops) i have found it a little strange / uncomfortable. i love it, and very easy to get use to using it, still getting to know the gesturers though,

I have already written a review under another Apple ID, written too soon after purchase to be really valid. My main criticism then was that it was too sensitive when using touch to click - would be better if the sensitivity here could be user-adjusted. This comment still stands - hence 4 rather than 5 stars.

Several months on, I'm getting used to it, and I like it, but I still keep my mouse and use it often, mainly for Finder file-organising tasks, when the trackpad can be too unpredictable in its drag-and-drop mode. However, I have recently discovered that careful settings of prefs helps a lot - I had assumed that the Apple defaults (every option ticked) would be a Good Thing, and I just needed to get used to the Apple recommended way of doing things...... but the one "feature" that I find very counter-intuitive is Drag Lock; if this is selected, you have to click AGAIN to "drop" something - lifting your finger off doesn't do anything (in the way that a mouse works). This gives very awkward behaviour when moving files into folders. Deselecting this behaviour greatly improves things.

So, I will keep the faith - for now!

As I only use the Trackpad on my iBook I thought I would have a look at this product at the apple store in MK as an addition to my iMac.

Quick demo later and I had purchased it. Got it home enable Bluetooth on my iMac completed the software update and there it was installed, easy.

Have spent the evening playing with all the option and watching the clever little demo video of the function you highlight within the Trackpad settings in system preference and after finding the options that suit me, it is basically setup like my iBook. The Tap to click function is on (using the surface of the Pad) so I am not using the built in switches for most options only holding it down to drag.

I have not touched the mouse in about 5hrs on the iMac so I think for me its the way to go; is it the end of the mouse after 25 years of computing, possibly.

I have the Magic Trackpad on my Mac at work and I love it. I find it very comfortable to use. The tracking is of course less accurate than a mouse, but that is more than made up for by the multi-touch gestures. I will not be buying one of these for my Mac at home, however. As with most other Apple products, this device is grossly overpriced in my opinion. £40 would be a reasonable price. A quid short of £60 is not.

A very good product. nice size, so useful to have the trackpad in a natural position to the side, and not in front with the built in laptop one. It lives up the mac book pro trackpad, does all the famous apple stuff, non of which windows laptops seem to come close to.

Reservations:
1) I need to use it longer as it points down and forces you wrist at a upward angle.
2) It uses bluetooth and not wireless, this is major disadvantage for both useage and battery life.
3) Apple still hasnt introduced the idea of allowing customer gestures which would be nice, like a lot of application which support mouse gestures.


overall impressed, does what it says on the tin in true apple mac style.

I got to say after you get past the terrible setting up stage and putting it to your own settings.

Then yes it is a whole lot better than the mouse!!! also unlike the mouse don't get soar wrist which is a bonus and overall it works great. Mastering the speed and settings is probably the biggest hurdles but like everyone else I can see why this could make the mouse history and if the other computer systems are going to copy it in some way.

For it raises the game and makes surfing a lot easier!

I echo the comments of earlier users who say that this item needs a sensitivity control. I find my desktop constantly shrinking and expanding, and also find that I have selected an item that I didn't intend to. This thing is hypersensitive, while meanwhile the pad on my Macbook Pro is under-sensitive, so some kind of sensitivity adjustment would really be welcome. All that being said, I find that the Magic Trackpad is far less damaging to the wrist than the Magic Mouse, which was already a step ahead of all other interfaces. The amount of motion you have to do is minimal to achieve almost any command. Also it is nice to unify the interface between your laptop and your desktop if you happen to own both and migrate between them, which I do with great regularity. Overall I would say it is a big plus, which is why I have awarded four stars. If some sort of response control could be added to the mix, I would have to click that coveted fifth star. Overall, very pleased. By the way, I have to believe that the reviewers who got zero results from the Magic Trackpad failed to install the update required. Note that the update only works with the latest system, and it does not automatically appear in Software Update - - you need to specifically navigate to Apple's software updates on the Support page to find it. This is somewhat out of order with Apple's usual way of doing things; it would be nice if it could detect this new hardware piece and conjure up the correct software update. However, there is a little sticker on your brand new Trackpad that directs you to the correct URL.