Magic Trackpad an excellent mouse alternative

The Magic Trackpad, a wireless, stand-alone input device, may be the most simply designed object Apple has ever developed. It's a flat surface, measuring 5.2 inches square (providing a surface area that's 80 percent larger than the MacBook Pro's trackpad), and angled slightly by a tubular base at the top that holds two AA batteries and internal electronics.

At first glance, it looks like a notepad with all the paper removed, or a metal riser for a laptop or iPad. If you own an Apple Wireless Keyboard, the Magic Trackpad matches up next to it in shape and appearance, as if the two were always connected.

It's not so simple underneath the wear-resistant glass surface, making the Magic Trackpad more than just another input device. It supports the same Multi-Touch gestures Apple introduced on its laptop trackpads, such as touching the surface with two fingers and turning them to rotate a photo in iPhoto, or swiping left or right with three fingers to go back or forward through your Web browsing history in Safari.

The entire surface also serves as a button that you can click; the two rubber feet at the bottom act as the button mechanism, so you can use the Magic Trackpad just as you would a laptop trackpad.

However, I find myself forgetting to use it as a button, preferring instead to tap the surface with one finger to click, or tapping twice to double-click. I've also relied on a few other essential gestures on my MacBook Pro that will be new to desktop users.

For example, tapping once with two fingers brings up a contextual menu (the equivalent to pressing Control and clicking).

And once you've started dragging with two fingers to scroll, you'll never go back to a mouse's scroll wheel. The trackpad software provides inertial scrolling, too, which brings the iOS's artificial scrolling physics: swipe with two fingers, and a long document or Web page scrolls, slows, then comes to a halt.

The software also adds a new, appealing gesture: Drag with three fingers to grab something and move it. I've never gotten used to the tap-to-drag gesture, also available. The Magic Trackpad communicates with the Mac via a Bluetooth wireless connection. I haven't had the unit long enough to gauge its battery consumption, but you're burning batteries to operate it. (There is no wired option.)

The device ships with two standard AA alkaline batteries, but Apple also released the Apple Battery Charger, which includes six NiMH (nickel metal hydride) AA batteries. The news here isn't the batteries themselves, although Apple claims they discharge less quickly and can have a useful life of eight to 10 years; the charger itself pulls much less power (30 milliwatts) once the batteries are charged compared to other battery chargers.

For most uses, the Magic Trackpad is an excellent replacement for a mouse if you prefer using your fingers and want to take advantage of the gestures. However, it's not a complete replacement.

I tried to use the Magic Trackpad with Adobe InDesign CS5 and Adobe Photoshop CS5, but had little success utilizing it as a primary input device. It's just so much faster and easier to use a mouse, especially when making precise adjustments.

It does do a fair job as an accessory in those applications, however, such as for zooming in and out of images or pages, or rotating the canvas in Photoshop. The trackpad, which sells for $69, works fine alongside other devices, so you don't need to choose just one.

In a sense, the Magic Trackpad really is just another input device: If you're already happy using a mouse, it's not a compelling peripheral. But if you want to take advantage of Multi-Touch gestures on a desktop computer, it's a stylish and solid implementation.

It's also a fascinating addition to the Apple hardware lineup. The company is embracing gestures in a big way, via the iOS and increasingly more in Mac OS X. I imagine Apple's developers are actively looking into how they can incorporate gestures in all of their software in interesting ways.

Jeff Carlson and Glenn Fleishman write the Practical Mac column for Personal Technology and about technology in general for The Seattle Times and other publications. Send questions to carlsoncolumn@mac.com. More Practical Mac columns at www.seattletimes.com/ columnists.