Laptop users can be divided into two groups. Those that cling to traditional comfort of a tag-a-long mouse, and those that embrace a laptop’s portability by accepting the included trackpad. I used to be part of the tag-a-long club. I brought an Apple Pro Mouse along with my 12" PowerBook G4 wherever I went. A laptop alone was not a comfortable computing experience for me, and the lack of a mouse limited its usefulness. As a designer I could not create a accurate layout, or construct a precise Bezier curve with only a trackpad. I was under the opinion that laptops without mice were for the text entry, number crunching, and command line work. A far cry from the pursuits I wished to accomplish using my design focused Macintosh.

As a student and a freelancer my mouse carrying days continued. My laptop was the only computer I ever used, and it wasn’t until I began working as a Mac Genius for Apple that my affinity towards laptops with mice started to change.

Behind the Genius Bar you can use any computer you like as long as it is a 15" MacBook Pro. (Or a Titanium PowerBook G4 back when I was a Genius.) You share your workspace with several other Genius in a fast paced volatile customer centric environment. There is no time to plug in a mouse let alone find the space to use one. You must enter the customer’s information as fast and as accurately as possible in order to move onto the next visitor in the queue and keep everybody happy. If you don’t have good trackpad skills you will learn quickly, and in my day there was no such thing as two finger scrolling to help you out. It was my time as a Mac Genius that made me into a trackpad user. I learned all the tricks from selecting text to scroll down long webpages, to tap to click, dragging, and drag lock. What was originally alienating and uncomfortable for me turned into an extension of my fingertips. I longed for the day I could take an Apple trackpad with its emerging multi=touch technologies home to my iMac.

Apple’s Magic Trackpad is my wish come true. It has taken me past being a laptop user that prefers the mobility of a trackpad while on the go to a computer user that prefers the advantages of a trackpad over a mouse. I have a replaced the mice on all of my computers with Apple’s Magic Trackpad, and appreciate the advantages it has given my desktop computers.

With a trackpad there is no repetitive dragging. My pointing device stays anchored in one spot and unlike a mouse my arm never moves while using it. Since I am visually impaired and have to sit close to my screen to see and will often place my Magic Trackpad behind my display with my forearm resting comfortably on the desk. Without wires my Magic Trackpad can go wherever I want to put it, and never moves from that spot.

On my Magic Trackpad there is no click only tap. In fact the sound of a depressed trackpad button is painful to my ears. I prefer a silent workspace, and my trackpad doesn’t take away from that.

Drag, scroll, swipe, pinch and rotate are all familiar to me. I use my trackpad to go up, down, forward, and backward through webpages. I can switch applications with only a swipe of my fingers. Enlarging webpages and graphics is as easy as pinching and expanding my fingers. Rotating images with only two fingers is often inaccurate, but four out of five isn’t bad. In summary my Magic Trackpad can do many functions without a single button.

The feature I appreciate most about my Magic Trackpad is its minimalism. It has no wires, no buttons, and is constructed from two geometric shapes forged together. A single line defines its unblemished glass surface from its anodized aluminum base. My Magic trackpad is a beautiful part of my desk, and goes perfectly with my iMac and Apple Wireless Keyboard. I would not want to go back to anything less brilliant.