More Means for Multitouch
New options for Macs and PCs ease navigating on screen.
Feb. 11, 2010— -- If you've used a recent MacBook trackpad, an iPhone, a Palm Pre, Microsoft's Zune HD, or one of several new all-in-one PCs running Windows 7, you are probably familiar with the concept of "multitouch," the ability to use multiple fingers simultaneously to achieve different tasks.
For example, when looking at a photo or Web page on an iPhone, one can "pinch" the image using two fingers to zoom in or shrink the image, and "spread" two fingers to zoom out or magnify the image.
Until now, it has been difficult to add multitouch functionality to computers that don't have it included on their screens or trackpads -- though Dell, for example, recently began shipping a multitouch monitor.
Now, there are two less-expensive devices that can have you pinching and swiping like a thief stealing diamond dust.
Apple's Magic Mouse is the follow-up to its Mighty Mouse that introduced the notion of not having distinct buttons for left and right clicks.
Now, Apple has taken that design to the next level by making nearly the whole surface of the mouse (at least that part above the Apple logo) a multitouch surface.
That means that, in addition to using the mouse to move the cursor around the screen, you can drag two fingers across the top of the mouse to scroll through Web pages, large photos or other documents, even spreadsheets.
For those who have some trouble seeing small objects on the screen, holding down the control key and swiping one finger down the surface of the mouse allows one to zoom in to a point on the screen and then zoom back out by control-swiping up.
Magic Mouse cannot be squeezed to activate Expose or other Mac features. And in order to make its surface more trackpad-like, the Magic Mouse has a low, flat surface; it may be the lowest mouse ever shipped with a PC.
I found using it to be more comfortable and efficient than Mighty Mouse overall, but feel free to test drive one at an Apple Store to see if it works for you.
Alas, there are no pinching and spreading gestures as there are on the iPhone or Mac trackpad, and there's even less than that on a PC, where the Magic Mouse loses its magical powers and functions as just an ordinary mouse.
