MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On - Gizmodo Comments

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

mac4drew — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:35:29 EST

@WorkingOnYourInvoice: The one I played with today was actually the 80GB HDD model. I'm not sure if they had any SSD models on the floor.

I didn't notice any lag on the sample image I played with, although it seemed to be a medium sized image. I was personally impressed with the rotation and zooming. Three finger flipping actually works well too... and I see the point to it. But if you don't like the MBP touchpad you probably won't like this.

And I believe the main selling point is going to be the size/weight on this thing... it's shocking when you actually see it in real life and pick it up.

mac4drew

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

what0080 — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:08:10 EST

Will it work w/ Photoshop?

what0080

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

roker — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:30:36 EST

Hey gary, I'd do that, but my pinky would take up the entire space. maybe if I had the fingers of a 3 year old. Do you like little boys?

roker

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

gary_slamson. — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 23:40:03 EST

why don't you multi-touch my dick?

gary_slamson.

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

redkamel — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:50:54 EST

yeah gestures on a trackpad suck. I still dont like my friends new MBP trackpad. I liked scrolling with the edges using 3rd party software. and I dont need to flip though pictures with three fingers...its easier just to push the arrow button Steve.

redkamel

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

gtfo — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:55:37 EST

I'd rather use the scroll wheel on my mouse to zoom rather than try to awkwardly move my fingers around to manipulate a laggy interface.

gtfo

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

jbnyclax — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:46:10 EST

I think you guys have missed the target audience. Like an iPod, the idea is for this to be with you all the time. So light is more important. End users who are not technical (most of them) never replace batteries (Apple has mastered marketing built-in obsolescence so people will replace this before the battery wears out). If you are a person who thought about the original iPod - no search interface? a wheel is just too slow to cruise my 10,000 song collection, then you are not the customer for the MBair.

And you're missing the larger strategy - Apple not Google - is THE force behind cloud computing. .mac accounts, Time Capsule, remote drive, wireless, etc., solve many of the problems you mention. Battery died? No sweat, go to an Apple store, buy/swap a new machine and restore your last backup. Done.

That is what a college student would want. Or my mom. Not a savvy IT guy.

jbnyclax

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

Bokusatsu_Tenshi — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:31:19 EST

Maybe I'm going against the river here, but really... I'd rather use a mouse scroll, scrollpad or even click on zooming buttons than use the gestures and touchpad for it.

You have to turn your hand on an awkward and unconfortable position. And it's not much precise too.

I see the point for devices such as iPhone or iPod... but for a laptop? Only if it had a touchscreen.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

Jonn — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:50:08 EST

Excellent. One step closer to that crappy MacBoard mockup I did a few weeks back.

"Crappy" refers to the mockup, I mean. I would probably buy a real one in a second, as long as it supported my Wacom pen and mouse. Or at least was pressure sensitive.

Jonn

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

EDENe — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:23:56 EST

Not too bad...

I have to say i never liked Apple's touchpad... Having one button is already a big problem, but I don't like their two-finger scrolling. I found it isn't that simple to switching from one finger to two fingers.

I prefer virtual scrolling (i.e. you use the right-edge of the touchpad and simply slide up and down your finger). Since most image viewers use mouse wheels as zoom-in and -out (and other programs with Ctrl), you can use virtual scrolling to zoom-in and -out the picture. I'm trying to pinch my touchpad, and it's not that simple movement. And.. to move around the picture, just double-tap and drag?

And for back and forward, three-fingers? Yuk...

I think Apple's application of this technology wasn't that brilliant. I'll see how Apple augments this technology.

EDENe

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

lpranal — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:54:18 EST

Hmm... any reason this can't work on a macbook pro? They've got multi-touch gestures already (sort of)

lpranal

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

pek — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 17:13:20 EST

rotfl

intel-prototype-ripoff

pek

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

mrface — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:35:09 EST

I like the Apple guy's answer when asked for the price. "$1799. Amazing price."

Well I sure am amazed.

mrface

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

lianna_g — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:13:50 EST

I think the Macbook Air, great name by the way, is a really sexy notebook. I think it defines the category-or at least sets the standard for ultra-portables. It's simply stunning.

The multitouch leaves me cold though ... there's nothing it can do that can't be done quicker and with more fine control than with the keyboard and the mouse.

lianna_g

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

Spy — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:06:00 EST

Just release the f*&^*$ update so I can zoom with my macbook. Sure my trackpads small but it could still do it. Dammnit apple, why can't you just do something for the people instead of for your pocketbooks? You already have exclusive rights to all your manufacturing.

Spy

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

workingonyourinvoice — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:57:30 EST

@luxera: It's called free will. You should try it sometime, you might even like it.
There is a very large segment of Apple users that have been waiting for this for years.

workingonyourinvoice

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

thechansen — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:54:43 EST

I had the money for a macbook pro saved for a while and a $500 gift card on top of that. I needed a laptop, I wanted slim and small. I can use my home computer for the power-processing. This just needs iWork and web.

thechansen

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

DjCytosol — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:52:54 EST

Anyone else wonder with the enlarged Touchpad where are your palms supposed to rest while you type? Hmm maybe directly on the touch pad to cause some nice unwanted actions. Viva el Jobs. Bastard I wanted a multi-touch tablet.

DjCytosol

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

mangochutney — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:51:44 EST

@luxera: Of course they do. If you have an iMac or a Mac Pro sitting at home then this is your notebook.
Like distantboy accurately put it in his comment: The MacBook Air is a "device". It is merely an extension, no full-fledged notebook.

mangochutney

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

luxera — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:43:38 EST

Wait wait wait, some of you are pre-ordering this thing already?

luxera

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

mangochutney — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:37:12 EST

@Accordion: ok, you were first, I needed more words :)

mangochutney

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

mangochutney — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:36:35 EST

There's one thing I'm wondering about:

Is this actually a capacitive touchpad, or is it a slightly bigger ordinary touchpad, with just a bit of software behind it.

It seems to me, that they simply enhanced the old touchpads, because they already could handle two-finger operations.
If this is the case, then a sw-upgrade could bring all these shiny new features to the existing MacBooks.

mangochutney

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

Accordion — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:33:36 EST

… so when are we going to get this gesture functions in the regular macbook and macbook pro.

Accordion

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

yoshi — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:27:54 EST

Wow. Not impressed at all. One giant step back for multitouch kind.

yoshi

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

workingonyourinvoice — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:27:02 EST

@thechansen: Ha! I wish you the best of luck with that near future SSD upgrade.

workingonyourinvoice

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

Skeptical_Geezer — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:26:30 EST

I can't tell ANYTHING from this video. The touch gestures and screen were never shown at the same time.

Skeptical_Geezer

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

thechansen — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:23:27 EST

@WorkingOnYourInvoice:
Got the external superdrive, 1.8 GHZ, and went with stock 80 GB PATA, but I'll be looking for a 32 GB SSD I can slap in there...

thechansen

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

weatherman — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:22:30 EST

At first I thought the multitouch was a great idea. The more I see of it, the less I'm impressed. If the device has a keyboard, I'm not sure I see the point - it just look awkward to use.

weatherman

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

workingonyourinvoice — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:18:49 EST

@thechansen: You, sir, are a friend of mine. And the SJRDF antenna was seriously upgraded for this keynote, so don't feel too bad.

workingonyourinvoice

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

thechansen — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:16:22 EST

@WorkingOnYourInvoice:

Cancel the order? You're high. And I'm drunk on the Kool Aid. Rational thoughts like "under-specced" "gimmicky multi-touch" "fucking battery mess" are all tucked neatly into the back of my mind and forgotten. I'll just carry a jump starter with a DC to AC convertor. Problem solved.

thechansen

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

Husher — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:11:45 EST

i figured this ,but did anyone else hear him say that 5 hour battery life was for the ssd devices?
even with duel core cpu it lags?

Husher

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

forcetrainer — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:10:04 EST

@Zodiack: Agreed. I always carry a little mouse with me if I know I'm going to away from my desk with my laptop.

forcetrainer

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

workingonyourinvoice — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:06:44 EST

@thechansen: It'll take you 5 seconds to cancel the order... But you won't, will you..?
@Husher: 4200rpm could lag a big megapixel image. Knowing Apple, they probably had the $3k model out for demo.
Now that I've watched the video, though, it looks like they were doing the 3 finger thing wrong. I think the pad was getting confused. You're supposed to keep the fingers horizontal, and his were vertical.

workingonyourinvoice

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

Zodiack — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:02:39 EST

I never use a touch pad on a laptop unless I'm forced to. Stupid things cramp my hand.

Zodiack

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

thechansen — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:59:23 EST

multitouch pad = great and all but whatever. my preorder is in. but now I'm having a BIG FUCKING DOUBT about this thing. Which sucks because I didn't even think about it when I hit order...... MACBOOK AIR BATTERY REPLACEMENT PROGRAM. The battery is integrated. Which I don't mind in a phone or iPod. In a laptop? I had three powerbook batteries. THREE. Granted five hours with wireless is nice, I still like to always have extra power.

thechansen

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

Husher — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:52:25 EST

i wouldnt think the pata would lag bad. think this is a problem they will fix before market? because 3grand is way to much cash just for a SSD

Husher

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

workingonyourinvoice — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:47:27 EST

@dangj307: Also probably had something to do with the HD. Mark, was it the SSD model you guys were using? If it was the PATA model, that would probably explain the lag.

workingonyourinvoice

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

MagnoliaBoy — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:47:23 EST

Ohhh, wow, software interfaces for touchpads. Never seen that before, ever.

MagnoliaBoy

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

hhaller — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:45:42 EST

@dangj307: Probably because you're not looking at full res photos on the phone, or a thumbnail gallery of thousands of photos...

On another note, it would've been cool if the video showed some of what you wrote about (pinching, rotating etc.)

hhaller

MacBook Air Multi-touch Gesture Pad Hands-On

dangj307 — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:41:36 EST

So there is lag in a computer, that's slower than a phone?

dangj307