multi-touch trackpad

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. Seems as if this is a software feature that has no good reason to be restricted to the Macbook Air, other than marketing. I would like to hope that this would be rolled into a future Leopard update, but I'm not holding my breath.

On 16-Jan-2008, at 03:53, Alexander Hoffman wrote:
> Isn't my trackpad already multi-touch?

Yes, but this one is more multi-touch.

> I mean, it can already tell the difference between whether I am using
> it with one or two finger, right?

Can it tell when you rotate one finger around another? Does it
recognize the pinch and unpinch actions like the iPhone/iTouch?

> Would it be possible to use the data it currently used to figure out
> how many fingers I am using to enable multi-touch gestures, like
> pinching and zooming?

I suspect the new trackpad is, in fact, a NEW trackpad, so I'm
guessing not.

At 2:53 AM -0800 2008/01/16, Alexander Hoffman wrote:
>Isn't my trackpad already multi-touch?
>
>I mean, it can already tell the difference between whether I am using
>it with one or two finger, right?
>
>Would it be possible to use the data it currently used to figure out
>how many fingers I am using to enable multi-touch gestures, like
>pinching and zooming?

        Someone says this is already in the new iPhoto (specifically
the 3-finger swipe to change photos), but I haven't checked; yes,
it's a software change.


                                                Chris

--On January 16, 2008 2:53:33 AM -0800 Alexander Hoffman
<ahoffmanaledev.com> wrote:

>
> Isn't my trackpad already multi-touch?

No. Most of the trackpads I've used (even of recent vintage) actually
average the position of two (or more) fingers, they don't report back the
actual simultaneous position of two fingers.

Kevin

On 17 Jan 2008, at 14:05, Chris Pepper wrote:

> Someone says this is already in the new iPhoto (specifically
> the 3-finger swipe to change photos), but I haven't checked; yes,
> it's a software change.

There appear to be some new gestures that work when play movies with
Simple Image under QT 7.6.

        f

At 6:10 AM -0800 1/17/08, Kevin van Haaren wrote:
>--On January 16, 2008 2:53:33 AM -0800 Alexander Hoffman
><ahoffmanaledev.com> wrote:
>>Isn't my trackpad already multi-touch?
>
>No. Most of the trackpads I've used (even of recent vintage) actually
>average the position of two (or more) fingers, they don't report back the
>actual simultaneous position of two fingers.

Sure, that's true of older trackpads. But relatively recent trackpads
know the difference between one, two and three fingers being moved on
the trackpad.

-With one finger moving on the trackpad and moving, my cursor moves.
-With two fingers moving on the trackpad and moving, my window
scrolls (so long as the average position between them also moves).
-With three fingers moving on my trackpad, nothing happens at all.

The distance between my fingers has nothing to do with it:
  ** = * *
*** = * * * = ** *
So it is not a product of there being/not being a finger down at the
average position of the three fingers.

So, it looks like recent trackpads MIGHT be reporting the number of
fingers, in addition to the average position. Does anyone out there
know what the hardware is telling the OS?


--
=Alex Hoffman
Leadership, Policy & Politics
Teachers College, Columbia University