For the longest time, Apple was the computer manufacturer who produced computer mice with a single button. Their trackpads on all their laptops have always been the same way, necessitating millions of Apple users worldwide to CTRL+click whenever they needed to pull up a contextual menu for common tasks required by today's software. I was really hoping that Apple would simply do away with the single-button approach and go for a dual button trackpad, but instead, with the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros, they decided to do away with buttons entirely by making the entire trackpad a multi-touch capable button. While that's an interesting idea and it has some cool features, this all new glass Multi-Touch trackpad definitely takes some getting used to as a user and can be extremely frustrating during the adjustment period. Click on the continue reading link to hear the problems I've encountered with the trackpad over the past several days of MacBook ownership.

There are two main adjustments one has to make when using this buttonless trackpad. When Steve Jobs was on stage saying you just click anywhere on the trackpad, what he should have said is "forget all your years of conditioning that have taught you to click at the bottom of the trackpad, instead you must click with the finger you are scrolling with." Most of us are used to using two fingers on the trackpad, one to scroll around and the other to click with, but if you are pointing with one finger and you go to click with the other finger, you've suddenly started a two-finger gesture, most likely a Pinch Open and Close gesture.

 

Notice the control panel for the trackpad pictured above. There are numerous options listed over which the end user has no control, and that's the main problem of the new trackpad. Inevitably, during normal usage, you'll find yourself accidentally brushing a second finger against the trackpad and suddenly you've gestured a Pinch Open, which increases the font in every web browser in the system. This happens to me at least once a day, and usually multiple times a day. Why? Because I learned to use the trackpads Apple has been using over the years and now I'm having to unlearn that. I can't imagine what the adjustment must be like for Windows users who have switched to Mac and are entirely unfamiliar with how to use a mouse with only one button, let alone no buttons.

The second thing you have to learn is nearly diametrically opposed to the first bit where you learn to click wherever you are and avoid clicking with a second finger. If you need to grab something and move it across the screen or highlight text, you only have so much trackpad space where you can drag your fingers before you're going to have to lift that finger up and reposition it. To do so, you have to continue holding down the click with another finger. This takes practice, just like anything else on this trackpad.

Originally, the one button mouse from Apple represented a statement of simplicity in comparison to how complicated Windows machines were. But now, Apple has made the buttonless trackpad more complex than any two-button mouse. The trackpad comes with six built-in behaviors that the user cannot turn off or change and none of them are actions that we're used to taking on a trackpad. I'm sure over time, I'll get used to using this trackpad and figure out solutions to all the accidental clicks, the odd zooming of text, and the occasional dropped file. However, it's going to take time and right now it's wasting my time. Apple needs to update the preference pane pictured above so that we all have full control of the trackpad and can turn off some of the behaviors that we barely use and can sometimes interfere with what we're trying to do.