Jul 17
28
I’ve always liked trackpads on laptops, and that only became more true after getting a MacBook Pro. Apple is known for making great trackpads that are responsive, large, and support many intuitive gestures. The Magic Mouse is a pretty good improvement on traditional mice, but the more I’ve used the trackpad on my Mac, the more I miss it when I’m using a mouse. On top of that, I’ve found recently that I get wrist pain after using a mouse for an extended amount of time, but not after using a trackpad.
So, I decided to get an Apple Magic Trackpad 2, Apple’s standalone trackpad, for use at my desk. It’s a large trackpad — probably about twice as big as the trackpad on my laptop — but that makes it great for dragging files around or using gestures. You hardly ever hit the end of the trackpad when trying to do something. It also uses haptic feedback when clicking, rather actually physically depressing. At first I thought this was just going to be a gimmick, but two observations are that A) It’s really, really, convincing in terms of feeling just like a physical click and B) It’s actually really useful to be able to click anywhere on the surface and have it respond exactly the same, unlike a trackpad with physical clicking where typically the bottom moves more than the top. Especially for a large trackpad like this, that’s a big benefit.
I think this has been a great addition. The trackpad is a much more natural and efficient way to use modern computer, especially a Mac, and my wrist pain has disappeared. There are probably still some tasks that benefit from a mouse, so I am still keeping my mouse nearby, but the trackpad has become my primary pointing device.