Jun 03

When beauty can become a beast; Don’t take away all of my buttons

Apple, Tech with tags: 23 Comments »

Ben and I both got new work 15″ Macbook Pro laptops, and Ben isn’t happy.

mbp-trackpad1

I have to admit that it doesn’t feel like the Apple designers may have gone one step too far with the trackpad. In one fell-swoop they took away the button and added new and exciting gestures.

gestures

The big problem I have with this is that I have learned to use the trackpad with one thumb at the bottom (where the button was) and I use my index finger to move around. There is a lot of muscle memory there. What this means in practice is that I am in Gmail and the pinch gesture kicks in which results in my font changing size, or the rotate gesture causes an image to skew in Keynote.

In theory, it is beautiful to get rid of the button. In practice I miss the tactile feedback, and the separation of concerns.

mbair-trackpad

Maybe I should quickly grab a Macbook Air which still has the small little trim mouse button?

To those at you who have been using the latest generation of Macbooks, do you get over this? Will this be something that I forget in a month and life will actually be better?