Mouse, Keyboard and Trackpad Magic, an interesting combination

When Apple introduced the Magic Trackpad, in a move that caught completely by surprise some, it was with a clear intention: to provide ordeandores as the iMac, Mac Pro and Mac Mini multitouch capabilities and possibilities of a trackpad, which so good and brings deep integration with OS X Snow Leopard but especially with OS X Lion. It can also serve for cases like mine where a Macbook Pro is connected to an external monitor with keyboard and mouse.

The point is that it seems that the trackpad is called to banish the mouse on the desktop (in a sense, their motives there) and that the existence of a mouse and trackpad are incompatible on a desk in front of a Mac Far from it! After acquiring a Trackpad Magic a few weeks ago I finally get to a pretty interesting combination I've seen repeated in some places and foreign desks and can be very useful for those who want to take advantage of multitouch gestures but do not want to lose the point perhaps superior agility and click of a mouse.

The provision in question is to put the Magic Trackpad left, center keyboard and mouse to the right. So while we have a fixed and unchanging in the center, with the right controls most of the movements of the pointer on the screen but the left and the performed tasks such as trackpad scrolling, launching the desktop by fan with five fingers, move by full-screen applications Lion, throwing Mission Control, Launchpad, and even rearrange windows with three fingers, an option that can be activated from paragraph trackpad system preferences.

Rare ¿? Yes, maybe, but once I've become so accustomed addicted to it that when I try another machine that has only a mouse and now I am missing something. I have not found anything, not even the Magic Mouse, which makes scrolling better than the two fingers over the smooth glass surface of an Apple trackpad, comfortable, useful, highly accurate inertial motion and gives a very interesting touch. Similarly, Mission Control and Launchpad are useless with such a Magic Mouse or any conventional mouse, but with the launch fluidísimo trackpad.

It is true that initially manage certain actions with the left hand takes a bit more (or right hand if you are left handed), but is not really accurate motion to move the cursor to a specific point, that takes care of the mouse movements but range, extend, move, slide ... does not take long to do it.

Is the main problem? That requires the use of two devices, a Trackpad Magic is not cheap, and less if you plan to use it as merely additional device. I am personally delighted to have as wide a tactile surface always to the side and although it may, I decided not to use it as the main control method, instead I use it for everything described above and even some more advanced features like video editing. Has anyone tried this little combo? Do you think?

Photo: Flickr yum9me