Possibly Cool: Apple Magic Trackpad + Television Mac Mini
No question I’d enjoy getting Apple’s new Magic Trackpad for the desktop computer, but I thought of a clearer use case (or self-serving excuse): controlling our Mac Mini hooked up to the television.
Over months past I’ve spent much time figuring out good ways to control that entertainment-dedicated Mac, settling on a Harmony Remote and Rowmote Pro on both the iPad and iPhone. But even then, the need for better mouse control invariably arises, in the form of the occasional software updates, alert boxes, copying files, or launching apps not programmed into those remote apps.
The wireless mouse never worked well with the TV Mac Mini because it requires a flat surface to drag on. I’m not into getting a tray table, although at times I’ve used clipboards, a cardboard box, and even the iPad (which didn’t work; don’t try it) as a mousing surface. Often, the iPad and iPhone are often being used for other things. So the Magic Trackpad plus the Bluetooth Keyboard already dedicated to the television Mac Mini might be a good solution. Bonus points for wireless; can’t have cables running across the floor.
There are some additional things I must look into: launching specific applications with a mouse gesture — imagine a three-finger swipe or triple click to launch Hulu. Maybe there’s a way to assign AppleScripts to certain gestures.
But best part: Magic Trackpad is within my WTH price. Stay tuned.
Just picked one up at my local Apple Store yesterday for exactly this purpose!
Requires latest Snow Leopard–setup was quick, turn it on, go to Bluetooth to setup new device, it should detect and pair automatically.
Once you pair it, you need to go to Software Update and it will auto-detect the hardware and then get the new Magic Trackpad Updater for installation.
Once you install and restart, you’re ready to use it.
You will then have a new “Trackpad” control panel in your System Preferences that you can tweak for finer gesture adjustment.
I enabled the “Tap to Click” option, that allows you to just TAP to click instead of physically pressing down the entire trackpad for click. you can also enable Double-click in this manner, I find it is easier to click this way.
Also, a strange thing occurs when you do the two-finger twist gesture on your desktop with no active apps open…it “zooms” the size of all Desktop Icons like crazy!
The icons quickly got tiny and then HUGE and then tiny again just by two-finger twisting, AND it messed up my carefully arranged grouped icon placement! This drove me crazy after exactly one minute do I disabled the option in the control panel. I will have to turn that on or off when I need it for photos.
Anyway, I am using it with the Mac Mini for multimedia control and web browsing, and it does look cool and work great! As mentioned, it is easier than using the Magic Mouse with the Mini in the Living room. It just takes some getting used to the various gestures and multi finger swiping for scrolling. You can rename the trackpad if you want in Bluetooth Prefs area.
Overall a good WTH purchase!
Awesome… The tap to click is key for a media mac so a flat surface isn’t needed. Is there a way to have an application launch via the magic trackpad? I should look into some shareware for mac mice. Theres got tO be something out there.
Hey, Jason!
I know what you are looking to do, much like the customizable app launch functions that can be assigned to a Wacom Pen’s various buttons (Maybe Apple will eventually emulate Wacom’s awesome Pen Tablet Control Panel).
You could probably toy around with Automator macros to see if you can get this to work…you could assign the app launch to a function key on your wireless keyboard.
Likely the best way to open a specific app is just to keep an alias on the desktop and tap it to open. I do know that this Trackpad allows you to “four-finger swipe” sideways to select among all open apps, so you can easily fast-switch between open apps…
Let me know if you are successful with what you want this Trackpad to do.
I’d like a way to launch apps with a mouse gesture or taps. Not requiring the keyboard, or mousing over icons. Having a bunch of apps open at launch doesn’t work as one of the apps is Hulu and other apps that take over the whole screen. But yeah I think the AppleScript idea might work, I’m gonna test out this app to see how it works: http://alum.hampshire.edu/~bjk02/xGestures/
Yes, that looks like it might be what you need, you can define a gesture to launch an app like Hulu, and that shareware price is next to nothing!
Keep us posted on whether that works, I may get that as well…looks very useful for a lot of apps. Great suggestion!
You could also have your important media apps open automatically at startup by adding dock icons for each app, select the dock icon and control-click to select “Open at Login”.
All apps in the dock with this option enabled will then open at each startup so you don’t even have to manually launch them! I have this setup for my wife’s macs so she doesn’t need to open her everyday work apps like Mail, Safari, Illustrator, etc. She just starts up and gets right to work!