New York:
Apple has been pitching the iPad as "magical and revolutionary" for several months now, and on Tuesday, the company introduced more magic to its product line. No, not a magic iWand; instead Apple announced the Magic Trackpad.
What is this magical device, you ask? It is similar to a laptop trackpad and acts as a replacement for a traditional mouse. It will also bring multitouch capabilities to some applications on a Mac computer. The Trackpad costs $69 and connects to Macs over a Bluetooth wireless link.
Apple said the Magic Trackpad would offer standard touch experiences like "flipping through pages in a book or magazine," rotating images, and scrolling through Web sites and other texts with two fingers.
The origin of the Trackpad can be traced to Apple's acquisition of a small company called Fingerworks in early 2005. Fingerworks specialized in a mouse pad that could use gesture recognition to perform tasks on a computer, including opening files by turning multiple fingers on the pad. Fingerworks' products were extremely popular with people with repetitive strain injury, usually caused by the use of a traditional mouse and keyboard.
The Fingerworks project was originally developed at the University of Delaware in the late 1990s by Wayne Westerman, a PhD student, and Professor John Elias.
The addition of the Magic Trackpad to Apple's arsenal emphasizes the company's push toward multitouch devices. A range of Apple gadgets, including the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the iPad, the Magic Mouse and newer Mac laptop trackpads, can detect the touch of several fingers at one time.
The Trackpad had been expected after Engadget, the technology blog, posted images in June of a multitouch device that was said to be in the works at Apple.
Apple also announced an update to its Mac Pro product line and the desktop iMac offering faster processing power and the option of a solid-state hard drive.
What is this magical device, you ask? It is similar to a laptop trackpad and acts as a replacement for a traditional mouse. It will also bring multitouch capabilities to some applications on a Mac computer. The Trackpad costs $69 and connects to Macs over a Bluetooth wireless link.
Apple said the Magic Trackpad would offer standard touch experiences like "flipping through pages in a book or magazine," rotating images, and scrolling through Web sites and other texts with two fingers.
The origin of the Trackpad can be traced to Apple's acquisition of a small company called Fingerworks in early 2005. Fingerworks specialized in a mouse pad that could use gesture recognition to perform tasks on a computer, including opening files by turning multiple fingers on the pad. Fingerworks' products were extremely popular with people with repetitive strain injury, usually caused by the use of a traditional mouse and keyboard.
The Fingerworks project was originally developed at the University of Delaware in the late 1990s by Wayne Westerman, a PhD student, and Professor John Elias.
The addition of the Magic Trackpad to Apple's arsenal emphasizes the company's push toward multitouch devices. A range of Apple gadgets, including the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the iPad, the Magic Mouse and newer Mac laptop trackpads, can detect the touch of several fingers at one time.
The Trackpad had been expected after Engadget, the technology blog, posted images in June of a multitouch device that was said to be in the works at Apple.
Apple also announced an update to its Mac Pro product line and the desktop iMac offering faster processing power and the option of a solid-state hard drive.
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