[shinykaro]

According to this CrunchGear article, the next generation of MacBooks will recognize iPhone-like multi touch gestures, but only on the trackpads.

Not only that, their sources claim the new MacBooks will also be half the thickness of the current line and will use different materials in the casing - more green perhaps?

I'm just excited to hear rumors about something other than the iPhone, but I think even though it seems like a very small step to incorporate gestures using the trackpad, I think it's smarter than trying to bring multi-touch to the screens too soon. Call me old fashioned. The form redesign is the most interesting part to me because compact is sexy. Remember the prototype notebook Intel announced not too long ago? But what does everyone think of adding multi-touch via trackpads? Do you think it's likely in the next update? Do you think it's far-fetched? Pointless?

[frankthetank966]

It will be a like a Tablet.

[shinykaro]

Now it sounds like a multi touch mouse is on the table as well.

It is not going to be like a tablet. There is no good reason to go that route yet, no ergonomically sound way that would appeal to most users. Is it gonna be a coffee table too?

[Andhee]

I hate theorys like these because I was all up for buying a macbook in august but now its put my mind in a different direction, wanting to wait until october.

[red rocket]

I've been pinching and tickling my mouse for the past few minutes. Feels great. It would be even better if it actually did something.

[shinykaro]

Originally Posted by red rocket 

I've been pinching and tickling my mouse for the past few minutes. Feels great. It would be even better if it actually did something.

Purr maybe?

@ Andhee. I know what you mean. Always makes me anxious. I'm planning to get one in the fall and I want it to be the best and newest. But hey, who really considered the last MacBook update a real update?

I think the gestures make more sense on a trackpad than on a mouse...

[Christopera]

If you want to do some mouse gestures download Opera browser.

I use it on PC and it is by far the best browser out there. It takes some time to learn the gestures, but once learned there is no turning back.

[shinykaro]

I only have one gesture for most PCs

[Christopera]

Well i have Safari too. It is good, but Opera is better.

[shinykaro]

I've heard nothing but good things about it, but why oh why isn't it available for Macs?

As far as the mouse vs. trackpad multi touch battle, maybe I'm too stuck in old paradigms. What if the next great input device is a pad/mouse hybrid, something like a rounded mini Wacom tablet maybe?

The current Apple mouse design is gorgeous, but it seems like an awkward surface for gestures.

[Christopera]

Download Opera Web Browser

[shinykaro]

I just downloaded and installed it, I'm actually posting in Opera.

This is so cool! It's a very cool way to navigate. My only gripe is the required right click. I have a regular one button mouse so I have to hold down the control key to use the gestures. It is very very cool though. I could get used to browsing this way.

[Christopera]

I use it my lap top too. It takes some getting used to but beats the old fashion way.

I use the new tab, close tab, back/forward movements the most. Also, make sure you drag your favorite sites favicon's to the left or right of the address bar. There is no better place for bookmarks to be placed.

[imdipped]

snip>
According to this CrunchGear article, the next generation of MacBooks will recognize iPhone-like multi touch gestures, but only on the trackpads.

Not only that, their sources claim the new MacBooks will also be half the thickness of the current line and will use different materials in the casing - more green perhaps?
snip>



Does anyone know of a half-inch thick core 2 duo 13.3 inch or smaller notebook?

I can see the screen being made half as thin and the body one half thinner if you drop the HD and optical drive. Replace the HD with the 64 GB flash card and perhaps you have room for more sophisticated cooling. Would you be able to put the Crestline chip in there or would you have to wait for a possibly cooler Penryn?

I think I would rather have the current form factor MB with Crestline (where hopefully all the shortcomings have been addressed) than the new half inch form factor with the Crestline chip. Unless it comes as a 15 incher which I am hoping for.

[shinykaro]

Well, when you put it THAT way, it sounds more like the fabled ultraportable that we've yet to see. I'd hate to see them go the flash drive route in the MacBooks and lose all that hard drive space you can get now. My thought was that half as thick was a bit of an exaggeration. Even without going to NAND memory I think there's room to make it sleeker.

[imdipped]

I wasn't thinking too clearly. There are already HD's in half inch ultra-portables. Perhaps all it would take is dropping the optical disk.

[Samanoske]

I really would favour NAMD over big hard drives. 32 GB is big enough if one concentrates the stuff one really needs on the road and for anything else, plug in a small external USB2/Firewire hard drive. They come cheap.

But multi-touch on the trackpad sounds really sexxyyy. The introduction of two finger scrolling was already really cool. Having zoom in and out in a resolution-less OS would make the usage of small screens really agreeable

[tintin220]

Could actually be feasible with a res-indep OS, like Leopard, eh?
Coincidence that (rumored) Macbooks in october with the Leopard release?

[PhotoBug]

Zooming in an out on your screen?

[kernelbinary]

I realize that this discussion happened a bit ago, but I just wanted to point out that there is a right-click mouse gestures add-on to Firefox. I've never used Opera, but the jump from IE to Firefox was great and I've stuck with firefox since. I just love the add-on capability.

[shinykaro]

I think the really cool thing would be applying gestures to all your applications and your entire user experience, rather than just a browser.