I've been VERY particular about the input devices I've used. When you're working all day in DP, sometimes for 36 hours straight, you learn that you have certain tolerances beyond which you'll encourage carpal tunnel syndrome or other injury to your wrists and hands. I did that for 20 years nonstop, and I didn't have time for health problems. Also, I needed to work fast. No time for repetitive actions that required menus and lots of mousing around. I needed buttons that did what I needed for them to do.
For many, many years I used a Kensington wireless Turbo Mouse Pro, which had a total of 13 buttons and scroll wheel, in addition to a very large trackball. Easy on the wrist.
But when I tried out the Apple Magic Trackpad, I knew I'd found my once and future input device. I'm dead serious when I say that I immediately put the Turbo Mouse in the closet and never went back. The Magic Trackpad is all I have used since the first day I tried it.
But what makes the Magic Trackpad so good is a 3rd party extension called JiTouch. It has a programmable interface that enables you to save shortcuts for each individual app, and assign those shortcuts to a trackpad gesture. It extends the number of gestures many times over the number that Apple gives you. In addition, it adds a new set of gestures of the alphabet, so that you can draw a letter on the pad and trigger a shortcut. For example, I can draw "S" for save, or B for Browser (Safari), H for Hide, and many others. Like the other gestures, characters can be universal or application specific.
Since all gestures can be application specific, the number of gestures possible is pretty much without limit. Not many trackballs or mice can make that claim. Of course, you can combine them with QuicKeys, but you can also combine JiTouch with QuicKeys.
I've noticed from time to time when I'm pretty busy that my hand seems to be speaking sign-language. It all responds perfectly. I've added over a hundred gestures over the past few years, and I rarely have to look one up to remember it. You just kind of remember it the way you remember words.
I DID buy a Magic Mouse, figuring that it might be the best of both worlds. It's part mouse and part trackpad. But honestly, it is just more trouble than the Magic Trackpad.
Trust me. The Magic Trackpad becomes a whole new device with JiTouch. Don't even THINK of using the trackpad without it.
http://www.jitouch.com
A little advice for learning to use the Magic Trackpad:
1) put your old devices out of reach. You've got to commit. Within a week or two it will be easy. In a month, it'll be 2nd nature.
2) when you need to move the cursor a very small amount for precision clicking, rock the tip of your finger rather than trying to slide it.
3) the Magic Trackpad has two "buttons" you can activate. That is, two hardware buttons in the form of the two feet at the stern end of it. You can have one be your right-click and the other your left-click. I recommend not doing this at first. (I don't do it at all. I use the Control Key to "right-click") Until you are familiar with where you are clicking, having one of the feet act as your right-click only serves to confuse.
4) Watch the gesture animations in the apple prefs and learn how to move. Watch the gesture animations as you mouse over each option in JiTouch to see how they move.
5) VERY IMPORTANT: use a wrist rest to elevate your wrist above the trackpad. You should never have to bend your wrist back to perform a gesture on the trackpad.
Practice makes perfect, and the Magic Trackpad is practically perfect!
Shooshie
