5 Apps to Enhance Your Trackpad & Magic Mouse
Your MacBook trackpad (and the back of that fancy new Magic Mouse) is a blank slate. It’s simple, sleek, and elegant. The functionality of these pieces of gadgetry has gradually improved with every release, and recent “multi touch” capability has made your trackpad far more useful.
In fact, the ability to track multiple touches and swipes isn’t really used to its full potential by default. There are plenty of applications and utilities that can really boost the functionality of your trackpad and Magic Mouse – today we’ll be looking at a selection!
MagicPrefs
A completely free solution, MagicPrefs sits in your System Preferences and Menu Bar. You can bind all types of gestures to different actions, and it’s very versatile in just exactly how you can set it up.
If you’re not satisfied with tracking speed, it can be increased by up to 200% using MagicPrefs. The interface is fairly friendly and easy-to-understand, but you might need to experiment a little to find the perfect setup.
Price: Free
Requirements: OS X 10.5 or later
JiTouch
JiTouch has been reviewed in-depth previously on the site, and we really liked it! Since then, it’s been significantly improved with much better support for the Magic Mouse. The instructions and graphics showing how the app works are second to none.
Latest features in the new version include completely customisable actions, gestures based on alphanumeric characters, the ability to flick between Spaces in OS X, and quick tab switching. I’m a big fan of this solution, and use it daily.
Price: $5.99
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6
MouseWizard
A pretty, well thought-out interface and live examples of how gestures work make MouseWizard a solid option to try out. You can give your Magic Mouse six extra buttons, ‘pinch’, ‘bloat’ and ‘tap to click’ trackpad gestures, and special features such as ‘coverup’ to make your Mac go to sleep.
This is a great application for those of you who need a fairly simple solution, and won’t want to wade through all manner of advanced settings.
Price: $5.00
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5
BetterTouchTool
Based on MultiClutch (see below), BetterTouchTool has taken the reigns and continued development further. The interface takes a little getting used to, but there’s no shortage of powerful features. Custom gestures make it easy to set a range of advanced responses to different swipes and taps.
You can also activate window snapping (similar to that found in Windows 7), adjust tracking speed, and change almost every aspect of how your Magic Mouse or Trackpad behave. Very powerful for a free solution.
Price: Free
Requirements: OS X 10.5 or later
Multiclutch
We’ve actually reviewed Multiclutch in some detail on a previous occasion – this is the best place to start for a full overview of the app.
It’s relatively basic compared to a few of the other applications featured here, and development seems to have slowed down in recent months. Still worth considering as a free solution, though the developer warns that you should have a backup before installing…
Price: Free
Requirements: OS X 10.5 or later