Saturday, August 4, 2007

Mac Power Books & TrackPoints

In the last few years, I have been interested in Mac PowerBooks. I like the OS and thought I might change things up from my trusty T series Thinkpad. I borrowed a small PowerBook from a friend for a few weeks and never got used to the touchpad.

I have suggested to several people mildly associated with Apple products (Apple Store Employees) that they should consider adding a TrakPoint. They looked at me like I raped their mom. They made statements to the effect, "I don't see them ever doing that." or "It doesn't fit with the brand image".

What am I missing. Touchpads are great if you don't know how to type. If you do know how to type (I am guessing <10% of the US falls within this category), you don't want to constantly reposition your hands on and off the keyboard.

Hell, I would actually like to have a Trackpoint on my Destop's keyboard at work. They did make keyboards with Trackpointers for some time in the 1990's, but they never caught on.

Apple, if a televised meeting between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs is possible, Please, Tear down the Trackpoint wall!

I know there is probably only a small % of customers that use these Trackpointers, but they are a much more elegant solution than the Touchpad and are very important to people who know how to type. Right now, I am forced to continually purchase Thinkpads and I am slightly worried Lenovo will not carry on the tradition as IBM intended...

At least one person agrees with me: David Berlind @ ZD Net

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I bet you will never get that since you know that Apple will never do anything but trackpad with all weird gestures--one, two, and three fingers! (maybe five in the future :-X) how could it be comfortably but cool?!?

It's just not cool! :-P

Anonymous said...

Lenovo sells a usb keyboard with ultranav trackpoint. Know anyone who has tried to make it work on a mac? I bet it does, but without the ability to adjust sensitivity etc. I'd a appreciate an email thru my website if you know anything...

Anonymous said...

Okay, nearly a year later, have you found a solution? I don't want to lose my trackpoint, but am interested in using Mac OS. (Contact me via my blog www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/mental-models)

Anonymous said...

I strongly agree.
The trackpoint on Thinkpad is the best thing since sliced bread!
However, please, all you manufacturers out there: If anyone considers to build desktop keyboards with a trackpoint, please do it right! I will gladly buy it, but creating a crappy device would certainly be the end of the trackpoint. So have a look at the Thinkpads, bring their quality, and you will succeed! If not, you and all trackpoint fans with you will fail ...