Don’t worry, your mouse isn’t going anywhere

Last tuesday, Apple announced the Magic Trackpad. For those of you who ignore apple news, the magic trackpad is basically a larger version of the trackpad found in the macbook pros. It is marketed at desktop users, and from some of the pictures on apples’ site, it is being marketed as a mouse replacement. Some bloggers are even claiming that this is the end of the mouse era.

There is no way that this trackpad will completely replace the mouse. It is likely that something will eventually replace the mouse, but this is not it. I could see the Magic Trackpad becoming a common peripheral, maybe finding its home on the left side of a keyboard, but it will never replace the mouse.

A trackpad will never be as precise or as fast as a conventional mouse. This is due to some simple biomechanics. A trackpads precision and speed could potentially be increased by some smart motion sensing algorithms, but if these algorithms existed, they could be applied to mouse-movements as well, making those even more precise and speedy.

Don’t worry, your mouse isn’t going anywhere….