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I am getting a laptop stand for my MacBook Pro to help with ergonomics when at my desk. Getting an external keyboard isn't a concern, but I have become accustomed to using the trackpad and gestures instead of a mouse. Is there a quality external trackpad that will work with a Mac with all the same gestures?

Google turned up a few, but they don't appear to support multitouch.

edited Oct 20 at 2:35

wfaulk
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asked Jul 18 at 11:06

g.
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	I;d be interested to see if you can find anything of interest with this... I was just thinking the other day that Apple are missing out on some serious revenue by selling an external trackpad with all the bells and whistles of those in the new Macbooks. – Jasarien Jul 18 at 23:40
	@Jasarien, I think Apple is just waiting for the general public to understand the potential. They wouldn't bring advanced touchpads to market as long as the market doesn't understand or want the gadgets. This is very sad, because Apple bought and closed the excellent manufacturer FingerWorks in order to use the technology for the iPhones and later their Macbooks. They should have just kept on selling the FingerWorks products to those of us who understand and want the technology! – torbengb Oct 9 at 12:13
	I don't know of an external trackpad which supports gestures, but the internal trackpad is USB-based. It should be possible to find a damaged top case and build a trackpad :). You may also be able to find a Synaptics trackpad on it's own, though the Mac OS may not pick up on its multitouch capabilities if it's not Apple-branded. – SidneySM Oct 20 at 3:35

Troggy · Answer 1 · 2009-07-22 00:05:11Z

http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-127238.html

Here is an older forum topic about external trackpads and some mice. From what I have seen you are going to be lucky to even find a few options of external trackpads made for os x. Finding one that supported multitouch would be even more rare, might not even be produced yet. There might be a few options linked on that forum. Good luck! Good question.

alex · Answer 2 · 2009-10-20 06:17:18Z

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch you could use that as a trackpad. There are quite a lot of apps that you can use to control your Mac or PC via WiFi. One example is Touchpad, but you can probably find more.

torbengb · Answer 3 · 2009-10-09 12:07:05Z

I think you'd find a FingerWorks iGesture very handy.

Multitouch trackpads existed before Apple made them common. Apple didn't invent them but rather bought FingerWorks which made large trackpads and even multitouch keyboards! Apple bought and closed this manufacturer, but you can still find the trackpads on Ebay, though they are rare. There's a keyboard for sale right now -- eBay link here.

What is a good external trackpad for a Mac?

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