Accidental touch on Macbook Air touchpad

[clin86]

Hey i was wondering if this happens to you, but when i type on the macbook air, sometimes the cursor jumps to a different position on where i am typing. i aint sure if it is cos i have a bad typing position or is the trackpad too sensitive as it is much larger? Cos this happens to me alot and its getting annoying.
Any experiences would help.
Thanks

 

[Jeweller]

having the same issue with Pages. one minute I'm buzzing along typing, next thing I know the cursor's halfway down the page and I've finished one sentence in the middle of another (a couple times I somehow unintentionally erased text, too). this seems to occur with greater frequency when I'm reclined on the sofa with the air in my lap. so, yeah, since I've never before experienced this problem with my MacBook or my old Dell Inspiron, I'm thinking it's a combination of the larger, possibly more sensitive trackpad and my admittedly poor typing posture. maybe it has to do with the new trackpad gestures?

 

[queshy]

Same thing is happening to me!!! Solution, anyone?

 

[happyslayer]

This also happens to me occasionally. I thought it was just me and my relatively poor typing, but now I am wondering.

The jumping around is tolerable, but I have twice now somehow deleted whole paragraphs.

We should definitely keep track of this.

Also, I am usually typing with it on my lap, on the couch like a previous poster.

 

[bsheridan]

Are you all sure that the 'ignore accidental trackpad input' is clicked in System Preferences| Keyboard and Mouse| Trackpad.
???

 

[clin86]

wow i guess i'm not alone on this.
i hope apple has a firmware fix to make it less sensitive.
btw i checked up system preferences, it only says ignore trackpad when mouse is present, i dont find an option about ignored unintended touches?

 

[heyadol]

Are you all sure that the 'ignore accidental trackpad input' is clicked in System Preferences| Keyboard and Mouse| Trackpad.
???

I was just about to suggest that, but I decided to check System Prefs first and that option does not exist on MBA! Apparently accidental touching is a thing of the past in the new multi-touch regime...

 

[Jeweller]

Are you all sure that the 'ignore accidental trackpad input' is clicked in System Preferences| Keyboard and Mouse| Trackpad.
???

with the Air, there's no such option as far as I know. only "ignore trackpad when mouse is present."

 

[bsheridan]

Just a suggestion, because its a multitouch pad, if you try resting some part of both of your palms on the trackpad and type, see if that makes any difference. There are many combinations of touch that the pad should recognize and with your hands in this position, it could be the one the mac understands as 'you are now typing'.

 

[Jeweller]

as a test, I plopped myself down on the couch in the position this seems prone to occur, opened one of my documents, scrolled down a bit, and just started typing random stuff. came to the conclusion that it's the occasional brush of one or both of my thumbs that's setting it off. what's more, if I type with one hand only and tap the trackpad with the index finger of my free hand, the cursor blips to wherever the pointer happens to be pointing. after disabling the one finger "tap to click" function, it all worked fine. which sucks, because if it's going to be a nuisance when doing something as simple as word processing (which is the majority of what I do), what's the point of an ultra-sensitive giant multi-touch trackpad?

 

[cedar]

Hey i was wondering if this happens to you, but when i type on the macbook air, sometimes the cursor jumps to a different position on where i am typing. i aint sure if it is cos i have a bad typing position or is the trackpad too sensitive as it is much larger? Cos this happens to me alot and its getting annoying.
Any experiences would help.
Thanks

Same thing for me. Drove me crazy. Turned off "touch to tap" feature and it's ok. Hate to lose that capability but better than going nuts.

 

[raremage]

Same thing for me. Drove me crazy. Turned off "touch to tap" feature and it's ok. Hate to lose that capability but better than going nuts.

Same here. Seems to have helped.

 

[Jeweller]

Same thing for me. Drove me crazy. Turned off "touch to tap" feature and it's ok. Hate to lose that capability but better than going nuts.

so we Air owners just accept this as yet another compromise for the right to call ourselves the early adopters of our slick little machines? well, I like to write, and I spend the majority of my time on a computer doing so. and the fact that I've already had to exchange my first Air for what app-care deemed a faulty graphics card and that at the cost of supposed innovation I now apparently have to say goodbye to the majority of my trackpad's most useful features (that is, unless I want to continually activate and deactivate said features when not word processing) is pretty disappointing to say the least. if someone can assure me this is simply a future firmware update, I'm all ears...

 

[Jeweller]

so nobody cares about this issue? really? given that it's pretty much designed for simple stuff like word processing?! i mean honestly, are the bell-and-whistle rotating and pinch-focussing that meaningful to those of us who crave an ultra-portable leopard machine? weird. I'm starting to wish I had just waited it out for an aluminum MacBook, since plastic construction and a lack of finger-smudging was the primary reason I went Air. so, I'm wondering, was the Air designed strictly for the vision impaired who can't read a web page at normal resolution and/or those who really want to alphabetize their digital photo collection? is that really all it's worth? if so, that's fairly f'd up and is making me start to wonder if indeed it's not a "Paris-Hilton-purse-filler..."

 

[thehuhman]

Hey i was wondering if this happens to you, but when i type on the macbook air, sometimes the cursor jumps to a different position on where i am typing. i aint sure if it is cos i have a bad typing position or is the trackpad too sensitive as it is much larger? Cos this happens to me alot and its getting annoying.
Any experiences would help.
Thanks

Yes. I am experiencing the same thing. So much so, that I decided to video my hands during a keyboarding exercise. Based on the playback, I've concluded that it is how and where my thumbs are positioned, while typing with my other fingers. In my case, the offending digit is always the thumb on my right hand. While the other fingers are doing there thing, that thumb comes dangerously close to the trackpad, and occasionally actually brushes it, and that is when the cursor jumps to another place on the page. The other place is always at the beginning of the paragraph or at the top of the page. Apparently, my thumb is inadvertently gesturing. I have tried to be more careful, but when it is the end of another 18-hour workday, drowsiness takes over, and well... you know.

 

[clin86]

yea same here. i think its the way i type that makes it jump. so i guess it isnt something apple can fix. =(

 

[NC MacGuy]

Mine does it too if I touch trackpad while typing otherwise it's fine. The trackpad does seem a bit more sensitive than MB/MBP which I don't think is a bad thing.

 

[babbie]

Jumpy Cursor

Thanks to all those who reassure me that I am not alone in having my MBA cursor hop around the screen depositing my pearls of wisdom in random locations. Like others, I am unwilling to turn off the Touchpad-Tap option, which has now become hardwired into my brain.

To Steve Jobs and all the Apple Ninjas:

How about returning the "Ignore accidental touchpad taps" option?

Thanks for a great computer thin enough to slice bread.

Earl

 

[Mactagonist]

It would be nice if it ignored all touchpad input during active typing. I am suprised that there is not a 3rd party program that accomplishes this. Does any one know why?

 

[Jimmie Geddes]

I'm having this happen to me as well, thought it was just my typing.

 

[robotica]

This is driving me insane!

 

[oscillatewildly]

Surely, it's driving you ins


ane!

 

[Molopo]

Or you could, you know, l3rn 2 typ3 gud. jk.
I know compaq and HP usually have a neat little button that goes above the touchpad in order to disable/enable it. But then again, buttons are ugly and apple doesn't want that.