how does 'tap to click' work?

[mrklaw]

Just curious if the apple implementation is different from other laptop manufacturers. I've used dells and thinkpads for a few years now, and I nearly always turn off the touchpad tapping for mouse click - it just clicks things I don't want to click, because I exert a tiny bit too much pressure. There doesn't seem any way to calibrate it either. So I just use the buttons

How is it on the macbook air? Can you also 'tap to click' on the macbook?

I'm hoping that there is at least some way to calibrate the pressure to click, or that it doesn't sense a click unless you take your finger off the trackpad, then tap. I.e if I'm moving the mouse cursor, no amount of pressure will 'tap' - I have to take my finger off first. A bit like the scroll/tap sensing on ipod touch - if your finger is moving it doesn't register as a click

 

[MazingerZ]

Just curious if the apple implementation is different from other laptop manufacturers. I've used dells and thinkpads for a few years now, and I nearly always turn off the touchpad tapping for mouse click - it just clicks things I don't want to click, because I exert a tiny bit too much pressure. There doesn't seem any way to calibrate it either. So I just use the buttons

How is it on the macbook air? Can you also 'tap to click' on the macbook?

I'm hoping that there is at least some way to calibrate the pressure to click, or that it doesn't sense a click unless you take your finger off the trackpad, then tap. I.e if I'm moving the mouse cursor, no amount of pressure will 'tap' - I have to take my finger off first. A bit like the scroll/tap sensing on ipod touch - if your finger is moving it doesn't register as a click

You can adjust the sensitivity of the trackpad.

 

[gr8tfly]

Tap-to-click has been on all the PowerBooks, MacBook's and MBPs. I've always found it works very well at detecting a tap. It won't "tap" just because you press harder when moving the cursor around. On the MB/MBP/MBA, right-click also works very well. It's two-finger tap. You also have scrolling, using two-fingers (both horiz & vert). I've never had it mix up scrolling with tapping.

Give it a try - I think you'll find it different than your PC experience. (enable it in Keyboard & Mouse, Trackpad)

 

[gr8tfly]

You can adjust the sensitivity of the trackpad.

Only for double-tap response.

 

[dsnort]

I like it, but it can create a problem. I'm a hunt and peck typist, and I have a bad habit of accidentally hitting the trackpad with my thumbs, which moves the cursor back to where I started at. It no fun to get to the end of a long paragraph and realise the whole things out of order.

 

[gr8tfly]

I like it, but it can create a problem. I'm a hunt and peck typist, and I have a bad habit of accidentally hitting the trackpad with my thumbs, which moves the cursor back to where I started at. It no fun to get to the end of a long paragraph and realise the whole things out of order.

I'm a touch-typist, and the thumb can still hit the trackpad. There's an option to "Ignore accidental trackpad input", which seems to help quite a bit (System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse, Trackpad - Trackpad Options)

 

[kuwisdelu]

It's the same tap and click and is on all Mac laptops. The only thing new is the gestures. I've always used the tap to click because I find the physical button kind of non-intuitive when I already have a finger on the trackpad. I don't know why anyone needs a physical button there anymore at all. As for the trackpad, every once in a while, I'll screw up with it and click when I didn't mean to, but always a click-and-drag. I have tap-to-click-and-drag enabled, too, which seems to be the only thing I accidentally use when moving my finger around, but then it's still pretty rare. More often, I'm dragging something with the trackpad and mean to let go of it, but don't hold my finger off of it long enough for the trackpad to register me as wanting to let go. That's mostly my impatience than a fault of the trackpad, though. So I find the touch-to-click-and-drag the only thing you can do "accidentally" every once in a while, and you can leave that disable while having tap-to-click enabled, still, if you find yourself doing it often. But I've never accidentally *just* clicked while moving around the mouse with my finger.

 

[ccclapp]

Under Boot Camp I have not found the Air trackpad to be adjustable at all. Its scroll speed is way to fast. Also, sometimes the TP just stops working. ONe good thing you can do is hold "control" while two-finger srolling to zoom in-out of web pages under IE7.

Im looking for a better XP driver for the TP. If anyone finds one please post.

Thanks

 

[petestein1]

I'm a touch-typist, and the thumb can still hit the trackpad. There's an option to "Ignore accidental trackpad input", which seems to help quite a bit (System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse, Trackpad - Trackpad Options)

Ummm... I'm a hunt and peck typist (a good one though -- about 50 words a minute) and I occasionally graze the touchpad as well and end up with the cursor in the wrong place.

I looked for this "ignore accidental trackpad input" option you describe and it ain't there on my MBA. Have you confirmed it's there on your Air?

If it existed on your other Macs maybe Apple had to toss it to implement multi-touch.

 

[cohibadad]

I'm digging the tap to click. It works much better than the Dells I've used it on. I also like the tap to drag and 2 finger right click. The 3 finger page turner is convenient when I remember to use it. Problem is when I go back to a machine with a mouse I instinctively think of the trackpad maneuvers first.

 

[hotsauce]

Wirelessly posted (Apple Communication Device: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A93 Safari/419.3)

imo, it's way too sensitive. I wish there was a way to adjust the sensitivity like a poster above mentioned.