Confirmed: Apple’s “Magic” Trackpad works with AIR 2.0
Yesterday I saw a Tweet from Ralph Hauwert who was wondering if Apple’s Magic Trackpad would work with AIR 2.0. You probably already know that AIR 2.0 supports multitouch and gestures. The trackpad on a recent MacBook Pro supports gestures and these work nicely in AIR 2.0. So… My hunch was that the “Magic” Trackpad… I’m sorry… I just have to put that in quotes. With all these magic products I’m starting to wonder why Steve doesn’t have a show in Vegas yet ;-))) But back to my hunch… My hunch was that the “Magic” Trackpad would also just work.
Earlier today I happened to be walking past the Apple Store in Ginza, Tokyo and I went in and bought one. When I got back to the hotel I updated the trackpad drivers through Apple’s Software Update and paired the trackpad with my MBP. I already had DestroyTwitter running and tried the three-finger swipe on it. Oh… In case you didn’t know… the latest version of DestroyTwitter has support for the swipe-gesture to switch between different canvases. The “Magic” Trackpad worked perfectly with DestroyTwitter. I also tried some of my demo applications and they all worked as expected.
Now that I’ve used it for a while I think I like the “Magic” Trackpad. Especially in “lean-back-mode”. I can definitely see this replacing my mouse on my Mac Mini back home. I have it connected to my TV and use it to watch video content from the web.
So… To summarize: The “Magic” Trackpad does work with AIR 2.0. (Note: Like the trackpad on a MacBook, the “Magic” Trackpad only supports gestures. So no raw multi-touch points).
Now go build some cool touch-enabled apps (and send ‘em to me when you’re done)! Flash on!
8 Comments
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Do you know of any PC friendly versions of such devices? I develop AIR apps on windows 7 but don’t have a touch screen.
Thanks.
That would be the only reason that i would buy one ;-)
But very nice that it works.
Also good to know:
The Magic Mouse also works with AIR, only you have to add a ghost finger. :)
For example: a three-finger swipe like the one mentioned above is a two-fingured gesture on the ‘Magic’ Mouse.
(really, are they going to add the word ‘Magic’ before every new peripheral device they make?)
Won’t Apple’s Magic Trackpad work on Windows too? I don’t think every gesture is supported but it looks like there is a driver for Windows at http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1068
Anyone know if the MacBook Pro trackpad multi-touch events also work with AIR 2.0? I assume they would because a TouchPad is basically the same thing…maybe a driver just needs to be installed?
Hi John-Paul,
Yes… They do work. They even worked before the driver update ;-)
I just got the Magic Trackpad, and it’s reading false for Multitouch.supportsTouchEvents, but true for supportsGestureEvents. TouchEvent.TOUCH_TAP doesn’t fire for example.
Are you only able to use it for GestureEvents, and not TouchEvents???
@reelfernandes: OSX only supports GestureEvents.