Four finger gestures coming to older MacBooks via Snow Leopard

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 10:47am — Chauncey Dupree

According to one of our readers, older MacBooks and MacBook Pros are going to be able to use the four finger gestures. Who said no new features in Snow Leopard?! Oh, and a special version (64-bit?) of Flash according to Mr. Five finger discount.

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iPhone - iPod

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Comments

Is this even possible from a

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:03am — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

Is this even possible from a hardware standpoint? This seems impossible for non-multitouch touchpads.

Yes it is. I am working on a

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:57am — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

Yes it is.
I am working on a program that enables it. Check my blog at randomtruthsblog.synthasite.com

I think what they mean is on

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:13am — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

I think what they mean is on Early '08 MacBook Pros, and MacBook Airs. They had multitouch. The previous MacBooks didn't have multitouch whatsoever (Except for the scrolling, but that's a given)

(No subject)

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:20am — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

really? come on

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 1:22pm — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

really?
come on

given that on the old

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:34am — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

given that on the old Powerbooks scrolling with 2 fingers was possible I asume this is multitouch, right?
besides does anybody of you use the 4-finger touch?
I personally don't and think it's unnecessary.

I use it very often on my new

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 12:07pm — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

I use it very often on my new MBP. Four fingers swipe down brings forth Exposé and swipe up, clears all the open windows from the desktop. Very neat.

I use it all the time on my

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 12:33pm — DaddyMak (not verified)

I use it all the time on my new MBP.

I use it constantly on my

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 12:41pm — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

I use it constantly on my Macbook. It's extremely practical and convenient IMO.

The scrolling/right click

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 1:18pm — Daniel (not verified)

The scrolling/right click ability from the PowerBooks and older MacBooks isn't really multitouch the way we mean when using that term. The pad detects two fingers, but can't track them individually.

on older macbooks multitouch

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 11:48am — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

on older macbooks multitouch only works with two fingers and it cannot detect where both fingers are seperately. So you can't do a rotating movement on them for instance.

You think that's something?

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 12:24pm — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

One finger gesture coming from older Powerbook user.

I Agree!

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 1:02pm — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

Yup, the one finger gesture requires no new hardware or software and can be deployed in a split second.

My question is whether or not

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 1:10pm — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

My question is whether or not multi-"touch" gestures will show up on the highway.
Will Mac users gestures be more useful and creative than Windows users who are unfortunately limited to a single digit gesture?
What effect might this have on road rage?

hardware was the issue

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 1:16pm — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

if you go back a whaile it was asked it was a hardware or software issue dealing with the 3 finger gestures on the early 08 models of the mbp.... everyone wanted it on thier old stuff.... turned out it was a hardware issue...

thnk the mb air and the early 08 mbp use the same hardware for trackpad as the new models. so they could get the 4 finger swipe.

everyone else is out of luck... just scroll and tap's

The post Says that the 4

Mon, 01/19/2009 - 5:55pm — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

The post Says that the 4 finger swipe will be available, not the pinching like on the iphone or new MBP. The 4 finger swipe does not need to track all 4 fingers individually, the same way the 2 finger scrolling doesn't track both fingers. So i believe that it is totally plausible.