Inertia Scrolling Comes to the MBP

Apple’s just-released Magic Trackpad and Multi-Touch Update 1.0 finally brings inertia scrolling to recent models of MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks. Inertia scrolling, if you don’t know about it, is the feature where a scrolling action on the mouse (or the trackpad in this case) can continue even after your fingers have left the surface. It’s sort of like trying to spin a wheel… the wheel continues turning even if you stop exerting force.

It’s something that I’ve come to like a lot, ever since inheriting a mouse with a defective scroll wheel from a friend. It’s a very old mouse. It does not support inertia scrolling. But the wheel was loose. So if I spin it hard enough, the scroll action continues even after my finger is off the wheel. Very handy to zip around long documents.

The update also brings additional gesture support: three-finger swipes. I can almost abandon MagicPrefs… except that I still want support for a centre button click that MagicPrefs makes possible. It’s also something indispensable, since I’ve gotten so used to it on the Mighty Mouse. Maybe I’ll have to wait for yet another Apple update.

In other news, Apple has also launched the Magic Trackpad (a standalone one), as well as battery charger (comes with 6 rechargeable batteries). Neither seems particularly interesting.