One of the major innovations in the latest generation of MacBooks is the large, ‘buttonless’ trackpad that clicks when pressed. The design now appears to be tried and true after Mac users have been swiping and clicking since October of 2008.
PC trackpad maker Synaptics is now set to bring the design to small notebooks and netbooks. At Computex this week Synaptics is now demonstrating its implementation of the technology, which it calls the ClickPad.
Supported gestures include two-finger scrolling, two-finger PinchZoom, two-finger pivot rotate, three-finger flick, and three-finger press. According to Synaptics, users can program applications to launch using three-finger press gestures.
The technology and software behind the ClickPad appears to differ from Apple’s trackpad in that the ones on the latest MacBooks are made of glass and support for four-finger gestures.
Synaptics is also announcing that its entire SGS 9.1-enabled TouchPad family and software driver has passed Microsoft’s Windows 7 Logo testing. Windows 7 also includes native support for multitouch. The ClickPad will available to OEMs for integration into notebook PC platforms beginning in 3Q09.
Oh, and in case you were still wondering, you can right-click by tapping down the ClickPad with two fingers instead of just one.