When the Macintosh made its big debut in 1984, one of the most unique and impressive features was an input device known as a "mouse."

The ball-powered peripheral was used to move the cursor around the screen and navigate the MacOS. This new way of navigating through a computer helped to make the MacOS the standard for easy-to-use and navigate software.

While it's not as revolutionary as the mouse, could the new MacBook trackpads and multi-touch features bring back the Mac's reputation for cutting-edge navigation tools?

28 Feb 2008

Somewhere along the line, Apple lost its way in the world of the mouse. As PC-makers adopted a two-button mouse and the right-click became common practice, using the mouse to navigate Windows got far easier. Apple, however, didn't quite go for the multi-button philosophy.

Instead, Mac users were subjected to a number of clumsy and sometimes painful mice and performing simple tasks in the MacOS become unnecessarily tedius.

Eventually, Apple got on board and in recent years, the multi-button mouse became commonplace. In the laptop field, however, Apple stuck to its stubborn one-button ways and OS X again became a bit of a pain to navigate.

Now, it seems that Apple may be back on top. The multi-touch trackpads bring a whole new way to click. Hopefully, the touchpads will catch on and users will be able to pinch, rotate, and swipe around OS X as easily and nonchalantly as they right-click on desktops today.