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Twelve South MagicWand review

Twelve South MagicWand review

The Twelve South MagicWand aims to solve a simple-yet-annoying issue with the Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. We've used the Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad combo pretty much exclusively here at Gear Live ever since the Magic Trackpad launched back in July 2010, and while we've enjoyed it (heck, we haven't switched away from that setup yet after 16 months,) there's one problem. Despite the fact that the Trackpad and Wireless Keyboard line up perfectly when next to each other, they have a really hard time staying put.

What I mean is, you constantly have to bring the Magic Trackpad back over to its spot next to the keyboard. It's not something you need to do every few minutes or anything like that, but a few times a day we've found that the Trackpad has mysteriously inched its way across the desk and needs to be wrangled up and brought back home. The TwelveSouth MagicWand solves this.

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Magic Trackpad review

Apple Magic Trackpad Review

Apple’s is an interesting, although not unexpected, move for the company. For a company that seems to have invested in multitouch as the core foundation of its future, it only makes sense that they’d want to bring it over to the desktop rather than relegating it to their iOS devices and notebooks only. In its simplest description, the Magic Trackpad is a laptop trackpad that you use with your desktop Mac. The question is, is it any good? Is it more awkward to use than the natural trackpad on a Mac notebook? Even more importantly, can it (and should it) replace your mouse? We’ve been using the Magic Trackpad for a couple of weeks, and we’ve got some answers for you. Read on for our full review!

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Apple Battery Charger makes wireless devices less annoying?

Apple Battery Charger kit and batteries

I was thinking about why would want to release their Apple Battery Charger product, since you can pretty much get batteries anywhere, and I think it comes down to Apple wanting to do their part in eliminating the annoyance that many have with changing batteries when a device runs out of juice. With the introduction of the , Apple now has three devices that are powered by AA batteries, with the other two being their wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse. According to Apple, they were able to come into the battery market with a few key advances. One such feature is an intelligent power management system so that once the batteries are charged fully, it goes into a low power state, using about 90% less power than your average charger. That’s nice. The batteries also have a long service life, which Apple says is up to 10 years. Also nice. Still though, this isn’t really a market that Apple needed to be in.

In our opinion, Apple’s goal here was to innovate a bit for the benefit of their own products. They sell you six batteries so you can have two in a wireless keyboard, and two in a Magic Trackpad or Magic Mouse, and then you can also have two always in the charger, ready to be swapped. It pretty much eliminates worry of running out of juice, which gives you all of the benefits of having wireless devices with none of the drawbacks since you always have two fresh batteries ready for you (unless you somehow have both the wireless keyboard and the pointing device run out at the same time.)

We like the strategy. You can pick up the Apple Battery Charger for $29 from Apple.

Read More | Apple Battery Charger

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Apple Magic Trackpad unboxing

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Apple, PC, Peripherals,

Magic Trackpad box

A few days ago, Apple introduced their Magic Trackpad to the world. It’s a multi-touch wireless trackpad device that mimics the trackpads found on MacBook and MacBook Pro computers, but optimized for the Mac mini, iMac, and Mac Pro. We snatched one up as soon as they went on sale, and are currently in the process of reviewing it. In the meantime, though, we took a bunch of photos and put them up in our Magic Trackpad unboxing gallery. Go ahead and take a look, this thing is sexy.

You can pick up a Magic Trackpad for $69.

Gallery:


Apple Magic Trackpad now available for $69

Apple Magic Trackpad

So, looks like that wireless trackpad peripheral that’s been rumored and leaked has become official, and it’s called the Apple Magic Trackpad. It’s basically a larger version of the trackpad found on the Macbook Pro. Aluminum, glass-covered, and multitouch. It communicates with your Mac over Bluetooth, takes two AA batteries (included,) and requires Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.4. You can pick one up now for $69.

Read More | Magic Trackpad

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