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Last week, I picked up a new 15-inch unibody MacBook Pro. When it was first introduced a few weeks ago, and despite the temptation, I actually decided not to upgrade. I told myself to wait it out until at least Macworld in January 2009, where I was hoping and wishing (and justifying) that a 17-inch, non-glossy version would be announced.

But after the severe hard disk failure I've experienced with my previous generation MacBook Pro and PowerBook (both with 17-inch, non-glossy screens), I thought it was time that I should upgrade, and deal with Macworld in January when it comes.

Of the many impressive design, speed and performance improvements of the new unibody machine over my previous laptops, and despite my biased and preconceived aversion to the smaller, glossy screen (all my previous laptops had 17-inch matte screens), the one feature that I have come to like the most is the unibody's new single, multi-finger gesture, glass trackpad.

The trackpad of the unibody is indeed much larger than previous models and is the smoothest ever. My early apprension of easily adopting to the new trackpad melted away. I was able to easily transition it. Though now a single piece, I started using it the way I was used to using the previous 2-piece trackpad of older models. It worked just fine for me, and I was even pleasantly surprised that it did what I wanted it to do. As a matter of fact, I found it more challenging to adapt to the new keyboard design than that of the new trackpad design.

To quickly familiarize myself with the features of the new trackpad, the first thing I did was to go to the System Preferences, then click on the separate Trackpad icon. In previous laptop models, when you want to set or alter the behavior of the trackpad, you can find the section embedded within the Keyboard & Mouse icon of the System Preferences. In the new unibody machine, trackpad controls is now accessible in its own separate icon.

Tapping or clicking on Trackpad, you'll be greeted with a neatly organized 3-part layout. On top and across, you can individually adjust the tracking speed, double-click speed, as well as the scrolling speed. On the left side, you can set the behavior of the multi-finger gestures. And on the right side, is a helpful collection of short demonstration videos showing how each of the finger gesture works. Just watching the video for a few minutes gave me a very good idea of what all the finger gestures can do. This new Trackpad section, which has been further refined in recent updates, is where you can enable or modify the behavior of the taps, clicks and swipes in one-finger, two-finger, three-finger and four-finger gestures.

Depending on your personal computing habits and preferences, you can configure the new trackpad behavior in any way that is most convenient to you, even notably to mimic settings of your previous laptops, but with the added bonus of the new multi-finger gestures.

As for my own preference, the settings that provided me with the behavior I want, (and which leads to the results described below), I've configured my trackpad as follows:

• Tick all the check boxes.
• In the Secondary Click under One Finger, set it to Bottom Right Corner.
• In the Screen Zoom section under Two Fingers, click on Options, make sure that the tick box on top that says "Zoom while holding ... " is checked, and then click Done.

With these settings, I am able to combine the previous single and double fingers gestures I've come to prefer with the new three and four fingers gestures.

Here's how I use the multi-finger gestures in Aperture:

• The 1-finger swipe moves the cursor to any direction, including outside of the browser pane. All the behavior of the 1-finger gestures that are available in previous generation laptops are still included in the new multi-finger trackpad. Moving the sliders in Adjustment panes, for instance, can still be done with a thumb click and finger swipe, despite the fact that the trackpad now a single piece.
• With the cursor on the title bar, double-tap and hold so that the entire application moves with the direction of your finger swipe. To release the hold, just tap, release and swipe away.
• To minimize the application, double-tap on the title bar or the empty space in the Toolbar. A single tap on the minimized application in the dock will bring it back up.
• A single tap on any of the icons in the Toolbar will launch the selected function.
• A single 2-finger tap on Aperture's Title Bar or Toolbar will bring out the dialog box that will allow you to customize the Toolbar. A 1-finger tap on any empty space in the Title Bar or Toolbar will make it disappear.
• In Browser Only View mode, with or without any image selected or highlighted, and with the cursor inside the browser pane, swiping 2 fingers up and down will quickly scroll through the images. You can also scroll through the images even if the swiping motion is a bit diagonally. And, even if the cursor is positioned in the scroll bar or the Shuttle control slider, the images will still scroll up and down. However, if the cursor is positioned in the Menu bar, the Title bar, the Toolbar or the Control Bar, the images will not scroll. Swiping 2 fingers left and right will not actually scroll the images.
• In the Browser & Viewer mode, as long as the cursor is within the browser pane or when positioned in the scroll bar or the Shuttle control slider, you'd still be able to to scroll through the images with the 2-finger gesture.
• In the Projects, Metadata and Adjustment panes, you can scroll up and down with a 2-finger gesture. You can also scroll through the items up and down with the same 2-finger gesture in any of the HUDs (heads-up displays).
• If you want to magnify any portion that's in your screen, whether in Aperture or other applications, press CTRL and swipe up. To bring it back to original view, swipe down with 2 fingers while still pressing the CTRL button. This is one of the several global 2-finger gestures that is also available in some of the previous MacBooks and MacBook Pros.
• When the cursor is inside the viewer pane, either in the Browser & Viewer or Viewer Only mode, and also in Full Screen mode, swiping with 2 fingers up and down will quickly and sequentially scroll through the images.
• With the cursor in the Browser, in both the Browser Only and Viewer Only mode, pinching open or close will resize the thumbnail images. In Full Screen mode, and with the cursor positioned in the Filmstrip, you can also resize the thumbnail images by pinching it open or close. However, when the cursor is in the Viewer, including Full Screen mode, you cannot resize the selected image or images.
• You can rotate single images only in the Browser pane. Even if you select several images, the image that will rotate is the one where the cursor on top of it. In Full Screen, you can rotate any one image, whether selected or not, as long as the cursor is on top of the image you want to rotate. The image in the viewer pane, whether in standard view or full screen view, cannot be rotated.
• In both the Browser Only and Browser & Viewer mode, you can select any adjacent image, one swipe at a time, going up or down, left to right, right to left, with a 3-finger gesture. In Full Screen mode, the 3-finger swipe, whether up or down, left to write, right to left, will move you only one successive image at a time. One of the things I like about the 3-finger swipe is that, even if my selected or highlighted image is not being currently shown in the Browser, the first 3-finger swipe will scroll the images to where my highlighted or selected image is. This is particularly useful and convenient, when trying to find where you are in the browser, particularly if you are going through hundreds or even thousands of images.
• If you use 4 fingers, swiping in an upward motion will reveal the desktop. Swiping downwards, will reveal All Windows. Swiping left or right with 4 fingers will bring up the overlay of all open applications. So far, all 4-finger gestures seem to be universal for all applications, and there appears to be no Aperture-specific 4-finger gesture, not even individually or when in combination with the Shift, Control, Option or Command modifier keys.

With barely a week's experience using the new multiple-finger gesture trackpad, in Aperture and in all other software, I've come to depend on the mouse less and less, even to the point when I eventually stopped using it altogether. This is good because it now makes my motions more efficient. And combined with keyboard shortcuts, I am able to execute commands and work faster than before. About the only other external device that I still use, which is the only thing that makes my hand travel out of the laptop, is an attached Wacom tablet.

With what the multi-gesture trackpad can do now, and what other things it can do in the future, it doesn't seem too far-fetched to imagine that perhaps, sometime in the near future, Apple, or other third-party hardware developers at least, may find themselves developing separate trackpads or trackpad-and-keyboard combination to be attached via USB port as an alternative to the mouse and for use with the iMac, the MacPro, and the Mac mini. Could the multi-finger gesture trackpad of the unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro signal the demise of the mouse? No one can tell, for sure. As for me, and for now, and even I don't use it any more with the unibody MacBook Pro, I don't mind the sight of a mouse beside my laptop, even if I never almost use it.