Apple Magic Trackpad 2

The Apple Magic Trackpad 2 ($129.99) offers some big updates when compared with the original Magic Trackpad—which turned an ancient-in-technology-years five this year. The concept is the same—take the excellent trackpad from Mac laptops and put it in a form that you can use with your iMac, Mac mini, or Mac Pro. If you're a trackpad devotee, it's a solid update to the original edition, offering a wider surface and an internal rechargeable battery that Apple says can go for a month between charges. But the price jump is off-putting—the new version costs nearly twice as much as its predecessor. That's a lot to pay for a rechargeable battery and Force Click capability.

Design and Features
The Magic Trackpad 2 has a lower profile than its predecessor. There's no need for a circular compartment to hold AA batteries, so the entire device sits at a slightly lesser angle. It's a wedge that is tallest at the back (0.43 inches) and tapers down to its shortest position at the front (0.19 inches). The top glass surface is finished in white, as is the bottom plastic cover, with a silver, metal bezel wrapping around its body. The active surface area comes in at 6.3 by 4.5 inches (WD), which is larger than the original Apple Magic Trackpad (5 by 5 inches). It's likely to spend its life sitting on your desk, but if you're curious about its weight, be happy that it's fairly light at 8.2 ounces.

It's a wireless device, but one that ships with a wire. The included Lightning cable is required for initial setup—turn the power switch on the back of the Trackpad to the green position and plug it into your Mac via USB to pair. After that, communication is done via Bluetooth 4.0. If your Mac is more than a few years old it may not support this standard—check your System Report or consult this list to see which version you have. You'll also need to make sure you've upgraded to the latest version of OS X (El Capitan) in order for the Trackpad to work.

All of the same multi-touch gestures that you're used to using on a MacBook trackpad are available, including the Force Touch function found in the latest Mac laptops. You can set which ones are active via the OS X preference panel. But you can scroll using two fingers, pinch to zoom, tap or press the surface to click, right click with a two-finger tap, and use swiping gestures to activate Mac-centric features like the Notification Center, Mission Control, Exposé, and Launchpad. If you've used a Mac with at trackpad before, you know the drill.

The banner new feature is Force Click, which was introduced earlier this year in updates to Retina MacBook Pros and the 12-inch MacBook. It's essentially a pressure-sensitive click. When you click the trackpad as usual; it reacts as it would to a tap; but adding pressure changes the function, depending on the app. OS X and native Mac apps support Force Click extensively—you can use it to preview Web links in Safari (sorry Chrome users, it's not supported at press time), or quickly open a pop-up window to look up a term in the dictionary or Wikipedia. And there are dozens of other uses available as well, depending on the app you're using.

The gesture provides haptic feedback—it feels just like a two-stage click, but that second click that you feel is internal mechanism of the trackpad moving to let you know it has been triggered. There's audio feedback too—a satisfying click-click. But you can lessen the audio effect if desired via a Silent Click option in the Trackpad preference pane. (It's not quite silent, but it is a lot quieter.) And you can disable Force Click entirely if you desire, or adjust the firmness of a standard click if you find that it's too difficult or too easy to activate the Force mechanism.

But don't expect Force Click to work universally. As I alluded to earlier, it isn't supported in Chrome, nor does it have any special function in Adobe Creative Cloud applications like Lightroom and Premiere Pro. But support is growing. I was able to use it to look up words and preview links in the Slack chat client.