Got iPad? Get Touchpad

With the release of Apple's Magic Trackpad, my mind has been wrapped around that oh-so-familiar question, "Should I get it? Do I want it? Do I need it? Will it make my life a little easier?"

Many years ago, I wanted to develop a foot-controlled mouse pad with a track ball on a foot board in order to alleviate the pain of a repetitive motion injury in my right wrist and elbow. Years of piano playing, layered with the use of a computer keyboard, made mouse use excruciating at times, and the injury I had was only cured by putting my entire arm in a cast and sling for 30 days. Subsequently, I've eyed the computer mouse as a necessary evil.

Recently, I've begun icing my left elbow for what appears to be a similar injury: tendonitis which radiates to the top of my hand and extends into the second digit. I don't mouse with my left hand, but I use a lot of keystrokes with the left hand that were meant to reduce the total number of keystrokes overall. The Magic Trackpad caught my interest while considering how it might further reduce the kind of keystrokes that irritate my tendonitis (i.e. pressing and clicking finger movements, versus sliding or dragging finger movements). I believe it could be a great solution for this condition, and I'm looking forward to testing my theory out on myself.

But it took me an extra twenty-four hours to generate my dumb question of the hour: if I have an iPad, isn't there an app available to turn the iPad (which also has Bluetooth and runs wirelessly) into a trackpad of sorts, as well as a controller for multiple computers? Turns out, maybe my dumb question isn't so dumb.

The first time I visited Chris Pirillo's office, he flipped out when my mouse from across the room took over his computer while he was trying to manage a document. He thought his mouse was on crack, until he realized it was I who was making his mouse scamper across his screen.  We quickly reset our mice to recognize our respective computers. With more than four computers running in the office simultaneously, computer confusion among the mice happens. However, that experience left me wondering if there was a better solution for organizing the mice. I mean, are we mice or are we (wo)men?

After looking at a video about Sonosaurus Rex and Looptastic HD, I began wondering more about using the iPad as a controller, so I could roam my house with one device in hand. Chris can do that with his iPhone, but I hadn't thought about that for the iPad, which is also oh-so-portable, but with a bigger touch screen for all the things I might want to do with it.

What if you wanted one mouse/trackpad to control all your devices, like a universal remote control? What if you wanted it to control computers running Windows (with an additional recommended download) or Linux? Looks like there's been a solution all along, and the developer recently made some cool updates. Check out Touchpad for iPhone and iPad, which turns your iPad or iPhone into a controller. Now you can roam your home or office, and liberate yourself of mice and spare keyboards clutter because Touchpad uses your WiFi network.  It works well for your HDTV and Mac Mini configurations, and it appears to have gotten a lot of four star (or higher) reviews.

Well, my little empire of computers is a molehill compared to Chris' empire of screens throughout his house, but whether your set up is big, small, or somewhere in the middle, Touchpad could be your $4.99 app solution on your already-spendy iPad purchase.

Apple shouldn't be disappointed I'm not racing out to get the Magic Trackpad just yet. They already got my money for an iPad and an iPhone this year. And there are plenty of people who will love the trackpad as a designated piece of hardware. I'd say there's really a win for everyone here.