> I did the same thing on old laptops, although a right-click support region and pinch to zoom on the track-pad are two gestures worth keeping.
Absolutely true. It's the size of the trackpad on Apple's current line *and* the lack of hand coordination are causing these issues. I forgot to mention the latter. I can use one hand to both select and click on a trackpad. Neither of my elderly parents can, they use their left index finger to click and their right index finger to move the cursor around.
Getting either of them to remember holding down the CTRL key for the right-click and the menu it will give has been an impossible task. Say what you will, but many of our elderly do not use computers at all because they're simply too confusing for them. My stepfather has used Apple computers since the late 1970's and the Apple //e+ he got for managing their business and those crude spreadsheets available back then –– so he's no novice.
Add in the hand tremor he's had for nearly 20 years due to the medication he takes, and you can see where old folk might find using computers daunting, especially when the GUI changes can happen every year.
There are probably ways I could use the Accessibility features built into macOS to help with these things, but I've had no time to explore them. Also, the complexity Apple has added recently to System Settings (formerly called Preferences) and made that even harder.
> Once you go touch-screen on your laptop, you'll never want to go back. Imagine your iPad with a keyboard and mouse and without a touch-screen. That's your Apple laptop experience right now.
Yes, they've been around a long time in the Windows world, 20 years at least. I remember a friend talking about how cool he thought it was around 2003. My ex-GF had one and I did enjoy using it since I think the keyboard cursor control was that horrible tiny red button you're supposed to use your index finger on. Hated those.
As a side note, I saw one of the first consumer computer touch screens back in 1983, the DEC Rainbow 100 with that expensive option installed. One of the guys on my dorm floor had one. He was a silver spoon kid, son of a wealthy bank executive in Los Angeles. |
