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Microsoft copying more trackpad gestures from OS X in Windows 10

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHg6JL5sdaI]

Microsoft has had a great idea for making the next version of Windows better for power users: copy more trackpad gestures from OS X … 

The Verge pointed us to a Windows 10 keynote demo at TechEd Europe, where Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore introduced the innovative new idea.

With Windows 10 we’re adding support for power users in a touch pad, where multiple finger gestures — which all of you power users learn — can make you really efficient.

Among the gestures demonstrated were exposing the desktop, which Microsoft does with three fingers down, in place of OS X’s thumb and finger spread; swiping between full-screen apps (three fingers instead of the default four in OS X); and Mission Control– sorry, Task Viewer (again, three fingers instead of the default four).

Microsoft first added trackpad gestures in Windows 8, among them two-finger scrolling.

If you want to test out these innovations for yourself, Parallels recently provided an installation guide for Windows 10.

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Comments

  1. Ron Tan - 9 years ago

    Actually you can swipe with 3 fingers instead of fingers on the Mac by just changing it from System Preferences > Trackpad and then changing the gesture from 4 fingers to 3 fingers

  2. Microsoft innovating just like samsung did.

    • ap3rus - 9 years ago

      And just like Apple, and just like Google. Truth is, essential things ain’t innovation.

      • charilaosmulder - 9 years ago

        How can’t essential stuff be innovative? Something as essential as window management can be done in many ways. But it just seems Apple’s implementation is the most solid, thus copied by others. Cut copy & paste on a touch screen is another example of an essential feature that was terrible before Apple nailed it in iPhone OS3. Stating essentials things can’t be innovative is BS.

    • I can’t take credit for this statement but it’s been said that innovation isn’t about who did it first but rather who did it best.

      Unfortunately for Microsoft when they steal an idea their implementation is horrid. There’s no style to their Exposé-like window viewer and they’re kinda stuck with three-finger gestures since the trackpads on those Type Covers are so tiny.

      It’ll be interesting to see what the usage rate is for these new gestures. I suspect most users will continue using a mouse or use two hands to navigate Windows because they have no idea about two-finger gestures (which just barely work in Windows 7).

      • mpias3785 - 9 years ago

        A few years ago I bought a tiny netbook (7″ screen for $150… I couldn’t resist) It has a trackpad the size of a postage stamp. :-)

  3. pauljueck - 9 years ago

    “Microsoft first added trackpad gestures in Windows 8, among them two-finger scrolling.”

    Microsoft has had trackpad gestures for a minimum of five years now, two-finger scrolling was available in Windows 7. Windows 8 includes several gestures, for example to bring up the charms bar, task switcher, app bars etc. With Microsoft’s focus on touch-screen devices, it shouldn’t be surprising that they’re adding more gestures to the touch interface, as well as to the trackpad for users without a touchscreen.

    • PMZanetti - 9 years ago

      The “it shouldn’t be surprising” part is what kills me. Apple does something so well that it becomes second nature….and then other people say, Well that is just the natural way to do it so of course others are doing it now.

      No, it is still theft, regardless of how intuitive it might be.

      • “No, it is still theft, regardless of how intuitive it might be.”

        Good point.

        Hope you feel that way about Notification Center, share sheets, the iOS 8 keyboard, the iPhone itself, ALT+TAB through apps in OS X, the icon dock… shall I continue?

      • pauljueck - 9 years ago

        When Apple introduced the (virtual) right-click (“secondary click”) on it’s MacBook line-up in 2008, I didn’t call Apple thieves for stealing the intuitive right-click idea.
        The point of my previous comment was that Windows has had several multi-touch gestures for over 5 years in their OS. Some of the gestures used in Windows 8 to operate the OS on a touch screen (switching apps, getting to menus…) were made available to touch-pad users in order to enable “touch less” users to operate the touch-optimized Win8 OS. I don’t see why additional gestures, designed to match the new features found in Win10, would be considered “stolen”.
        By the way, the app-switcher that was introduced in iOS 7, showing previews of open apps next to each other, is pretty much identical to what Windows Phone was already using. The “flat” OS layout with a focus on typography? That too was “adopted” by iOS after it was a part of Windows. And yet, I wouldn’t think of calling it “stealing”. An extension in track-pad gestures to match new OS features shouldn’t be called “stealing” either.

      • Adam Zed (@Ad_Zed) - 9 years ago

        The way the app switcher works in iOS 7+ seemed like a glaring omission to me, since Apple already had a similar implementation of window switching with Exposé, formally released with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther in late 2003. Perhaps they felt that it would be too taxing on the hardware at the time or that iPhone displays were too low-res for it to make more sense than icons, but it definitely wasn’t for the inability to conceive of such a thing.

        Notification Center like functionality existed on iOS before Android — just unofficially. It was a jailbreak. The implementation of Notification Center and Control Center are arguably more refined and useful than the old iOS jailbreak hacks and stock Android.

        The dock of icons actually came from NeXTSTEP — the OS that NeXT (Steve Jobs’ company) developed. It was released in 1989 (you know, before 1995). Can’t really call that stealing when when Apple acquired NeXT.

        As for Share Sheets, they’re something that is relevant now, that might not have been as practical in the past — likely due to hardware limitations (not that older hardware wasn’t capable, but the experience probably wouldn’t have been good), and evolution in the way people use their devices. Apple is no stranger to the concept of a menu allowing a user to pass content around to different applications on the Mac, but as with many features, timing and refined implementation are important to them and they’re not afraid to hold off until both are right.

        As for “the iPhone itself,” I’m not sure what you’re trying to imply.

      • You’ve totally missed the point, Adam. We can sit for hours arguing “why” Apple didn’t implement features. The declaration was that “theft is theft, regardless of intuition”.

        The fact is that several things that were made popular, or even best implemented by Apple (or ANY tech company), were originally conceived by another party.

        I would, however, agree with you that Apple has done the best with implementation of these technologies.

  4. Computer_Whiz123 - 9 years ago

    Well, well, well… We have another copycat.

    That is why I develop apps for only the ORIGINAL smartphone makers and not from some cheap samsung (or Microsoft) knockoff.

  5. What else can we expect from them? Copycats.

    Also, look at the size of that trackpad, it’s sooo small. For gestures it need to be bigger, that’s essential and that’s the way it works, that’s why MBs have bigger touchpads which are much better. Most of the casual notebooks have small trackpads which are bad and also, the ones on MB have much better response on your touch.

  6. puri517 - 9 years ago

    Still looks ugly, still useless.

  7. mpias3785 - 9 years ago

    Not surprising, copying from Apple was always their raison d’être. The question now is will the manufacturers be supplying track pads nice enough to make the added features useful?

  8. Mosha - 9 years ago

    Power users, power users, power users!

  9. multiplexxer - 9 years ago

    Microsoft is copying trackpad gestures? So what! Get over it, everyone’s a copycat. Yes, even Apple.

  10. TheMacU.com (@TheMacU) - 9 years ago

    Listening to that guy gets annoying quick!
    From urban dictionary…

    Walla is a word used by retarded Americans who don’t know any foreign languages and barely know their own. The correct word they are looking for is “voila”, which loosely translates as “here it is”, “there you go”, or similar meanings.

    • Haha, excellent!
      Typical Americans.
      Walla…classic, I’ll mention it to my American friend next time we speak.

    • mpias3785 - 9 years ago

      The US is a big country and pronunciations vary from place to place. I recall moving from New Jersey to Oregon, walking into a pizzeria and ordering a large pie, just to be greeted with a 1000 yard stare. I had to explain that by ‘pie’ I meant Pizza. In other parts of the US the word pen and the Word pin are pronounced exactly the same. I wouldn’t get so worked up about Walla and voilà, but calling soda ‘pop’ gets my blood boiling.

      • nieksanderman - 9 years ago

        You do know that “Voila” is French, right? It’s not an american/english word, so pronouncing it wrong is just, well, wrong. No matter where you come from.

      • mpias3785 - 9 years ago

        Oh, I know it’s a French word but it’s in the process of being ‘Americanized’. I’m more concerned about the spelling rather than the pronunciation. Having moved around the country, I’ve grown less picky about that, especially originating in a place like New Jersey where most people tend to have a strong regional accent. It took me years to say dog rather than dawg without having to think about it first. I am however picky when two words have the same or similar spelling but different pronunciations and meanings and someone uses the wrong pronunciation it causes my hackles to rise- like cash and cache.

      • @mpias3785
        Regarding Cash and cache.
        How do you Americans pronounce it?
        Because cash is, well, cash.
        Cache is “Ka-shay” or do you say “Cashhh”?

        But the word “Walla”, haha, that was excellent, I will definitely tell my American friend that lives here and give him a ridiculous hard time about it. :)

      • mpias3785 - 9 years ago

        Cash and cache are pronounced the same. Look in a dictionary site, or better yet, an etymology site. Cache mutated from the late 18 century french cacher in which the r is pronounced, not cachet where the t isn’t. Languages evolve that’s why we don’t speak Proto Indo-European.

  11. al0963 - 9 years ago

    Let them have everything, Windows is still garbage

  12. Michael Dyer (@emdotdee) - 9 years ago

    And yet it still doesn’t work or look as good as on the Mac.

  13. mpias3785 - 9 years ago

    Innovation isn’t always invention. Innovation can be seeing something being done one way and finding a better way to do the same thing. If you look at the Xerox Parc in action you’ll see that the Mac’s implementation was quite different and more intuitive. I worked with early versions of Windows and didn’t find that it really copied the Mac until Windows 95. There were tablets long before the iPad, smartphones long before the iPhone and MP3 players long before the iPod. Apple just figured out how to do these items in a way that would appeal to the general public. Is that innovation or is it theft?

    This isn’t to say that Microsoft, Google or Samsung aren’t guilty of IP theft to one degree or another, but I just don’t see Microsoft using gestures on a trackpad as theft but more as an extension of it’s on screen gestures.

    I just hope that Apple never borrows the idea of smearing computer screens from Microsoft.

  14. Fallenjt JT - 9 years ago

    Power user, may ass. Why don’t you just make those available to all user types and called the functions “Apple Inspired” gestures…Damn shame.

  15. rettun1 - 9 years ago

    “Hey good luck with the presentation, bud. Oh, and don’t forget to say ‘power users’ a thousand times”

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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