Very cool, but I'd still probably just buy a cheap digital scale.
The best digital scale is the one you have with you ;)
TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
51–60 of 156 posts
Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
This worked all the way up through the iPhone Xs.
The single most irritating killed feature from Apple. Redesign half of their UI to rely on 3D Touch to make sense, then get rid of 3D Touch without redesigning the UI. Previewing links, moving the cursor, interacting with items, they’re all “press and hold until haptic feedback” instead of “quickly press hard and get immediate feedback.” Easier to accidentally trigger, slower to trigger on purpose.
Hardware cost+extra weight (need to make the glass thicker to be able to handle extra force and not push on the display). Turns out nobody was really using it because discoverability sucked..
Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#53Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
The single most irritating killed feature from Apple. Redesign half of their UI to rely on 3D Touch to make sense, then get rid of 3D Touch without redesigning the UI. Previewing links, moving the cursor, interacting with items, they’re all “press and hold until haptic feedback” instead of “quickly press hard and get immediate feedback.” Easier to accidentally trigger, slower to trigger on purpose.
Hardware cost+extra weight (need to make the glass thicker to be able to handle extra force and not push on the display). Turns out nobody was really using it because discoverability sucked..
Hardware cost & weight, fine. Glass doesn't need to be thicker than it currently is (I can press on my 13 Pro's screen about twice as hard as was needed for 3D Touch's max depth, and no issues with the screen), and the last time I replaced a battery on a 12, the screen was just as thick as the XS.
>Turns out nobody was really using it because discoverability sucked..
Sure, but then redesign the UI after removing 3D Touch to not be equally undiscoverable but less precise. Even on the latest iOS beta with its full redesign, there's still many, many actions that require a long press that are completely undiscoverable. (For example, if you don't have the Shazam app installed, go find the list of songs Siri has recognized when asked "What's this song?" Don't look up the answer.)
Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#55Finally some hacker news
Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
The single most irritating killed feature from Apple. Redesign half of their UI to rely on 3D Touch to make sense, then get rid of 3D Touch without redesigning the UI. Previewing links, moving the cursor, interacting with items, they’re all “press and hold until haptic feedback” instead of “quickly press hard and get immediate feedback.” Easier to accidentally trigger, slower to trigger on purpose.
Hardware cost+extra weight (need to make the glass thicker to be able to handle extra force and not push on the display). Turns out nobody was really using it because discoverability sucked..
Nobody? Really? It’s definitely the UX feature I miss most on modern iPhones. Long press feels janky in comparison.
Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#57This is clever! and potentially useful too. Have you done any testing to determine how precise and accurate this is? I suspect their must be a lot of variance between laptops, since this isn’t an intended use case.
I would assume Apple hardware comes precalibrated. Homogeneity is everything for their product lines, down to individual calibration of screens and audio hardware. It would be weird to get a new laptop and have its trackpad feel different.
Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#58> TrackWeight utilizes the Open Multi-Touch Support library by Takuto Nakamura to gain private access to all mouse and trackpad events on macOS. This library provides detailed touch data including pressure readings that are normally inaccessible to standard applications.
How can something be available as a library but not as a native interface? Swift does not expose that API?
Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#59> TrackWeight utilizes the Open Multi-Touch Support library by Takuto Nakamura to gain private access to all mouse and trackpad events on macOS. This library provides detailed touch data including pressure readings that are normally inaccessible to standard applications. How can something be available as a library but not as a native interface? Swift does not expose that API?
Mac OS has "Private Frameworks" - shared libraries that are used by the system but don't ship with headers by default. It's trivial to produce these headers from the libraries, and then make wrappers for them like OpenMultitouchSupport which is a wrapper for MultitouchSupport.framework.
Re: TrackWeight: Turn your MacBook's trackpad into a digital weighing scale
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember drawing on my old iPad back in the day by shoving a wet q-tip into a BIC pen and using it as a stylus. I am sure something similar could be rigged here
I've used carrots and cucumbers as a capacitive stylus while wearing gloves. It's the reason why I love Note and S Ultra phones - the stylus. I'm using it now.
I use this to avoid touching the stupid self-checkout machines when buying groceries