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New MacBook trackpad not clicking for some users

The no-button trackpad unveiled on Apple's new MacBooks and MacBook Pros is failing to register some clicks, according to early adopters.

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit
Apple CEO Steve Jobs explains the new trackpad design used on Apple's MacBooks, which is apparently causing some early problems. James Martin/CNET News

The new glass trackpad introduced on the MacBooks unveiled by Apple last month appears to be giving some users fits.

The trackpad on the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros does away with a separate button, turning the whole trackpad into the mouse button. It also supports several new multitouch gestures for rotating pictures or scrolling. But The Register notes that some users are running into problems where the MacBook doesn't register clicks on the trackpad.

Apple's discussion boards are seeing some activity related to this issue. It's not clear whether this is any kind of hardware or software glitch, or whether or not people are actually causing the problem by resting their thumb on the trackpad over the space that previously contained a button. Older MacBooks had a settings option for ignoring accidental trackpad inputs, but that seems to have been removed on newer models to allow for the multifinger gestures.

Either way, a MacBook user reported that he e-mailed Apple CEO Steve Jobs to complain about the issue, and received a phone call from an Apple representative saying that the company was looking into the problems. We weren't able to duplicate the problem on a MacBook lying around the office, but let us know if you're seeing this issue.