MacFlaunt

When doing typical tasks such as browsing the Web or writing a document, there’s nothing more annoying than Apple’s new multi-touch gestures on the MacBook Pro trackpad.

Until recently this was not a problem, as the undesired features could simply be turned off in the Preferences pane. However, after the release of the 10.5.6 OSX update, this option was removed, leaving many new Mac users in disarray.

The most irritating of these features is the Pinch Open and Close feature, which allows the user to zoom in and out of an application. Great if you are actually working on an image in Photoshop, but not so great when you are just trying to scroll down a Web page, as the new Swipe and Pinch feature is incredibly sensitive.

However, developer William Henderson came up with a free application designed to disable these annoying features. MultiClutch (pictured below) is an easy to use widget, which allows users to attach key commands to the trackpad features they hate. The trackpad multi-touch gestures can either be disabled globally (every program effected on the system) or only for specific applications.

Care should be taken when choosing which key commands replace the trackpad motions, as you could end up not only stopping Pinch Open and Close altogether, but launching, restarting, or quitting something else instead. The best option is to use really obscure key combinations as a replacement, about 4 or 5 keys long — just make sure they are not already in use elsewhere.

This useful little application will save many the aggravation and stress that comes with the multi-touch trackpad, without having to actually pay for the pleasure of using it. Let’s hope that MultiClutch (still in beta) will work in Snow Leopard also.

You can download MultiClutch here.