Apple Trackpad hacked to use USB

Alright, first of all, regarding "why": *YOU* might think that the most important feature is to eliminate the cables on your table, but that is just one feature, and perhaps not as important to all as it is to you. Second, on the rechargeable battery issue: they have come a LONG way, thanks to the introduction of the Sanyo Eneloops and their high-quality (not China-made Duracell) brethren. On the Duracells: Look at the positive terminal if you're in a store. If the ring around the very top metal part of the terminal is white, and you see "made in Japan" on the back, these are rebranded Eneloops, and likely an awesome bargain. If they have black rings and are made in China, they are crap compared to Eneloops and the high quality other entries in this category (see Amazon for reviews).

I've been looking for this hack since the Magic Trackpad was released, and have been thinking of doing something similar myself.

Like may others I have an iMac with a wired keyboard. Not only does this give me a numeric keypad but it also gives me a USB port immediately under the right hand side of the keyboard in the natural place to plug in a Magic Trackpad.

It's all very well to say I should have rechargeable batteries and a recharger and all the other paraphernalia - but why should I be bothered when a tiny two inch USB cable from a stationary keyboard to a stationary trackpad will do the same thing?

I could equally well ask, why is Apple pursuing a policy of building iPhones, iPads, iPods and laptops with non-removeable batteries on the one hand, but on the other hand is introducing a range of desktop peripherals which require continual battery replacement and don't have an recharging option with the batteries in place?

Good lord, how much I hate boards where you have to register prior being able to view the attached images...

Some people are always trying to ice skate up hill...

For the price of the Magic Trackpad and the wireless keyboard apple should include some built in lithium batteries. Which can be charged in place with a USB cable and have a plug and use option for those who forgot to charge but needs to use it.

This is a nice hack to make a beautiful device ugly, but instead of using batteries you can use rechargable ones. And by using the trackpad with USB it doesn't need less power...

Mother of God why? The whole point of the Magic Trackpad was to elimate the mouse, and clutter. This defeats that. What moron would want to do this?

My organization forbids RF (thus BT) devices of any kind so a hack bypassing BT and using USB entirely would be very welcome.

Just stating that there are other reasons besides power that one would want to do such things.

If you must wire it, fine; I can almost get behind your desire to do so. But why do such a crappy job of it? If the guy who did this is older than say 8 years old, then it's really sad. On the plus side if you used some duct tape too, you probably have a good chance at getting published in Make magazine.

Sheldon

...why?