Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Magic Trackpad 2 "burns" my fingers

I was really excited about Apple's new Magic Trackpad 2, particularly its advertised pressure sensitivity, and placed an order for it last week. This might sound like a spooky tinfoil claim at first, but it seemed, just by using it for a minute with my fingers, that my new Magic Trackpad 2 was generating a significant electric field. Fortunately, I am left-brained and nerd enough to own a TriField Meter which I produced and measured the said field of the device. The device generated a consistent background field of approximately 3 milli-gauss (mG), which very often peaked to 10mG during consistent use. As my hand left the device, I was often able to trigger an EMF spike that exceeded 50mG. While EMF safety is still under debate, this field strength consistently exceeds the commonly believed safe EMF range of .5 - 2.5mG. It is true, that if I place my meter directly on the LCD of my iMac, I measure background fields of 40-50mG, however, the strength of this field produced by my iMac at my normal head position while using my computer has a background EMF of only .3mG. I used to experience headaches working at old school CRT monitors, which produce far more EMF radiation than modern LCD monitors, and have been glad they have largely disappeared.

For a device that I will touch for hours during the day, the EMF field strength of the Magic Trackpad 2 is too strong. The subtle burning sensation in my fingertips that I notice during use of the Magic Trackpad is unfortunately irritating and seems to linger in my pointer finger for some time after I discontinue using it. Ok, I will get out the Reynolds Wrap now and make it official.