Two-Finger Scrolling for Pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks

Jenny Kortina — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:00:56 +0000

I was reformatting a Powerbook the other day and after a fresh Leopard install I went to use the two finger scroll function to scroll down a page…but it wasn’t there. I have been using intel based laptops for so long that I just take the two finger scroll feature function and the two finger secondary right click function for granted, and sorely miss them when they’re not available. Luckily, with the help of some third party software the two finger scroll feature and the two finger secondary right click function are easily added to older G4 laptops.

“iScroll2 is a modified trackpad driver that adds two-finger scrolling capabilities to supported pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks on OS X 10.3 and up. Supported models include most aluminum PowerBooks introduced from 2003 to 2004 as well as most G4 iBooks.”

Download iScroll 2 here,and install. After the install and a quick restart iScroll 2 will be an option in your system preferences.

I found that the default settings were way too sensitive, and I couldn’t easily scroll with them. I used the settings like the ones pictured below and they worked well, but I would suggest taking a few minutes to tweak them.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

GigaOM » Apple

Two-Finger Scrolling for Pre-2005 PowerBooks and iBooks