Double-Tap to zoom in via Mobile Safari and your view is focused on a story, image or part of a web page. Launching an app on the iPad will take you full-screen where the only distractions are push notifications. It’s a fantastic system when it comes to focusing on one thing. I sometimes want everything but sometimes it’s great to have just one view point. Full-Screen applications in Lion has helped but it hasn’t helped my squinting to see things. On the MacBook Air and 27″ iMac, the PPI (pixels per inch) is so high that I squint to see words or images. It’s a huge problem and I have to keep Word at 150% viewing just to see things. However, I’ve shifted away from “magnify” which is a feature in most applications. Instead, I zoom.
Zooming has been something of a habit for me since I moved from a 17″ MacBook Pro to a 13″ MacBook Air back in 2009. My PPI got so high that, even at 18″ from the screen, I had trouble seeing things. My glasses correct my vision at 20/20 but still it’s hard to read my own writing. I am even writing this blog post zoomed in. I tried to do a video where I showed how zooming affects your Mac experience but the zoom didn’t show on the video which is weird. Either way, this Macworld Q&A with Christopher Breen explains Zoom.
The option you’re looking for is tucked away in Universal Access. Launch that system preference, select the Seeing tab, and in the Zoom area, click the Options button. At the bottom of the resulting sheet you’ll see a Use Scroll Wheel With Modifier Keys to Zoom, followed by the symbol for the Control key. You can select that symbol and press a different modifier key to assign Option or Command to this shortcut. Don’t let the words “Use Scroll Wheel” dissuade you. When you enable this option and then click Done, just hold down Control (or the modifier key you’ve assigned) and swipe up with two fingers on your trackpad to zoom in. Hold down that same key and swipe down to zoom out.
I use this feature constantly as in, at least once every 5 minutes. Hold down control, scroll with two fingers on the Magic Trackpad and I’m looking at a window full screen and with very little distortion. Zoom is great and enables me to show off something specific on the screen for a friend or to watch Flash videos full screen on web sites that don’t allow full-screen viewing. No full-screen button? No problem, just zoom in on it and you’re good!
This is great for images, text, websites, documents and Photoshop. If you’re a fan of double-tapping on your iOS device on web pages, this zoom feature is going to rock your world.