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I hate to be negative, but what makes you think you can do in two months what Microsoft has failed to do in several years (Microsoft's Precision Touchpad is still a ways away from a Mac touchpad).

I probably can't finish it. But I can start, and document it all.

The 2 month time is because that's how long I spent on summer internships before (I rewrote Pixelgarde in 6 + 8 weeks, and a driver for a Fisher & Paykel Healthcare CPAP in less than 3 months). Second, my ankle's broken so I'm taking time off my normal work. Third, I hope that if I do the alternative (keep applying for jobs), I'd get an offer within 2 months.

Who ever accused Microsoft of always doing their best to have the best product on the market at all costs?

Really? Outside of the lack of force touch, I haven't found the Surface touchpads to be any worse than Macbook ones in terms of accuracy.

I haven’t spent much time with the Surface touchpad. On my X1C, which has the Precision touhpad driver, little things are off. E.g. moving the cursor with one finger while others are resting on the touchpad will hiccup a bit.

> I'd develop for the MacBook Pro 2014, because that's my hardware. Only one Linux distro (probably Ubuntu).

While I haven't used desktop linux as a host os in years, but I agree on the sentiment that the macbook trackpad is easier/probably implemented well already.

Years ago, I spent a bit of time bootstrapping thimblemac.com which involved hacking around and using privateframeworks for the trackpad. Much of the work in that space is seemingly based off of code from back in 2009 - http://blog.sendapatch.se/2009/november/multitouch-on-unibod... , and from searching github just now staring briefly at https://github.com/robotrovsky/Linux-Magic-Trackpad-2-Driver it looks like they've gotten things implemented fairly well.

Between being more interested in surface-like tablets and watching the diy keyboard community's growth, I wonder how hard it would be to create an Open-Source-HardWare typecover that included a touch pad. There have been things like the macdec and express keyboard (https://www.wired.com/2011/02/macdec-tea-tray-holds-keyboard... , https://bullettrain.com/products/express-keyboard-platform?v... ), but given the slimness of the force touch trackpad and info around slim keyboards I bet you could make something small enough to pair with a tablet. You could start by making a slim diy keyboard (think https://keeb.io/collections/frontpage/products/dilly-3x10-or... but slimmer) that had an insert for a bluetooth apple magic trackpad, then optimize the design from there.

The surface book touchpad is every bit as good as anything Apple has to offer. I owned 5 different macbook pro/airs prior to making the switch when the touchbar MBP came out.

Comparing insert other hardware manufacturer and laying it on Microsoft isn't really fair... they have no control over what the hardware mfg's put in their laptops. And they can only fix so much in software when there are literally thousands of combinations on the market at any given time.

The surface book touchpad hardware itself might be as good as the trackpad in Macbook's but the software support in windows is not even close. Almost everything but UWP apps and some other first party windows apps have jittery scrolling even with the best trackpad hardware, which is not the case with mac apps.

Either you've never used a surfacebook, or you've got faulty hardware, because that is 100% false. I spend exactly 0 seconds of my day in UWP apps.

There is absolutely 0 issues with jittery scrolling, and out of the 10 or so people I know with SBPs, not a single one has ever mentioned that as an issue. And given that everyone in my group that is on an SBP was previously on an MBP, those cries would be loud and frequent.

> I'm looking for a job in New Zealand, Australia, or Canada. Not Seattle (sorry Bill). I'd stop job hunting to work on this, so someone else will have to find me a job.

I think letting someone else job hunt for you is unconventional for a reason (it's probably a bad idea).

Recruiters do exist, but that's not my idea.

I'd rather that a project manager in one of those countries use this as a kind of long interview. If I succeed/work well with them, then they'd hire me.

I certainly wish you the best! A lot of people say they support Linux and open source, but are not willing to put significant effort in themselves (that includes me, to be honest).

I would be amazed if someone is going to be willing to find you a job because you decided to work on some OSS. However, having a project like this to talk about is great interview material.

As for actually building this, I'd be very excited to see this being worked on. It's going to need a lot of different hardware to test with, so the more people working on it the better.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but do we need new Linux drivers for MacBook touch pads? Mine is working fine on my 2015 MackBook with Linux Mint. Am I missing something obvious?

I’m not sure but when I tried using my external mac touchpad on Ubuntu it wouldn’t handle scrolling (two fingers).

Maybe not new drivers, but the existing ones drive me nuts. For example, I often rest my thumb on the bottom left corner of the trackpad (where I press to click). That interferes with my cursor movement on Linux, but not on macOS, which ignores my resting thumb with 100% accuracy.

Sorry for being off-topic, but I can't resist asking why on Earth would you want to port iTunes and AppleScript? Everyone I know (except the HN user actsasbuffoon) loathes iTunes, while AppleScript is just... silly, compared to other scripting languages.

I miss the old iTunes 10 interface, which I use as a database manager (I like smart playlists, playlist folders, and Genre > Artist > Album columns).

AppleScript because it has so many APIs. BetterTouchTool makes heavy use of it. I taught myself how to code in it when I was 13, and I still use it now.

>AppleScript because it has so many APIs.

You mean the commands you can use on apps like iTunes, Finder, Photos, etc.? Those are not AppleScript-specific per se (AFAIK there used to be an option to write Automator scripts in JS). You'd need the Linux/Gnome/KDE equivalent of the Open Scripting Architecture ( https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ap... ) with active participation from app developers. Sounds like a huge overtaking.

Yes, it would be a huge undertaking. I've already rewritten my own apps for offline maps, calendar, notes, and I plan to write contacts and iTunes too. When there's a standard API comparable to Apple Events/OSA within those core apps, I'd hope to have enough leverage to persuade other app developers to accept pull requests.

We already have D-Bus to cover sending events to applications, what's really missing is a standard way to enable scripting. I've had a similar idea myself but never got around to implementing it, but I think a standard D-Bus interface applications could implement to expose a scripting dictionary along with a Python/Ruby/Whatever library to implement a more OSA-like interaction would go a long way.

Out of curiosity, what GUI toolkit have you written these apps in/for? Something Mac-like (GNUStep)?

Yes, you can still write Automator scripts with JavaScript!

Unfortunately the documentation is AppleScript only.

So, in 2018, at peak JS, it's practically an easter egg that you can write Automator scripts in JavaScript.

I guess this is indicative of Apple's commitment to macOS automation...

> I like smart playlists, playlist folders, and Genre > Artist > Album columns

Doesn't Rhythmbox have that?

I like iTunes, I don't understand why people hate it.

Applescript is silly in some respects. It was the first scripting language I learned so it has a special place in my heart. I would totally spend the time to port that if someone was wanting help with that. It's quirky and not difficult to pick up. I can't imagine it having much of a market outside of the Mac ecosystem though. I guess I'm also curious why.

Howdy. You've now met someone who thinks iTunes is decent for his uses.

I like iTunes as a music player. I've never seen another app that tempted me to make the effort to switch.

There are a few warts in its other tasks (which should be spun of into another app), but once I switched to iCloud syncing for my phone I stopped seeing those.