Neat news. I've been thinking about trying one of those out for a while now - I really want to find a pointing/clicking device other than a traditional mouse as my hands age, but nothing's properly worked yet.
Very useful undersold feature.
> Why Apple is the only company
making these is beyond me.
I ask because like the parent poster I love the Trackpad 2 on macOS but I hate most other trackpads when using them with Windows/Linux. Meanwhile I also hate using most mice I've tried on macOS including the Apple ones but am fine with mice on Windows/Linux.
I imagine there are probably tracking speed and acceleration settings that would make the unpleasant combinations work better but I usually give up after making a few simple tweaks.
I wasted a lot of time tweaking low level Synaptics parameters in the config flies when trying to make the Magic Trackpad work well for me on Linux and I think I've exhausted my lifetime supply of patience for excessive pointer setting adjustments.
I don’t see why Dell, Lenovo, etc. can’t provide a laptop with a trackpad that works well under Linux.
Maybe it’s better on Windows I don’t know but the XPS 13 trackpad is, if I’m being genenerous, not great.
But back to the topic, it is rather interesting how hard trackpads are to replicate on other systems with the same level of quality as Apple's own trackpads under macOS. I suspect that's why one of the recent Windows 10 updates brought in consistent APIs for trackpads and multi-touch gestures.
If Microsoft are only just getting around to it now, I've my doubts there'd be any consistency on the matter over in Linux land. Not so much for lack of trying, but in a land of multiple desktop environments each with their own ways of doing things, the uncertainty of whether we keep improving X or focus everything on Wayland … well, I doubt the using the Magic Trackpad 2 under Linux would be all too pleasant.
That's just as subjective as the regular mice. Personally I find their touchpads miserable to use compared to the competition.
PC notebooks still ship with tiny, unresponsive things that make two-finger scrolling a mess and multi-touch gestures drop — apparently input, the one thing one does all the time with a computer, is the place to cheap out on.
On the external front, I've got a brand new wireless Logitech multi-touch trackpad right next to me whose responsiveness still doesn't hold a candle to what I was using on a PowerBook G4 back in 2004.
Then again, it's really hard to compare. Like I say, the hardware isn't what does the magic, it's the software. macOS has had multi-touch trackpad support done right since one of the later versions of 10.4, so we're talking something like 2006 or 2007. Microsoft doesn't seem to have taken the whole thing all that seriously until relatively recently with last year's Precision Trackpad hardware spec and APIs, and I suspect that's because as soon as Microsoft started doing their own Surface hardware, they realised (better late than never) that you can't rely on third parties to get this stuff right, so we'll see what comes of that.
Exactly those. I'd take them over Apple's sirupy mess any day.
defaults write .GlobalPreferences com.apple.mouse.scaling 1
You will need to logout and login after applying it though.
Well, a macbook is also the biggest device it will work well on. It doesn't scale well to large monitors nor multi-display setups, in my opinion.
I feel the old ball type was superior in this regard, you could rely on momentum and just give it a flick for large and quick movements.
Not as beginner friendly though.
> I feel the old ball type was superior in this regard, you could rely on momentum and just give it a flick for large and quick movements
That's exactly how the pointer works on macOS, both for traditional mouses and trackpads. That's what makes the Magic Trackpad work for a large screen for; I can do a little flick to move the pointer across the screen — and I can do it with just a finger, not my whole wrist/arm.
(Unfortunately, Firefox doesn't parse the kinetic scroll events yet: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1213601 ← someone please fix)
I've heard good things about vertical mouses: they're supposed to keep the lower arm from being rotated unnaturally, and the hand position seems to be more relaxed. But I still have doubts about pressing the thing, as that seems to be the root of RSI.
In my experience, staying away from computers altogether works much better for the hands than any devices I've tried, which is not good news for a computer geek.
What kind of dragging operations are you talking about? Drag and drop operations and box selection are no more difficult on a Mac trackpad than with a mouse, and running out of trackpad area was pretty rare even on the pre-Touchbar generation before they almost doubled the size of their trackpads. Drawing might be harder, but neither device is at all good at that task; that's what Wacom is for.
It takes some getting used to, but if you set the ball up so that a 180° rotation corresponds to the cursor travelling the width of the screen it seems to work well.
Disable acceleration on a trackball – whatever your use.
[1] https://www.kensington.com/p/products/control/trackballs/exp...
https://www.kensington.com/p/products/control/trackballs/Sli...