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Comment by ak217 | Hacker News Reader

I agree 100%, and I also think Force Touch doesn't get the attention it deserves. To me the 2015 Macbook Pro is the pinnacle of laptop engineering because it added the Force Touch touchpad. Being able to click anywhere on the pad and configure the strength of the haptic feedback is huge. Not having haptic feedback, or having to use a separate button, or having it vary from top to bottom depending on how far I am from the hinge, is no longer acceptable to me.

Without Force Touch-like trackpad hardware, other laptops are still too far behind.

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Force touch is so good I had to switch the laptop off to convince myself it wasn't actually moving.

The first time the battery of my iPhone 8 died felt like the device had lost its soul

It definitely moves - the whole pad is kind of springy - it just doesn't tap back with an impulse without power.

On the > 2015 MacBooks the touchpad definitely does not move when powered off. It’s just a piece of glass.

I can only speak for my mid-2015 15" Retina MacBook Pro, and the whole pad is clearly flexible and very slightly sprung (and yes, it's made of glass - thin glass is quite flexible). You can see it flex and bend by looking across it while deflecting it - it's most easily seen by looking at the gap around the edge of the pad, between the pad and the laptop casing, while deflecting it close to the edge. The gap varies as the pad is deflected.

What it doesn't do is haptic feedback when it's turned off. There's no click. I infer that's because the click works by applying a mechanical kick back close to the point of deflection. Your finger wouldn't feel it as a click if there was no mechanical movement at all. A bit like a speaker: speakers are mechanical devices too.

https://ifixit.org/blog/7084/force-touch-track-pad/

> we’re pretty sure the magic pressure sensors in the new Force Touch trackpad are tiny strain gauges. Mounted on flexing metal supports, they detect the amount of flex on each—and based on that, the force from above.

Flexing = movement.

I have bought Magic Touchpad for its "Force Touch" quietness, but other than that, I find it to be more of a gimmick. It is slightly better than the hinge-pad of my Yoga 2 Pro, but it's not a life-changing experience. What is a deal-changer for me is the volume of its click sound, especially when configuring its force feedback engine on GNU/Linux to get even lower than what macOS allows ;)

the game changing part is that it's actually totally viable to do real work with without a mouse. never felt that way when using a laptop before.

I've been an exclusive touchpad user for years already. This really isn't a big change - well, it could be if you move from a really crappy touchpad (and from my experience perceived crappiness is usually software's fault, although of course there are some bad apples in hardware too).

Having used the Macbook trackpad... I don't understand the hype. As a trackpad, it's brilliant. But so what? On a table, I'd much rather use a mouse. The weirdly inaccurate precision, odd acceleration, and clumsy movement makes the trackpad feel off. There's no acceleration sweetspot and there's no sensitivity sweetspot that I could find.. On my lap, I don't usually have enough space to use a trackpad over say a trackpoint.

It's a great solution, but it just doesn't solve any problem I have. I'd rather have a scroll wheel.

Having used a trackpad for years, I don't even use a mouse when one is available (outside of 'gaming') and use my trackpad 100% of the time. I also use my laptop for hours per week on planes / trains on my lap without any issues from the trackpad. For me, that's not something that ever felt comfortable to do with the trackpoint.. and trying to use a mouse on a train seems like it would be unpleasant.

I expect I'm not the only person in that situation and it's great if more effort goes into trying to improve the trackpad experience of linux on a laptop!

How do I do gestures on a mouse? Example: drag a file, 3 finger swipe to different desktop, drop file.

Done by holding a button that doesn't exist, but which you forget isn't there. Cos the driver is that good.

I prefer being able to scroll horizontally and vertically, zoom in/out and rotate on the spot. There's no question the multitouch model is more expressive, but we're all gimped by mice.

I disagree, I still prefer the old-style Macbook Pro touchpad. Though I haven't used the new one on daily basis, I have always thought it felt strange.

It does, until you use it every day for a while. When I use my partner's air it feels very unsatisfying in comparison.

Agreed 100%. I use both regularly and the force touch is way better.

That's not Force Touch though. It's the Apple Taptic Engine simulating a click with a vibration. Force Touch, or later 3D Touch, refers to the ability to distinguish between various levels of force: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_Touch

I hate Touch-Force and wish I could buy a machine with distinct mouse buttons today.

I'd view it as feature that is usable when the hardware and drivers are done well and just miserable when they are bad - the possibility of your typing and your mousing getting in each other's way seems to increase with every generation of laptop form factor, with more gimmicks needed to stop it (oddly similar to the 737 Max problem - reading the edge of software compensation).

Palm rejection on the latest 15" MBP is impeccable, in my experience. I was pretty worried about that before purchasing, just because it's hard to imagine how they've perfected it on a touchpad that large, but they truly have.

Yup. Unfortunately the OS itself is rapidly degrading.

Would you care to elaborate on why this is your opinion? For now, your comment just reads like a regular post on the MacRumors forums: a short and generic complaint.

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