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Frankly I think this argument has been wrong IMO.

Let’s take Dell for example. There is nothing stopping them from investing in the touchpad controller and designing it themselves if they want full control. And the OS level work is in the driver which is basically controlled by Dell themselves.

Originally Windows treated all touch pads as USB mice, at which point it was understandable that they couldn’t make their touch pads better. However, now Windows has an excellent and full fledged API that allows far more control, equivalent to what Macs can do. Further, if Dell wanted changes to Windows to improve their touchpad I hardly doubt MS would resist.

Personally, I suspect the real reason touchpad haven’t improved in the Windows world is that the vast majority of windows laptops are used for work and business, so they are either docked, or they have mice plugged in and their customers are happy using it that way.

I think that argument has become the default claim for whenever Apple does something well, even when it doesn't make any sense. It particularly doesn't make sense in this case because we're talking about Linux, where anybody can make any changes they like to not only the drivers but the entire operating system. OEMs already commonly have their own distributions.

Apple have a good trackpad because they developed a good trackpad. There is nothing really stopping anyone else from doing the same, whether or not they actually have.

Anyone can make changes, but it's far fewer people who are paid to make changes, and even fewer people paid to polish the experience. Doing the detailed work to make applications "feel good" to use is very difficult, time consuming and the returns aren't immediately obvious. This is not an area of strength for either Windows or Linux. Apple and apps developed for their products tend to be a lot better in this area.

But this still has nothing to do with "controls the software and the hardware" -- which is also true for the people with other priorities. OEMs can modify Linux however they like. Microsoft makes their own hardware (e.g. Surface).

But Microsoft targets businesses who don't care about polish because the buyer and the user are different people, and Linux targets hackers who care more about other things. It has nothing to do with what was originally claimed.

I have heard and read in reviews that Microsoft has more or less nailed the touchpad in Surface laptops. So definitely there is scope.

They are the second best track pad, but I'd say there is still a significant gap between that and a Macbook Pro trackpad.

I've been wanting to switch to Windows from Mac for years. The thing that holds me back is the quality of the Mac touchpad vs any Windows laptop, and I recently ordered a Surface Book 3 having heard how great the touchpad is. I've already returned it.

The touchpad is pretty good but it's still not as precise as the Mac touchpad - there is a slight hysteresis that makes it imprecise for short movements. No amount of tweaking settings could overcome this. The only way to be accurate at short range is to slow the overall pointer speed so it takes more than one finger swipe to move across the screen. (If anyone from Microsoft is reading this - why don't you fix it? It can't be that hard.)

The other problem with the Surface Book is the Home and End keys are not accessible at the same time as the function keys - a show-stopper for smooth editing and debugging in an IDE.

I've been wanting to switch to Windows from Mac for years. The thing that holds me back is the quality of the Mac touchpad vs any Windows laptop, and I recently ordered a Surface Book 3 having heard how great the touchpad is. I've already returned it.

The touchpad is pretty good but it's still not as precise as the Mac touchpad - there is a slight hysteresis that makes it imprecise for short movements. No amount of tweaking settings could overcome this. The only way to be accurate at short range is to slow the overall pointer speed so it takes more than one finger swipe to move across the screen.

The other problem with the Surface Book is the Home and End keys are not accessible at the same time as the function keys - a show-stopper for smooth editing and debugging in an IDE.