> another Apple can’t put my finger on why this is so much better than everyone else things
Once you’ve used a Mac touchpad, it’s impossible to go back to a Windows/Linux laptop. I’ve tried…
Once you’ve used a Mac touchpad, it’s impossible to go back to a Windows/Linux laptop. I’ve tried…
It's what allows them to make the touchpad so big, while still making the keyboard easily accessible.
I understand that everyone's experience can be different. But wow I just noticed that my palms are so often on the touchpad while I'm typing and I have never ever had any problem with that.
Also I usually use my thumb to move cursor and click while other fingers stay on the keys and I cannot remember when it didn't behave according to my intentions. Especially considering the bigger contact area between a thumb and touchpad compared to other fingers.
I just checked edge cases and it works very reliably. Cursor doesn't move if I use my palm. It does move if palm is on the touchpad and I use my thumb. It does move as expected if I move both thumb and palm over touchpad synchronously. It follows the thumb as expected if I move both my thumb and palm in different directions.
I remember my first touchpad on macbook air 13 from 2011. It felt so much better than anything I tried before. But at that time it was physical and it had dead zone at the top of the touchpad. And it was smaller. Today's touchpad macbook pro touchpad is an engineering marvel.
Because it doesn't move. When you press down on an Apple touchpad, it doesn't displace at all, it vibrates. This gives you an identical touch response across the entire trackpad, plus nifty things like Force Touch and customizable response intensity.
Nobody else has done it, and it makes every other touchpad feel awful.
Apple can have the best one, sure, I believe it. But they still are bad pointing devices as a type of pointing device. People have gotten used to them, because what else can you really fit into a laptop?
I never found a non-Mac with a trackpad I could use _at all_. I always need a mouse to use my windows laptop...
According to John Romero, keyboard + mouse was intended:
Trackpads are better than touchscreen interfaces though.
I didn't use a mouse since at least 2006. Before that I was mandated to use one by the company I was working for but I probably didn't. Why should I lose time to move my hand to grab the mouse when it's already close to the touchpad?
I connected a mouse a few times to play some casual game but I'm not playing games anymore on my laptop.
There's actually a few benefits, like touchpad gestures for app and workspace switching being much faster than the equivalent keyboard shortcuts.
Apple trackpads are a mouse replacement. There are literally people who have a Magic Trackpad instead of a mouse for desktop use.
That's how good the Apple stuff is.
The Apple one is so good though, it convinced me to buy their dedicated desktop trackpad for when my laptop is docked and I work on my large monitor at the desk. It got to the point where I prefer their trackpad for literally everything I do on my desktop, with games being the only exception. Though I am still fine and good with using a mouse. Trackpads on windows laptops though, it feels insufferable in comparison.
The nipple! I have no idea what IBM actually called it, but that's what it was. I would take it 10 times out of 10 over a touchpad (which I appreciate but cannot use properly)
I have a very nice Logitech mouse and keyboard setup, but still prefer to use the Macbook touchpad while connected to an external display. They're just perfect in every sense.
So, as usual, it’s not just that Apple makes better hardware. They do — their trackpads have always been more precise. But the software interpreting signals from that hardware is much better as well.
In Windows I get more accidental touches turned to clicks; pinch-to-zoom is less reliable; taps are often misinterpreted or missed.
I have the same problem, but with TrackPoints. It's impossible for me to use any trackpad after trying that, and that has had me tied to ThinkPads for the last 18 years.
It is jarring to move between keyboards and have to completely recalibrate my hands to the different behavior. Try as I might, I can't seem to make them converge with the mouse/trackpoint settings controls in the GUI.
The input method also does not seem to "scale" well with large or high-dpi screens, so even just changing resolutions for a work session can also disrupt the behavior on one single device.
Is it just the drivers?
He took a cab from the hotel to a Best Buy to buy a mouse, and I teased him about it. Like, are you such a hothouse flower you can't work for 4 days with the touchpad?
He said something to the effect of "oh, like you wouldn't do the same thing if you left YOUR mouse at home," which was when I realized he hadn't ever noticed that I don't travel with a mouse.
"But how do you put up with it? It's SO BAD!"
"It really isn't; I never think about it!"
And we were baffled by each other for a few minutes, and only when we swapped laptops did either of us realize the HUGE gap.
I had no idea Wintel touchpads were so awful in that era (and horribly horribly small), and he had no idea that a touchpad could actually be good.
It was a weird moment.
(It took a while, but Dell at least caught up. The pad on my XPS15 is, while not Mac-level, absolutely usable. I have no experience with other Wintel makes in the last 5 or 10 years, but I assume the same is true of HP and Lenovo.)
The click feedback is too weak, and the stepless acceleration is not what my brain expects, so I found it frustrating.
Mouse acceleration intensity and curve are editable as well.
Perfectly fine for it to not be your cup of tea, but there is some customizability.