this post was submitted on 31 May 2024
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I've never used a PC one that I liked, but Macs have superb ones. They are so good I now get trackpads for every desktop I work on too (home + work).
They're great, now if apple could concede that right click is an important thing that's not going away and not relegate it to a corner barely larger than my finger then they'd be perfect.
EDIT: I forgot the default way to right click on Mac is two finger click, I changed it in the settings when I first got it to be click in the bottom right. If you've gotten used to two finger click good on you, but point still stands for us who like the "right" way.
I am using a Mac touchpad on a laptop right now and no matter where I do the right-click action (extremes of upper-left, upper-right, lower-left, and lower-right, center-of-quadrant again for all of those, true center, etc.) it always takes the click. One-finger clicking is equivalent to "left-click" on Windows while two-finger clicking is equivalent to "right-click", or alternatively hitting control while one-finger clicking will do the trick. I've done this for years and years and it's always worked for me before...
The default is for two finger click, I forgot that's the default way since I changed it so long ago, but you can change it to a click in the bottom right is right click, like on a windows laptop, in the settings. it's just the area in the bottom right that qualifies as the corner is very small.
I did a search and there are not many ways to change that, unfortunately:-(. Macs often let you do customization settings, even if you have to copy/paste a command-line to do it, but not this time. There is supposedly an app, but I wouldn't recommend downloading strange apps from an unknown maker.
I did find out that there is an Accessibility -> Pointer Control option that will let you assign any hotkey you want rather than click, like F11 by default is left-click and F12 is right-click. I am not sure if you can do just the right but not the left. Though remember, already by default you can hold down the control key while left-clicking, and that is interpreted as a right-click action. I had used a Windows laptop in combination with a Mac OSX desktop at some point, so I hated the damn trackpad of the former, but I had already gotten used to the control-click functionality of the latter, and then when these force-trackpads came out it was a more natural move for me who was already into the zone there.
Plus as people are saying it's noice hardware - the smooth glass feeling and all:-).
The trackpad click-with-two-fingers is not so bad - at least for me, since I rarely use it and I just add one extra finger to the click (I even use the 3-finger expose swipes sometimes, though I never even recall what the 4-finger ones do, and yet the pinch-and-zoom is nice:-)
I am sorry that it isn't working well for you, but I hope you can find something more to your liking:-). At worst, perhaps you can put Linux onto your existing Mac hardware and therefore configure it more directly?
Thanks for the pointers! Like the meme though I keep it plugged into a mouse, keyboard etc. so don't really use it but when I do it's good except that one issue.
I wish, it's my work computer though and even though all the software I need and the software I'm developing runs on Linux, I think IT would get mad If I loaded Linux on it. Also why I probably can't do any of the other changes you suggested
Oh I see. I use my Macs (at home + work) as daily drivers, though I rarely use the right-click action iirc - so much of working on a Mac only requires one left-click. Also I use the Terminal to log into a work Linux, so a lot of keyboard interaction too, and like alt-tab and such.
But it sounds like your UX is entirely different: if you rarely use the Mac itself, and/or then use an external mouse the vast majority of the time, and even then don't do right-click actions constantly, then I see what you mean: you almost may not even have trackpad experience!?:-D It would then be harder to retain yourself to do differently, and the few times something doesn't work would stick out in your mind more in that case. If you think you'll keep needing to use a Mac setup in the future, you might try to force yourself to get used to it - like pick a slow day of the week and don't allow yourself to use the external mouse and only use the trackpad. Like learning to type in QWERTY rather than hunt and-peck, building habits takes time but does have a pay-off:-). Even if you don't need to do this, it could make the whole experience more pleasurable i.e. less painful for you! Ofc you know your setup far better than I, it was just a thought, in case it helps:-).
I’m not sure I understand your complaint – if you two-finger tap anywhere on an Apple trackpad made since around 2009, it’s interpreted as a right-click.
Reply to edit: “I forgot that I changed it to make it worse and I’m mad at Apple about it” is maybe the most Lemmy comment I’ve ever read
Oh yeah, I changed it so long ago I forgot that's the default. Changed it to bottom right corner in the settings when I first got it since I am used to windows laptops, but the area for the bottom right corner that apple designates is very small.
Yeah, that's easy to miss since Apple removed the super helpful tutorial shorts in the touchpad settings. The new menu is less clear imo.
Not an Apple user, and curious: If you double click a movie file it does not open it but gives you the menu? How do you open it? Triple click? Or one click? If one, how do you just mark it?
Anything you do while touching the trackpad with one finger at a time is the same as though you were using a mouse. Tap once to select, tap and drag to move, double tap to open.
If you tap with two fingers on the pad at the same time, it reacts as if you’ve right-clicked. I usually use my index and middle finger.
Interesting, thank you!
Clicking once with 2 fingers on the pad is what they meant
Sorry, the great prophet Jobs (pbuh) has decreed that one button is all you need.
Seconding this. My company issued me a MacBook and I was really surprised by how well the touchpad worked, and how smoothly gestures work with it. For as much hate as Apple gets, a lot really Just Werks™. Windows and KDE (Wayland) (I haven't tested other DEs) are certainly improving, but they're still nowhere near as smooth as what MacOS has had for a pretty long time now.
The crazy thing is that I've hackintoshed a ThinkPad T430 and T480, both with full gesture support (but no force touch, though to be fair I don't use that anyway). In both cases, using their touchpads on MacOS was much better than on Windows or KDE. Though some touchpads aren't that great to begin with (like, the one on the T430 is pretty small), it's crazy how much of a difference good software can make to how they feel to use.
It's not just the software either. I really like the feel of the Apple trackpad. It's glass instead of plastic like a lot of others. And the haptic feedback feels exactly like what a click would feel like
I've used a few trackpads on PC laptops that were almost as good as on a MacBook, but yeah, most of them kind of suck.
"Apple" the company gets hate, b/c they deserve it, but Mac OSX is fantastic - they really put a ton of effort into it, though iOS is a piece of crap - e.g. now they are trying to extort the users to pay money to send files b/t their desktop computer vs. phone, which is just not okay imho. Mac OSX was from an older era, when Steve Jobs was running the company, and people would have legit left Macs (or not switched to it) if it had not been "solid" like it was. Since then, the new era is not to provide "products" but rather "services".
Oddly enough, with the advent of Windows 7 (so many years ago now), it is fucking Microsoft that has been innovating their software - they are such a terrible company (as too is Apple, and Google, etc.), but they at least were pushing forward, more than Mac OSX, as the Apple corporation switched to put nearly all of their development efforts into iOS, and Music, and TV, and so on.
Apple ofc also has that hardware+software integration thing going on - monopolies really do have their advantages, as well as detractions too. You mentioned hackintoshing a Thinkpad, so I guess you are aware that often people will take a Mac and put Linux onto it as well, it's wonderful that people have put in the efforts so that we have such possibilities:-).
The issue you described with the touchpad on the hackintosh sounds more like a particular driver issue, which gets deeper than I have any knowledge of so I'll stop there:-). I will say tangentially that the Mac OSX has a shit-ton of cool features like font antialiasing, the Preview program is amazing, and I could go on and on but what usually gets lost on people is how Mac tended to have had things first, like everything has Bluetooth now, but Mac OSX had it long before Windoze did. I know nothing about Windows 10 or 11 though, except that they push to offer things as a service rather than product, and they show advertisements throughout:-( - those aspects alone turn me away from wanting to use it, even if the rest was somehow a better experience than Mac OSX (which I expect is NOT:-P).
Wow, a nightmare thought just struck me: if Apple enshittifies Mac OSX... the world will become a noticeably worse place, overall:-(. Fortunately someone will have it backed up and we can hack it (even if having to use older hardware), and there's always Linux that while significantly behind - especially in drivers & UI/UX concerns - is better than it has ever been.
That's just not true - in fact, Apple is well-known for repeatedly releasing 'new' products/features that already existed elsewhere, but acting like they invented it. That goes all the way back to the original Macintosh.
Or, to use your example, everything I can find says MacOS added Bluetooth support in 2004, while Windows XP was patched to support Bluetooth in 2002.
MacOS is good software, but let's not pretend Apple hasn't built their entire empire based on pinching other people's ideas and marketing them better.
People hate on apple coming out with features later than other companies but then they usually blow the competition out of the water in terms of ux. It’s not marketing them better, it’s implementing better.
It’s like valve helping develop proton vs making another nvidia shield or windows handheld.
I probably misremembered some stuff but also stated it too broadly - it was a lot more "mainstream" in Macs than in Windows, in part b/c you could purchase a low-end Windows machine, whereas all Macs start off at a baseline minimum that is fairly high.
Also, Apple put BSD Unix into the very core of their Macs years before Microsoft started poking their noses around the subject.
The end result was a machine that "just worked", right out of the box, which was pretty nice.
Yep exactly, a Magic Trackpad is my main input device. It’s great for design work where you often interact with canvases and might need to scroll in every direction. It’s also more comfortable to use for long time periods.
It's great but I've had greater sensitivity in my finger tips after trying to get used to it. Then typing hurt so I had to switch to a trackball and just regular vertical mouse. I miss the gestures for virtual desktops.
I also love the handy expose swipe features, offering more functionality that does not require still yet another button. The aesthetics are good but most important it's just so functionally beautiful. Those are probably tied to mainly be usable on a Mac OSX though.