Why does Linus have such a hardon for Apple's touchpad?

[PhD_Tap]

In the most recent LTT video about the Sensel Morph, near the end of the video they mention the prototype for a new windows touchpad made by sensel. 

He states "First windows touchpad flat out better than a macbook".

He's mentioned this several times over the years and I just don't get the allure of the Mac's touchpad. It's big yeah, but other than that, what does it do better?

 

Why is he so hung up on the "feel" of the click on a touchpad? I much prefer the touch click on Windows and Linux. I don't have to do the awkward click with one finger and drag with another hand/ the other fingers of that hand. 

I just double touch the pad, then drag. Simple. 

 

It's just really weird to me. 

[Haraikomono]

Just now, PhD_Tap said:

In the most recent LTT video about the Sensel Morph, near the end of the video they mention the prototype for a new windows touchpad made by sensel. 

He states "First windows touchpad flat out better than a macbook".

He's mentioned this several times over the years and I just don't get the allure of the Mac's touchpad. It's big yeah, but other than that, what does it do better?

 

Why is he so hung up on the "feel" of the click on a touchpad? I much prefer the touch click on Windows and Linux. I don't have to do the awkward click with one finger and drag with another hand/ the other fingers of that hand. 

I just double touch the pad, then drag. Simple. 

 

It's just really weird to me. 

 

When I or any other dev do scripting, usally for hours at a time. It can get pretty frustrating, especially if there are hardware limitations,

in this case a not so good touchpad. It will drive devs nuts when they are presented with low quality gear.

 

One reason for me is the feel of apple touchpads, it isnt something easy to describe, but even after working on a project for hours the feeling of quality never disappears.

[PhD_Tap]

On 4/15/2021 at 12:40 PM, Haraikomono said:

 

When I or any other dev do scripting, usally for hours at a time. It can get pretty frustrating, especially if there are hardware limitations,

in this case a not so good touchpad. It will drive devs nuts when they are presented with low quality gear.

 

One reason for me is the feel of apple touchpads, it isnt something easy to describe, but even after working on a project for hours the feeling of quality never disappears.

Totally get that, but I still just never actually click the buttons/touchpad. I honestly can count on one hand everyday the number of times I actually hit the buttons on my trackpad so personally it just doesn't matter. 

[nsalomonb]

I think windows trackpads now are comparable to Apple trackpads before they changed to their haptic system.

 

Before Microsoft's precision trackpad 'standard', different manufacturers would have different software integrations with windows, so a trackpad's quality, responsiveness, and features would vary drastically from brand to brand and model to model. At the same time Apple was rolling out their new trackpads wIthout any buttons and with OS-wide multi-finger gesture support (pretty much standard in most windows laptops now). Their palm rejection was also way better than any other trackpad at the time.*

As I said, I think windows trackpads are at that point now, but Apple's kept moving forward.

 

As you said, no one really clicks anymore and that's mainly due to the hinge design most if not all windows trackpads have. It means that unless you're clicking on the bottom, you won't really be able to register a click with ease, becoming harder to impossible near the top.

 

In 2016 Apple switched to using a pressure sensitive surface with a vibration motor to simulate a click. It still blows my mind whenever I use a macbook because it genuinely feels like you're clicking. (I honestly called BS when I tried it and my friend turned the computer off. Solid piece of metal. Still insane to me) It's a similar technology (if not the same tbh) as the Touch-ID 'button' on iPhones. It means you can tune how hard or soft the entire surface is. That eliminates the need of the 'one finger hold with other fingers to move' because you can keep it clicked and move with one finger. As a tap-clicker myself, I didn't think I'd get used to it but I found myself doing it more often than not in the short time I'd be using that computer. This, mixed with their awesome OS-wide integration with gestures means that the trackpad became even more useful for productivity**.

 

I haven't used the new ones with the massive trackpads but as reviews have mentioned, Apple's palm rejection is still one of the best which means that all you're left with is even more surface area to use. I'd imagine that would come handy when using the laptop connected to multiple displays, or not having to do small swipes but one long one instead.
 

I really hope I answered your question! Honestly once you try it, it's hard to go back to non-haptic ones for a bit.

*I had a 2011 Macbook Air. The trackpad was decent in today's standards but it blew the water off my 2009 Toshiba I was upgrading from.
**I used a company 2015 Macbook Pro for work before we went remote. It was the last generation pre-haptic touchpad, but even with the normal hinge design, being able to set almost any shortcut to a different type of swipe on the trackpad meant that I could use it with my left hand while using the mouse on the right and it would speed things up a ton! Still miss it now that I'm back on Windows exclusively.

[Fatih19]

Have you tried Apple's touchpad?

[XWAUForceflow]

I use a Mac for work (company supplied) and while I am generally not a fan of Apple and Macs the touchpad on it is simply brilliant. I absolutely love it and I can understand why Linus sees it as the golden standard. Big, high precision, plenty of gestures (though I guess that's more an OS limitation?) and it simply 'feels' good. No idea what makes it so good, but it beats anything I've tried so far. (Though generally I still prefer to use a mouse, but on the go it's really great)

[nsalomonb]

Just now, Benji said:

That's also among the things that make them great: Force Touch (which Apple removed from iPhone displays). No need to press anything like on a clickpad, it's actually just a touchpad with a convincing press-like effect.

ugh I'm so mad they took Force Touch out! I upgraded from the 8 to the SE and I miss it so much. I got used to feeling for the vibration and longpressing now feels so slow in comparison

[Guest]

Because it's superior and has been for years? The gap has closed a little bit and some brands are better than others, but Apple is still ahead and I'm not sure when, if ever, PC touchpads will measure up completely.