4 ms·

Interesting, does this mean that a macbook's "superior" touchpad is actually software driven? I always thought it was a hardware issue vs software issue.

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
It pretty much is. Speaking from experience of dual booting macOS and Linux on a MacBook Pro. Oh, and also from booting the same Dell XPS laptop in Linux and macOS, guess which trackpad experience is superior.
- __initbrian__ 6y ago
  which? My guess is: 1. mbp, macOS 2. xps, macOS 3. xps, linux 4. mbp, linux
  - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
    Pretty much it. Oh, and also I had patched libinput to be able to drag with three fingers, a gesture which I have on macOS. 3 and 4 are more like a tie. On macOS, when I move the cursor with the trackpad, it’s almost intuitive for me where the cursor is going to end up. With Linux, it’s almost always an uphill struggle. Like the acceleration curve adopted by Apple is more ergonomic.
- inamberclad 6y ago
  You have an XPS booting MacOS?
  - WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
    Not only booting, it’s working well and is way more stable than a bloody MBP where it likes to panic if the uptime is too long.
    - omnimus 6y ago
      How is battery life?
- syntaxing 6y ago
  How hard is it to load Hackintosh on a XPS? Do you recommend a certain model? I hear the 9360 is preferred because something about the graphics card?
  - icefo 6y ago
    Somehow I never imagined an xps hackintosh but I want to try with mine now. If it works reliably you could have great hardware with a good OS and a decent price.
iaml 6y ago
Not really, it's also a pretty damn good touchpad. Materials, size and taptic engine are all part of the experience, I think.
conradev 6y ago
It is very much software – all modern trackpads are capacitive touch surfaces. A MacBook’s trackpad hardware is differentiated because it is covered in glass, larger than most trackpads by a lot, and it clicks using a force sensor + haptics (so it is more reliable / has an even click across its surface).
- saagarjha 6y ago
  That sounds a lot like hardware as well :P
  - aidos 6y ago
    Thinking back to older models though, MacBook trackpads were better than any other I tried before they had all those hardware features. It’s obviously been a long time, but I feel that a really old MacBook would still feel nicer than most modern trackpads on other platforms. It’s the one thing that’s keep me on the Apple platform for almost 2 decades now.
    - wtallis 6y ago
      2008 is when Apple's trackpads got full general multitouch support. (Prior to that, they supported 2-finger scrolling.) The 2008 MacBook Pros still had a big bar as the physical button, but later that year they started introducing the unibody MBP with the entire trackpad as a physical button hinged at the top. In 2015 they introduced the Force Touch haptic trackpad. As far as I can recall, all three generations of trackpad have basically the same cursor motion behavior and similar sensitivity.
- neilalexander 6y ago
  It's not enough to just say "all trackpads are capacitive surfaces, fix it in software!" when it's actually the controllers attached to all of these capacitive surfaces that are different. The driver can be as intelligent as you like but if the controller only sends limited data in response to touches then you still won't get very far.
seltzered_ 6y ago
A mix of both. MacOS's multitouch privateframework has a number of states to cover when a finger is just landing, ellipsoid data, palm rejection / resting thumb states. The ability to provide this data is presumably done by their touch hardware. I encourage looking at the earlier discussions since much has been talked about this before.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Also, macOS’s public frameworks package all that easily and consistently so that all apps get nice scrolling by default.
Sangeppato 6y ago
The hardware is nice and definitely better than the alternatives, but the real difference is the software. The acceleration, the low latency and the super smooth animations for the gestures are what really set the mbp apart and make the gestures so natural to use. Having used Gnome 3 with Wayland and libinput (the best Linux trackpad experience at the moment) until last year, I can say that while the latency and acceleration curve are definitely not there, at least the animations are better implemented than those of Windows 10
em500 6y ago
It's a mix of both, but most of the magic sauce is in the software. See this small section in a very long and detailed blog: https://pavelfatin.com/scrolling-with-pleasure/#mac-os https://pavelfatin.com/scrolling-with-pleasure/#mac-os

WesolyKubeczek 6y ago

It pretty much is. Speaking from experience of dual booting macOS and Linux on a MacBook Pro. Oh, and also from booting the same Dell XPS laptop in Linux and macOS, guess which trackpad experience is superior.

__initbrian__ 6y ago
which? My guess is: 1. mbp, macOS 2. xps, macOS 3. xps, linux 4. mbp, linux
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  Pretty much it. Oh, and also I had patched libinput to be able to drag with three fingers, a gesture which I have on macOS. 3 and 4 are more like a tie. On macOS, when I move the cursor with the trackpad, it’s almost intuitive for me where the cursor is going to end up. With Linux, it’s almost always an uphill struggle. Like the acceleration curve adopted by Apple is more ergonomic.
inamberclad 6y ago
You have an XPS booting MacOS?
- WesolyKubeczek 6y ago
  Not only booting, it’s working well and is way more stable than a bloody MBP where it likes to panic if the uptime is too long.
  - omnimus 6y ago
    How is battery life?
syntaxing 6y ago
How hard is it to load Hackintosh on a XPS? Do you recommend a certain model? I hear the 9360 is preferred because something about the graphics card?
- icefo 6y ago
  Somehow I never imagined an xps hackintosh but I want to try with mine now. If it works reliably you could have great hardware with a good OS and a decent price.

iaml 6y ago

Not really, it's also a pretty damn good touchpad. Materials, size and taptic engine are all part of the experience, I think.

conradev 6y ago

It is very much software – all modern trackpads are capacitive touch surfaces. A MacBook’s trackpad hardware is differentiated because it is covered in glass, larger than most trackpads by a lot, and it clicks using a force sensor + haptics (so it is more reliable / has an even click across its surface).

saagarjha 6y ago
That sounds a lot like hardware as well :P
- aidos 6y ago
  Thinking back to older models though, MacBook trackpads were better than any other I tried before they had all those hardware features. It’s obviously been a long time, but I feel that a really old MacBook would still feel nicer than most modern trackpads on other platforms. It’s the one thing that’s keep me on the Apple platform for almost 2 decades now.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    2008 is when Apple's trackpads got full general multitouch support. (Prior to that, they supported 2-finger scrolling.) The 2008 MacBook Pros still had a big bar as the physical button, but later that year they started introducing the unibody MBP with the entire trackpad as a physical button hinged at the top. In 2015 they introduced the Force Touch haptic trackpad. As far as I can recall, all three generations of trackpad have basically the same cursor motion behavior and similar sensitivity.
neilalexander 6y ago
It's not enough to just say "all trackpads are capacitive surfaces, fix it in software!" when it's actually the controllers attached to all of these capacitive surfaces that are different. The driver can be as intelligent as you like but if the controller only sends limited data in response to touches then you still won't get very far.

seltzered_ 6y ago

A mix of both. MacOS's multitouch privateframework has a number of states to cover when a finger is just landing, ellipsoid data, palm rejection / resting thumb states. The ability to provide this data is presumably done by their touch hardware. I encourage looking at the earlier discussions since much has been talked about this before.

saagarjha 6y ago
Also, macOS’s public frameworks package all that easily and consistently so that all apps get nice scrolling by default.

Sangeppato 6y ago

The hardware is nice and definitely better than the alternatives, but the real difference is the software. The acceleration, the low latency and the super smooth animations for the gestures are what really set the mbp apart and make the gestures so natural to use. Having used Gnome 3 with Wayland and libinput (the best Linux trackpad experience at the moment) until last year, I can say that while the latency and acceleration curve are definitely not there, at least the animations are better implemented than those of Windows 10

em500 6y ago

It's a mix of both, but most of the magic sauce is in the software. See this small section in a very long and detailed blog: https://pavelfatin.com/scrolling-with-pleasure/#mac-os https://pavelfatin.com/scrolling-with-pleasure/#mac-os