4 ms·

Yes, your point is entirely fair. I should have clarified that I was talking about an older (mid decade) MacBook Pro. It requires enough force that, with my arm

Yes, your point is entirely fair. I should have clarified that I was talking about an older (mid decade) MacBook Pro. It requires enough force that, with my arm just positioned normally, I can actually feel the torque applied down the whole of my forearm. My understanding is that Apple has made the clicks much lighter in their later models - along with doing the exact same thing with the keyboard keys, which for me goes much to far in the other direction.

charrondev 6y ago
The latest iterations as I understand are like this: - keyboards were reverted similar to how they were around 2015. - all the new trackpads are don’t require a physical actuation to activate. You can apply the same amount of minimal pressure anywhere on the trackpad and it “presses back” at you to simulate a physical click. It’s quite convincing.
- fomine3 6y ago
  Force touch is useful feature last missing on other PCs.
easton 6y ago
On 2015 or later MacBooks, you can adjust the force required for a click: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352 (“Adjust trackpad settings”)
- bscphil 6y ago
  This is software adjustable? That's very impressive engineering. Unfortunately this a 2014 MBP.
  - vladvasiliu 6y ago
    AFAIK the button doesn't actually move, it's like the home button on some older iPhones (like the 7). It detects the pressure and has a haptic feedback to make it feel like a button. If you look at a powered off iphone 7, the button is just an indent on the otherwise fixed glass panel.
    - lloeki 6y ago
      Exactly. The most impressive part is that it really feels like a click, down to the illusion it's moving down (but it's not, at all). When powering off (or there's a crash), the feeling of it being immovable is surreal. Plus the surface is suddenly responding evenly (the clicking ones had a hinged design, so it became increasingly hard to click upwards the surface) One can leverage the haptic feedback to make the TouchBar a bit more lively[0]. The illusion breaks a bit since the haptic device is farther away from the touch surface but it's still quite a transformative experience for the TB. [0]: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey

charrondev 6y ago

The latest iterations as I understand are like this: - keyboards were reverted similar to how they were around 2015. - all the new trackpads are don’t require a physical actuation to activate. You can apply the same amount of minimal pressure anywhere on the trackpad and it “presses back” at you to simulate a physical click. It’s quite convincing.

fomine3 6y ago
Force touch is useful feature last missing on other PCs.

easton 6y ago

On 2015 or later MacBooks, you can adjust the force required for a click: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352 (“Adjust trackpad settings”)

bscphil 6y ago
This is software adjustable? That's very impressive engineering. Unfortunately this a 2014 MBP.
- vladvasiliu 6y ago
  AFAIK the button doesn't actually move, it's like the home button on some older iPhones (like the 7). It detects the pressure and has a haptic feedback to make it feel like a button. If you look at a powered off iphone 7, the button is just an indent on the otherwise fixed glass panel.
  - lloeki 6y ago
    Exactly. The most impressive part is that it really feels like a click, down to the illusion it's moving down (but it's not, at all). When powering off (or there's a crash), the feeling of it being immovable is surreal. Plus the surface is suddenly responding evenly (the clicking ones had a hinged design, so it became increasingly hard to click upwards the surface) One can leverage the haptic feedback to make the TouchBar a bit more lively[0]. The illusion breaks a bit since the haptic device is farther away from the touch surface but it's still quite a transformative experience for the TB. [0]: https://github.com/niw/HapticKey https://github.com/niw/HapticKey