6 ms·

I really don't understand why nobody else has managed making decent touchpads. Is it not extremely high priority??

sebzim4500 3y ago
I have an XPS 15, the touchpad is fine. When I use a macbook I don't think "oh my god the touchpad is great", although that might just be because I'm too busy thinking "oh my god this OS is terrible".
- ctvo 3y ago
  The touchpad is mostly fine now though you could argue Apple laptops are still more responsive. It wasn't always the case.
- 12345hn6789 3y ago
  Why does every comment chain devolve into this(although you admitted it)? Apple touch pads are an improvement over all other laptop brand touchpads. But then this fallacy is the only response. "These rounded corners in the UI really make me not care about the touch pad" "I wish I could care about touchpads, my ssd won't replace itself without a soldering iron though!" "They have touchpads? I use a mouse" Great. Apple touchpads are next generation compared to most other laptops.
xnyan 3y ago
I worked at an electronics retailer in high school for a couple years, my job was to sell laptops. I sold a lot of laptops. Nerds like us who post comments on hacker news can have a hard time understanding the mind of the vast majority of regular people who simply could not care less about trackpad quality. It's just not a thing most people even think about.
- ricardobeat 3y ago
  Most people don't care about 'drive shaft quality' or 'steering wheel quality' in their cars either, but you can be sure it will be taken good care of by engineering, and subconsciously noticed.
  - GeneralAntilles 3y ago
    There's truth in your point. People do feel the difference even when they don't notice it, but it doesn't seem like that's always (or even often?) reflected in the bottom line. Nissan sells an awful lot of cars with their crappy CVT transmissions and crossovers continue to be hugely popular in the US.
    - numpad0 3y ago
      People notice in subconscious but rarely in the wallet.
- dagmx 3y ago
  If I may, I’d make a slight modification to your statement. The vast majority of people don’t care about trackpad quality when it comes to shopping. They do care when they *use* it but they either take it for granted when it works well, or it’s too small a papercut to trade in their device and buy/research a new one. but it all combines together to make a smoother experience when using it, and it can convert people as a part of a whole.
  - chaostheory 3y ago
    The vast majority of people don’t care enough to pay for it. This is why people balk at the price of Apple Vision even though Apple managed to miniaturize a Macbook into a visor and added LiDAR, two 4K screens, a separate depth sensor, several other cameras, and even a 3D camera to it That said, Mark’s devices aren’t bad for the price. They’ve been the best overall VR headsets for the past 2-3 years.
  - bodge5000 3y ago
    > or it’s too small a papercut to trade in their device and buy/research a new one. Most of the time they don't notice at all unless its truly atrocious or truly mind blowing (and whilst I can firmly say the macbook trackpad is the best I've ever used, lets be honest its not mind blowing). They might notice things don't feel as smooth as it did on their macbook (assuming they even had one last, if not how can you tell something is worse if its all you've ever had), but they're unlikely to narrow this down to the trackpad.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    Yes, they buy bottom of the barrel and, if it doesn’t work, assume that is where state of the art is. Few months back I’ve seen anecdotal posts somewhere that new generations of managers are trying to shift computing to phones and tablets because they’re “better than laptops”. No one enforces a delightfulness standard for Windows laptops, and it is creating a skewed perception.
    - throw9away6 3y ago
      I’m surprised we don’t have that yet. Your iPhone would make an excellent Citrix client just dock and wait for your text to show up as you type.
- Gigachad 3y ago
  I think the average person does care about and notice quality, its just a question of if they can afford it. When I look around the coworking space, its almost universally macbooks. And these aren't tech people mostly. But the uni student with a budget that only buys half a macbook doesn't get to care about trackpad quality. Normal people don't say things like "The trackpad is unresponsive and the wifi drivers unreliable" They say "I just don't like it" "It feels kinda crap"
- SanjayMehta 3y ago
  With lowcost laptops I've noticed that most users end up using a mouse instead of the trackpad.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
emehex 3y ago
My guess would be... patents? (Apple's got all the good ones?)
- hedora 3y ago
  Apple did manage to patent the pythagorean theorem (“pinch zoom” uses the hypotenuse of a right triangle as the zoom factor), but, from what I can tell, the bad windows touchpad thing is self-inflicted.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
makeitdouble 3y ago
I was confused by "touchpad", I assume it's the trackpad ? More extensive touch support, like having touch support on the laptop display alleviates a lot of the trackpad needs. It's still nice when it smooth and responsive, but looking at the the Surface devices for instance, it's nice enough.
kitsunesoba 3y ago
What boggled my mind were the trackpads on some laptops that weren't just average, but actively bad. The worst by far I've ever used was on a circa-2007 HP convertible laptop that ran Vista. Despite it costing more than some models of MacBook at the time, the thing was built with that cheap creaky "fake metal" glossy plastic, and that included its trackpad. The trackpad would've been bad enough just like that with the smooth plastic gripping at your fingertips, but to make it worse its surface had inverse dimples, and because its touch sensitivity wasn't all that sensitive you had to apply more pressure when using it which pressed your fingers down into the dimples and made them stick even worse. Oh and of course, as was customary for non-Apple laptops at that point it was also tiny. It's almost as if it was someone's job to make that thing's trackpad terrible to use. Just mind boggling.
- Gunnerhead 3y ago
  Oh God, the dimples. Or the textured trackpads that felt nothing short of sandpaper.
hedora 3y ago
Windows led to a few market failures like this. One that comes to mind is high DPI displays. In terms of pixels per inch, today’s 1080p displays are laughable by 2001 standards. It has been a quarter century since high DPI CRTs were affordable, and 20+ years since LCDs were. However, Windows wasn’t compatible with such things until at least 2010, so here we are a quarter century later, and laptop lines still often only offer meh-for-the-late-90’s displays. A more recent example is suspend resume. I’m not sure of the details, but I am sure that intel will never do better than S3 sleep from ten years ago, and Microsoft pushed them to change how sleep works.
blooalien 3y ago
I've been really pleased by the touchpads on Valve's Steam Controller, but they don't sell the Steam Controller anymore. :(
- LynxInLA 3y ago
  They seem to have used them on the Steam Deck, so maybe they'll use them again in future projects.
  - blooalien 3y ago
    Here's hoping and wishing for a "Steam Controller 2". Fingers crossed.
lazycouchpotato 3y ago
It's certainly improved over the past few years to a point where they're comparable to Macbooks. Windows Precision drivers and large glass trackpads are slowly becoming common in mid to high tier Windows laptops.
stocknoob 3y ago
Dell, HP and the enterprises that buy them don’t really care about UX.

I have an XPS 15, the touchpad is fine. When I use a macbook I don't think "oh my god the touchpad is great", although that might just be because I'm too busy thinking "oh my god this OS is terrible".

ctvo 3y ago
The touchpad is mostly fine now though you could argue Apple laptops are still more responsive. It wasn't always the case.
12345hn6789 3y ago
Why does every comment chain devolve into this(although you admitted it)? Apple touch pads are an improvement over all other laptop brand touchpads. But then this fallacy is the only response. "These rounded corners in the UI really make me not care about the touch pad" "I wish I could care about touchpads, my ssd won't replace itself without a soldering iron though!" "They have touchpads? I use a mouse" Great. Apple touchpads are next generation compared to most other laptops.

xnyan 3y ago

I worked at an electronics retailer in high school for a couple years, my job was to sell laptops. I sold a lot of laptops. Nerds like us who post comments on hacker news can have a hard time understanding the mind of the vast majority of regular people who simply could not care less about trackpad quality. It's just not a thing most people even think about.

ricardobeat 3y ago
Most people don't care about 'drive shaft quality' or 'steering wheel quality' in their cars either, but you can be sure it will be taken good care of by engineering, and subconsciously noticed.
- GeneralAntilles 3y ago
  There's truth in your point. People do feel the difference even when they don't notice it, but it doesn't seem like that's always (or even often?) reflected in the bottom line. Nissan sells an awful lot of cars with their crappy CVT transmissions and crossovers continue to be hugely popular in the US.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    People notice in subconscious but rarely in the wallet.
dagmx 3y ago
If I may, I’d make a slight modification to your statement. The vast majority of people don’t care about trackpad quality when it comes to shopping. They do care when they *use* it but they either take it for granted when it works well, or it’s too small a papercut to trade in their device and buy/research a new one. but it all combines together to make a smoother experience when using it, and it can convert people as a part of a whole.
- chaostheory 3y ago
  The vast majority of people don’t care enough to pay for it. This is why people balk at the price of Apple Vision even though Apple managed to miniaturize a Macbook into a visor and added LiDAR, two 4K screens, a separate depth sensor, several other cameras, and even a 3D camera to it That said, Mark’s devices aren’t bad for the price. They’ve been the best overall VR headsets for the past 2-3 years.
- bodge5000 3y ago
  > or it’s too small a papercut to trade in their device and buy/research a new one. Most of the time they don't notice at all unless its truly atrocious or truly mind blowing (and whilst I can firmly say the macbook trackpad is the best I've ever used, lets be honest its not mind blowing). They might notice things don't feel as smooth as it did on their macbook (assuming they even had one last, if not how can you tell something is worse if its all you've ever had), but they're unlikely to narrow this down to the trackpad.
- numpad0 3y ago
  Yes, they buy bottom of the barrel and, if it doesn’t work, assume that is where state of the art is. Few months back I’ve seen anecdotal posts somewhere that new generations of managers are trying to shift computing to phones and tablets because they’re “better than laptops”. No one enforces a delightfulness standard for Windows laptops, and it is creating a skewed perception.
  - throw9away6 3y ago
    I’m surprised we don’t have that yet. Your iPhone would make an excellent Citrix client just dock and wait for your text to show up as you type.
Gigachad 3y ago
I think the average person does care about and notice quality, its just a question of if they can afford it. When I look around the coworking space, its almost universally macbooks. And these aren't tech people mostly. But the uni student with a budget that only buys half a macbook doesn't get to care about trackpad quality. Normal people don't say things like "The trackpad is unresponsive and the wifi drivers unreliable" They say "I just don't like it" "It feels kinda crap"
SanjayMehta 3y ago
With lowcost laptops I've noticed that most users end up using a mouse instead of the trackpad.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

emehex 3y ago

My guess would be... patents? (Apple's got all the good ones?)

hedora 3y ago
Apple did manage to patent the pythagorean theorem (“pinch zoom” uses the hypotenuse of a right triangle as the zoom factor), but, from what I can tell, the bad windows touchpad thing is self-inflicted.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

makeitdouble 3y ago

I was confused by "touchpad", I assume it's the trackpad ? More extensive touch support, like having touch support on the laptop display alleviates a lot of the trackpad needs. It's still nice when it smooth and responsive, but looking at the the Surface devices for instance, it's nice enough.

kitsunesoba 3y ago

What boggled my mind were the trackpads on some laptops that weren't just average, but actively bad. The worst by far I've ever used was on a circa-2007 HP convertible laptop that ran Vista. Despite it costing more than some models of MacBook at the time, the thing was built with that cheap creaky "fake metal" glossy plastic, and that included its trackpad. The trackpad would've been bad enough just like that with the smooth plastic gripping at your fingertips, but to make it worse its surface had inverse dimples, and because its touch sensitivity wasn't all that sensitive you had to apply more pressure when using it which pressed your fingers down into the dimples and made them stick even worse. Oh and of course, as was customary for non-Apple laptops at that point it was also tiny. It's almost as if it was someone's job to make that thing's trackpad terrible to use. Just mind boggling.

Gunnerhead 3y ago
Oh God, the dimples. Or the textured trackpads that felt nothing short of sandpaper.

hedora 3y ago

Windows led to a few market failures like this. One that comes to mind is high DPI displays. In terms of pixels per inch, today’s 1080p displays are laughable by 2001 standards. It has been a quarter century since high DPI CRTs were affordable, and 20+ years since LCDs were. However, Windows wasn’t compatible with such things until at least 2010, so here we are a quarter century later, and laptop lines still often only offer meh-for-the-late-90’s displays. A more recent example is suspend resume. I’m not sure of the details, but I am sure that intel will never do better than S3 sleep from ten years ago, and Microsoft pushed them to change how sleep works.

blooalien 3y ago

I've been really pleased by the touchpads on Valve's Steam Controller, but they don't sell the Steam Controller anymore. :(

LynxInLA 3y ago
They seem to have used them on the Steam Deck, so maybe they'll use them again in future projects.
- blooalien 3y ago
  Here's hoping and wishing for a "Steam Controller 2". Fingers crossed.

lazycouchpotato 3y ago

It's certainly improved over the past few years to a point where they're comparable to Macbooks. Windows Precision drivers and large glass trackpads are slowly becoming common in mid to high tier Windows laptops.

stocknoob 3y ago

Dell, HP and the enterprises that buy them don’t really care about UX.