Hacker News Reader

Comment by trash_panda | Hacker News Reader

Yes, I think using one of those instead of an external mouse is a good idea. In my case I find a regular mouse more comfortable than ANY touchpad.

What about precision? do you think that the touchpad is more precise than a good mouse on a good mousepad? I'm not asking you if YOU are more "productive" using a touchpad, I'm asking you if you think that if we compare a proficient regular mouse user vs a proficient Mac touchpad user we'll notice a significant difference that'll make us think that Mac touchpads are the way to go?

I don't think so. I think the factor that weighs more is user preference, heavily influenced by marketing.

View on HN

In certain ways touchpads can be more precise. With a good mouse with very high DPI, movement will be better, but when it comes to stuff like, pinch zoom, or fine scrolling, then touchpads are much better.

Also with gestures you have way more stuff you can do with a touchpad then just moving a mouse and clicking stuff.

And let's not forget the smaller travel distance of your hand when you go from keyboard to touchpad, as when you go from keyboard to mouse, or back.

I have a Logitech MX Anywhere 2. I love that mouse. It is fantastic and when I'm working on my home laptop I use it every day, if I'm in desktop mode that is. And I prefer it over the touchpad.

But when I work on the 'work' Macbook Pro (2015), then I use the touchpad all the way. It's just so much better and intuitive compared to using a regular mouse.

The touch pad just has more dimensions, 1 finger touch, 2 finger touch, dragging with some fingers touched, pinching, etc. Precision is better than with a mouse, because you don't have to move the mouse, just your finger.

I would never want to use a mouse again! Yes, for me an Apple touchpad is way superior to a mouse. If you don't get that, that's fine. We all have our blindspots.

Good point, the multi-dimension thing is something that I haven't even consider when thinking about this. I'm sure there are some benefits to the workflow if you take advantange of the multi-touch gestures. In that aspect, a regular mouse can't compete (don't care about super sophisticated gamer mouses).

> heavily influenced by marketing.

Whose marketing? Apple doesn't push the Magic Trackpad over the Magic Mouse. If you buy an iMac online, the mouse is their pre-selected input accessory.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com