Because we don't want to move the hand around. With keyboard-only solutions your wrist stays pretty much put. That's mechanically more fluid and faster.
Also, if you haven't in a while, replace your cap. I replace mine every year or so and it makes it perform much better. You don't have to push as hard, which also reduces the drift problem.
I don't replace the cap often, but I do take it out and clean it, blow out the dust, etc. I'll give a fresh cap a try soon, thanks. It's just ridiculous this highly disruptive behavior is still a thing after all these years...
But I still prefer keyboard shortcuts, they juste feel more natural while the hands are already in "typing mode". I feel like there's a question of "waiting around". Even though I've always found the mac trackpad to be very precise, even for quick movements, you still have to aim for an icon, move the cursor to it, click, etc.
Now in the particular case of a macbook, where the windows will probably be maximized or not move around a lot, you may get some kind of muscle memory. But you still have to look around for the icon, etc. Whereas a shortcut is always the same, you press the keys and you're done, it doesn't matter where your cursor and / or window happen to be. I also prefer hidden icon toolbars, this allows me to gain some vertical space.
But, as another commenter said, some actions are easier with the mouse and wouldn't throw mine away. In my case, that's web browsing.
File management is also something that I find a lot easier with a pointing device. Also drawing diagrams, unsurprisingly!
On any trackpad other than Apple's this becomes even more difficult. Gestures are nice but also require nuance and IME don't become part of muscle memory as quickly as keyboard use does.
Keyboard-driven workflows have no such issues. A keyboard shortcut is an immediate command to the computer to perform an action, and if that's something you do often, it will save you time and effort right away. You'll memorize it soon and forget about it since it will become part of muscle memory.
> If the challenge is to move to an arbitrary location visible on screen, then it’s logically almost certain that a good trackpad is more efficient than any combination of keyboard shortcuts.
But moving "to a location on screen" is never a challenge worth using keyboard shortcuts for. If moving a cursor is your only UI option then a trackpad will be more efficient than doing the same with a keyboard of course. What you should do is use hotkeys to perform the action you would with a pointer so that you don't have to move it to begin with.
If trackpads don’t work well for you then don’t use them. I believe you, and have no interest in proving that your favored working methods are suboptimal. However, having tried the ‘keyboard first’ approach, I know that it is less efficient for me.
I do tire of the ritual haranguing of anyone who notes that they find the use of pointer devices an aid to their working efficiency.
I'm disagreeing with your assertion that "it's logically almost certain that a good trackpad is more efficient than any combination of keyboard shortcuts".
I thought you were talking about moving the cursor to a general area of the screen, not within the context of a text buffer, but there I still think using the keyboard for motion is more efficient once you build up the muscle memory for it. There are plugins like vim-easymotion[1] that make this faster, but I've found plain motion bindings to be efficient enough for me.
In any case, my intention wasn't to dismiss your personal preference, so apologies if it came out like that. At the end of the day we all have a specific workflow we prefer for whatever reason, and that's fine. I just objected to the general statement that a trackpad is more efficient.
As a developer, eventually, the raw task of "writing code" is really not where I feel losing time. Tbh, most of my time developing software is reading code and thinking about what needs to be written and "doing nothing" waiting for build/test to complete.
Fast switching between tools using touchpad gestures is more important to me than being able to type faster (but I acknowledge you can do both). As a sidenote, I absolutely love macOS fullscreen mode combined with 4 fingers swap. It's such a productivity marvel that I don't understand why Windows never copied it.
But I agree that Apple's touchpad gestures are awesome and from the few times I've tried it it worked much more reliably than on any other device. Still, I haven't found a more comfortable setup than a ThinkPad keyboard + Trackpoint. The insanely short key travel on Macbooks is unbearable to me.
I think a lot of people underestimate how fast a good trackpad can be with practice. I can move the pointer to an arbitrary location on screen in less time than it typically takes me to make a key chord. However long and hard I might train on Vim (and I did use it for ~10 years!) there's a hard limit on how much time that could save me when the trackpad is already so damn fast.
The point is that using a good quality trackpad positioned below a keyboard doesn't actually require you to move your wrist much, if at all. With this set up, there is not really any cost associated with switching between the trackpad and the keyboard. Thus, there is really no benefit to using the keyboard for tasks which can also be accomplished efficiently using the trackpad (as you are not paying any significant penalty for switching between the two input methods). For example, I was able to move my mouse cursor to the 'update' button to submit this form faster than I would have been able to use the relevant keyboard shortcut.
I guess which is better for me doesn't have to be so for someone else. Mouse interfaces do have a certain simplicity to them.
Check demo animation on Saka Key's readme: https://github.com/lusakasa/saka-key
On a good trackpad you don’t actually need much visual feedback because the response is very predictable. You can make a short movement and click more quickly than you can press a couple of keys.
Saka Key looks to be both slower and more complex than navigating using a trackpad (especially once you take scrolling into account).