I'm curious what you feel has gotten worse on Linux with regard to UX?
I have the opposite experience. The only non-Linux machine in my office is a MBP from my employer which I feel gets in my way far more.
I have the opposite experience. The only non-Linux machine in my office is a MBP from my employer which I feel gets in my way far more.
- laptop wakes up randomly when lid is closed, fans spin up, drain battery
- wifi is flaky
- trackpad drivers/trackpad behavior in general are inferior
- battery life isn't as good even with obsessive levels of tweaking
I will agree though that the one thing I find much better on Apple laptops is the trackpad. I do disable the trackpad and use the nub, which I find more convenient for most things anyway.
There's a project underway to delivers a better touchpad experience on Linux, but that's still a work in progress as far as I know. It also strongly depends on how much details the manufacturers disclose about their hardware, how willing they are to open source their drivers and how much they rely on copyrighted binary blobs of firmware. From what I've read about the Mac hardware, it's probably going to be a challenge to get everything running smoothly. Synaptics hardware, found in many laptops, isn't always much better in this regard.
Apple applies some very optimised CPU power profiles to their laptops, which aren't directly available to other operating systems. It's why Windows consumes more power on Macbooks as well, and why the fans (if present) kick in more often.
I have noticed that my Thinkpad lasts a lot longer on Linux than on Windows unless I turn the power settings down to the point where Windows' UI becomes janky. It really depends on the year, model and serial number of each laptop whether Linux will boost or degrade the performance and usability aspects of the device. Manufacturers that sell Ubuntu as an OS option seem to do well in this area, though.
I'm hopeful for what the Linux touchpad project will bring. The new GNOME releases and the recent updates to the Pop_OS window manager seem to put more of an emphasis on touchpads, so things are moving in the right direction.
The trackpad is smooth enough after I adjust the trackpad speed. It is slow as molasses by default. What is disappointing is the lack of multitouch support. Gnome 40 and the lastest Pop OS have some nice multitouch features for the desktop but support in applications is practically non existent.
Everything in that list was from my ThinkPads, of which I own several.