Defaults are very important in any UI. An OS that prides itself on usability should have the best default.

Yes, but you can't assume that having tap to click enabled by default is the best default for the general public. It's way too easy for that to lead to a ton of stray clicks for anyone with impaired sensation or dexterity in their fingers. Apple very often likes to err on the side of making things simpler and more accessible by default while keeping the more powerful features hidden where power users can find them and where they won't distract your grandma. This can be a bit annoying at times for power users, but since those features are available to be turned on it's just a momentary annoyance when you're first setting up a new machine.

Agreed, but at least one person came off with a bad experience. That anecdote is worth only that much. But it does indicate a problem.

You can't please everyone, and the people who are looking for things to complain about are pretty low on the list of who you should be trying to please.

I am not looking for things to complain about. And I doubt the parent was too. It's a genuine issue. As far as not being able to please everyone, how many old people are using macbook pros? Is that number more than the number of regular users who prefer a better touchpad?

It might be annoying for a regular user to have that disabled until they figure out how to enable that, it could be literally unusable for a less capable user to have touch to click enabled. If you're not savvy enough to know that you might be able to disable it, you're probably also unsavvy enough that spurious clicks are disastrous, because you aren't comfortable enough to undo things.

I think they may have thought about this a little bit before making their default decisions.

A lot of us think it is the best. I've never liked tap-to-click; I tried it again a year or so ago when my trackpad button went out, and decided it was indeed unusable — too many unintended clicks. (I replaced the trackpad.)

Anyway, "the clicking thing is much slower than tapping" is just not true if you're used to clicking.

I figured I'd get used to it eventually, so I didn't want to just up and change what seemed like it should have been a good default, what you're suggesting would mean basically turning off a hardware "feature". In the end it just wasn't for me and I didn't accept it until I had basically switched to using my desktop machine full time.

I typically give things like this their fair shot - some of them I get used to, like Windows switching to grouped single icons without titles... I hated it at first, but eventually it made some sense to me. Only when I've absolutely given up on them do I bother changing settings.

I try my best not to let those negative first impressions stick, to give them a real shot, and this was part of the machine I'd purchased, I figured I better try it...

> what you're suggesting would mean basically turning off a hardware "feature".

Enabling tap to click does not disable the mechanical or haptic click mechanisms, nor does it disable any other functionality.