I wonder if Microsoft and Linux developers tend to use a mouse over a trackpad? If they don’t use a trackpad, it isn’t a pain point for them and thus not something that would get prioritized. Apple (on the other hand) has historically had horrible mice (pretty, but poor ergonomics) and solid developer laptops, so trackpads get used more. [1]
Regardless of the platform, if a developer feels a pain point, that particular issue will be dealt with sooner. If windows/Linux trackpad usability is “good enough”, it’s not going to be a high priority.
[1] source: me. I’ve used many Apple mice and loved the Magic Mouse, even with the strange charging port. That is until I started having carpal tunnel inflammation and switched to a trackpad and finally a more traditional mouse.
Developed a habit, like checking that I had my keys and wallet, when taking my laptop anywhere. Grab the mouse, grab the power supply, throw them in the bag, because the trackpad was always nigh-unusable and the battery life was only good enough for hopping between outlets unless you had a (charged!) extra battery to carry along.
Took some time to break those habits after switching to Macbooks, where neither was necessary unless I'd be away from my desk more than a day. Unplug laptop, pick up, walk away, don't think about anything else. Go figure, a portable computer that lets you treat it like it's portable.
If you have a Mac desktop and don't like the mouse (cause they always did suck), the natural replacement is a third-party mouse, not an external trackpad. I think Apple and its userbase have always been more laptop-oriented, though.
I think I can make an argument that trying to do most things on a keyboard will result in faster workflows and less wrist strain, but to do so feels similar to the arguments I have about avoiding super-googlifying your life, preference for using communication solutions like Signal rather than captured applications like messenger or instagram, recommending libre software, etc. For whatever reasons, normies just wanna slide fingers on trackpad / upload their faces to companies / give up their software rights!
Maybe I'm off base but I really feel similarly about keyboard usage as I do to other "nerd shit" like above. The best argument I've ever heard for it though was from the World of Warcraft days: people who click their spells with their mouse, rather than using extensive keybindings (you have more than 9 spells so need to involve shift, ctrl, and start using the keys around wasd as well), you would simply never be as good as a keyboard user. We called mouse-users "clickers" as a derogatory term. I started as a clicker (like most kids I'm sure) and was so astounded by how much better I got at the game, and how much easier it was to play, when I got used to keyboard bindings for spells, that I started trying it in other software, like MS word and power point. "Clickers suck" was a trueism there too, and so from like age 13 on I've always been the kind of person to invest maybe 5 minutes to an hour learning a new software's keybindings and I think it's paid dividends.
For Linux, Peter Hutterer [1] has been working at it for a long time, and you're quite right.
[1] http://who-t.blogspot.com/2023/01/libinput-and-custom-pointe...