I’ve always wondered if the Apple trackpad was just the capacitive part of an iPhone screen. It feels like glass. It responds similarly. And they have a huge user base sample size for improvements.

It is glass

It's not like they care

How on earth are there still no non Apple laptops that instantly and reliably go to sleep when you close the lid?

I suspect the answer to these questions are the same. When different companies are developing the OS, the drivers and the hardware it is much harder to get everything to play together nicely.

harder perhaps, but not impossible, and the market has had decades to figure this out.

My guess is typical PC manufacturers have not felt it worth the time to invest in getting this aspect right.

Ironically, the best non windows trackpad I ever used was when Vizio tried to make computers. They actually got the trackpad right. In fact, those computers were really cut above everyone else, but my guess is they didn't sell well because they were taken off the market almost as fast as they were introduced

Yeah, because apple is totally reliable for sleeping when it is supposed to. I love my macbook, but I have dealt with over a decade of macbooks waking when they should not. Love it when my macbook cooks itself in my bag overnight.

I have never met someone with this problem, and have not experienced it myself in over 12 years. Closing the lid and walking away is what MacBooks are (were?) known for, I guess in my circles.

It’s a pretty common issue. Search around and you will find pages and pages of people experiencing the same issues on macrumors, the apple discussion forum, etc. Glad it hasn’t been a problem for you, I envy you!

I assume you’ve turned off “allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer” and “wake on network access” in system preferences? Those are the only things I can think of that can randomly wake up macs

Oh yeah, I’ve turned every single possible thing off. It still randomly dark-wakes. And then, when it does, it will sometimes get into a doom loop of scanning the network and refusing to release its power assertions, meaning it won’t go back to sleep. Eventually it will hit a thermal emergency and then shut down.

I've never experienced this and I've been using macbooks since 2007.

This is seriously the thing I like the most about my 2017 and 2023 macbooks. The trackpad feels so good. Every other manufacturer that I have tried, and no it is not all of them but a lot, they all make my fingers feel bad after using them. I don't know if they are rougher or textured somehow? The only one that does make my finger pads feel sore is the macbook.

It's also the accuracy. I'm able to do light photo editing work right from the trackpad, even basic sketches and airbrushing. Have never been able to do anything remotely close with other laptops

NB: "the only one that does[n't] make my finger pads feel sore is the macbook"

I think it’s another example of vertical integration making it better. Apple making the hardware plus OS gives them an advantage, making the trackpad experience great is hard if you don’t control both.

Apple has also learned a ton about how to do this well from the iPhone.

It’s less vertical integration than MS not actually taking the steps to control this market.

For example, the Precision touchpad, which was the first actual touchpad tech MS created, with Windows previously testing touchpads as mouses, has been released for a little more than a decade.

Touchpads had been around for over 4 decades and have been standard to laptops since the mid to late 90s.

And the worst part is that MS still allows hardware vendors to ship non Precision touchpads today.

MS won’t allow you to run windows 10, but vendors can ship touchpads that only support decades old software.

It’s very hard to get Windows manufacturers to pay attention to the touchpad when MS itself isn’t interested.

Unfortunately, the Windows domination in the non Apple part of the industry means that serious change is only driven by MS.

A lot of advantages we think Apple has due to vertical integration are more because MS is pretty terrible

The problems you’re describing are largely because they don’t have vertical integration. They don’t have the ability (sometimes legally) to force suppliers to do things they want.

Microsoft tried to prevent crapware from being installed by OEMs a while back and got blocked.

What you’re describing is the effect of not controlling the stack and the only way to really do that is by doing it yourself.

100% this. I use a MacBook at work, and I bought myself a Framework laptop for personal. Overall, the Framework is great, but the touchpad is a letdown.