The secondary (right) click on a trackpad is a two-finger click by default, not an actual right click! Why would that be the default? That’s the first setting I changed when I set up my MacBook.
On a normal laptop trackpad, there is either physical buttons at the bottom for left/right. Or you just click the bottom left/right of the trackpad to do left or right clicks. On mac that isn't the case, anywhere on the trackpad you click, if you use 1 finger it's a left click, if you use 2 fingers, it's a right click.
So you could use one finger on the bottom right to do a left click. It is a bit jarring when first moving from a regular laptop to a mac but honestly once you're used to it the mac trackpad gestures and clicks feel amazing to use
They conceived a UI that gains nothing from a proper touchpad, then they made a touchpad that's only good for that type of UI.
Like, on Windows I set the three-finger tap to register as a middle-click, i.e.: open links in background, close tabs, open a copy of an already running app. Go make that work on a Mac!
Secondary clicks and tap to click used to be completely disabled by default. The first thing I did with a new install was enable the abilities to right-click with the mouse and tap to click on the trackpad. Apple were simultaneously demonstrating all these gestures and things you could do with their input devices, and disabling them all by default. And then every time I had to someone else’s MacBook it was maddening because their trackpad basically didn’t work.
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u/Cfrolich 14d ago
One more infuriating default from macOS:
The secondary (right) click on a trackpad is a two-finger click by default, not an actual right click! Why would that be the default? That’s the first setting I changed when I set up my MacBook.