Swiping between full-screen apps / lag in activation / lag in three-finger pointer action
I have recently purchased my first MacBook ever (a 14 inch M1 Pro).
Prepare for a long rant, and then please advise me.
There is a litany of baffling behaviours in MacOS, which seem intentional...
I will address the two most annoying and ridiculous ones:
1.
So I bought a MacBook, powered by the best and fastest chip in a device of this price range (and the price, btw, is 2000 euros) …and I am having trouble effectively copying text from one window to another. Read that again, please, and let it sink in.
What am I whining about?
I have a PDF reader and MS Word open, both in full screen.
After finding out that there actually is a way to double-tap and select text/move windows around, I quickly realise that after I select/move something, I have to tap AGAIN in order to de-activate the selection – why?! – why can I not let go of the touchpad to end the selection?
The ‘with drag lock / without drag lock’ setting apparently does not affect this behaviour, although the name would suggest it would (I still don’t know what that setting actually does).
Has Apple decided on this unintuitive behaviour simply to be "different" from Windows? Why not including a setting to satisfy these despicable Windows users? It makes no sense...
But that’s ok, I found something far better and more intuitive than what I had on Windows (in Accessibility/Pointer Control):
a way to select text and move windows by simply tapping 3 fingers on the touchpad. How awesome, I think, finally a useful gesture. This and the four-finger gesture to swipe between full-screen apps, will surely improve my workflow...
Then the next surprise: after I select some text in the PDF using this three-finger tap gesture, I need to…. and this with the super-duper M1 Pro chip inside… I have to WAIT for about 1 interminable second before I can copy the text. If I click Command + C too quickly, nothing is copied !
And not just with copying, but with any interaction on the keyboard. After I select something with the three-finger tap gesture, and click backspace to delete, for example, nothing happens. I have to WAIT a conscious moment each time !
This is not an issue when clicking on the touchpad and selecting the text that way, which I refuse to do. I know the haptic touchpad is super awesome and Apple tries to force its users to use it, but I want to interact solely through gestures.
Will it cost Apple billions of dollars to fix this, or at least add a setting to change this behavior?
2.
Ok, I think, trying to delude myself that this is not that big of an issue (you know, having to wait 1 second before copying plain text on a 2000 euro device).
I begrudgingly wait that 1 second and THEN click Command + C. I now swipe on the touchpad to switch the fullscreen window from the PDF reader to MS Word, and click Command + V to paste the text I just copied after consciously stopping my workflow for 1 second, into Word:
SURPRISE again! not that fast! I have to consciously wait AGAIN for about 1 second for that sleek transition animation to finish and for the MS Word window to VISIBLY activate... I actually see it activate after 1 full second, before which interacting with the window is not possible.
Let me emphasise this, because it is that ridiculous:
I swipe and the window (any window) appears, ok? It is fully there, the transition animation has completed, ok? And yet, I THEN have to still wait for the window to VISIBLY activate. If I click anything before the window activates, I am engaging with the window that is partially, or no longer on the screen!
And this on a 120Hz pro-motion display. You can't make this up.
So, I consciously stop and wait for the MS Word window to activate, and THEN click Command + V and paste the text. If I click too quickly, I will paste the text into the PDF reader, not Word...
And this 1 second delay affects any and all windows and commands: when I swipe to get to Spotify, which I am aware IS GOING TO SHOW UP, if I click on the space bar too quickly, I don’t pause/play the music, but insert a space in Word or scroll in the PDF reader…..
Please, I beg of you, please tell me I am an idiot and I'm missing a simple setting in MacOS that can fix this, because otherwise it is unfathomable to me that these are behaviours that have been around for who knows how many years and Apple has not yet rectified them, and that I am the first person ever to bring this up…No other MacBook users have complained about this? Really?!
Is this full-screen + swipe-to-switch feature and the three-finger pointer action, esoteric features only I am using? No one else notices the full 1 second lags each time?!
This cannot be possible.
PS: I’m ware I’m simply venting into the void here. It's a cathartic activity I felt the need to do. This will never in a million years be addressed by Apple, let alone fixed in Ventura (which instead adds ANOTHER mission control variant to be used by almost no one).
MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 12.5