[h4waii]

He isn't a normal user. He's someone who claims to be a software architect and Microsoft MVP -- yet doesn't know/can't care enough to use the correct terminology when he's writing a blog post from his "developer's point of view"?

[swsieber]

I'm a developer, and I still call things by the first thing I heard them called.

I don't think he's obligated to use the "proper" terminology unless he was a software engineer /sarcasm.

Snarkiness aside though, I really don't think using the original term decreases his credibility at all.

[saurik]

Yeah. I mean: one could even make the argument that Apple is the one that often insists on using "creative" terminology for marketing reasons, and there is no reason to be sympathetic to them; I also remember this device being called a "touch pad" a long time ago--the device which had "track" was the "trackpoint" from IBM--but I also remember the device had always been stalled different things by different people.

In the article for this device, which Wikipedia canonically calls a "touchpad", we see comments on its terminology and the only place in the history section where the device is called a "trackpad" is jarring and happens to be in a sentence about Apple (where I would argue it should be corrected).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchpad

"""Apple Inc introduced touchpads to the modern laptop in the PowerBook series in 1994, using Cirque’s GlidePoint technology;[8] later PowerBooks and MacBooks would use Apple-developed trackpads."""

"""As touchpads began to be introduced in laptops in the 1990s, there was often confusion as to what the product should be called. No consistent term was used, and references varied, such as: glidepoint, touch sensitive input device, touchpad, trackpad, and pointing device.[9][10][11]"""

"""Apple's PowerBook 500 series was its first laptop to carry such a device,[citation needed] which Apple refers to as a "trackpad"."""

[soneil]

You've pretty much made the opposite point you intended to. What the author is calling the 'touchpad', isn't the trackpad - it's the touch bar.

This is precisely the confusion that's causing people to raise eyebrows at the term.

[danielhooper]

Why is this downvoted? "Touch pad" is the perfect mix of ambiguity between track pad and touch bar. It's a pretty careless mistake to write a blog post about a piece of tech and not even get the name of the tech right...

[khedoros1]

"Touch pad" is what most non-Apple vendors call the mouse replacement below the keyboard, and I think the meaning is perfectly clear. "Track pad" makes me think of the IBM/Lenovo-style trackpoint nipple mouse, even if it's Apple's documented name for their mouse input. "Track bar" is different enough from "track pad" that it doesn't seem confusing to me (I use the former term daily, so the latter term provides enough mental surprise to make the difference obvious).

The post you replied to is correct, but not usefully correct. It sounds overly pedantic and elitist, like arguing that one shouldn't call "LEGO bricks" "Legos".

[na85]

This is being overly pedantic. Even for HN, which is saying a lot!

[mwfunk]

No, it's not. Touchpad is a synonym for trackpad and has been forever.

[na85]

>Touchpad is a synonym for trackpad and has been forever.

I know, that's why I'm saying arguing about touchpad vs trackpad is stupid.