[vitalique]

I don't think so. Over the last Х years I've tried using touchpads on Dell, Acer, Asus and other laptops (Apple's family included) with different hardware and software and came to a sad conclusion that there is no way I could use any laptop completely without a mouse, even though I try to avoid using it as much as I can even on a desktop. Touchpads feel like extremely slow and imprecise input method, a real distraction and obstacle in interaction with OS or app. So, I think that while something definitely may be in the drivers, there's another part in this problem where you have to decide which level of comfort do you agree to drop to when switching from a mouse to a touchpad/trackpad.

[ygra]

Well, my point was that Apple's trackpads are the same hardware as what's used in Windows laptops out there too, so any difference in usability and features (e.g. gestures) is driver-dependent and there is no technical reason why they would exist only on one platform.

For actual usage I definitely prefer a mouse or a trackpoint.