In a surprising move, Apple has added Windows precision touchpad drivers in its newest Boot Camp update for Intel Mac. Boot Camp version 6.1.15 also brings support for single tap to click, lower right corner to right-click, down motion scrolls up, and three and four-finger gestures support for Windows users.
These new Windows precision touchpad drivers only work with Macs with a T2 chip. We are not sure why Apple has this limitation but it means that a number of older Macs are left out. Most of the Macs that feature a T2 chip were launched in 2018 or later. If you have an iMac, Mac Pro, or Mac mini, you can pair up an Apple trackpad with it and use these new precision touchpad drivers in Boot Camp.
Apple finally improves its Mac trackpad for Boot Camp by adding Windows precision touchpad drivers
The benefit of using precision touchpad drivers is that they make the trackpad work almost as well with Windows as it works with macOS. Microsoft created this implementation to work with manufacturers to improve the trackpads on Windows laptops, which had traditionally lagged behind what Apple offered in MacBooks. Through this implementation, Microsoft was also able to add support for standard multi-finger gesture inputs, which were otherwise dependant on the manufacturer.
Once you update to the new Boot Camp version from Windows, you can go into Settings > Devices > Touchpad and look for the message which says “Your PC has a precision touchpad”. You can then change the following gestures:
- “Tap with a single finger to single-click”
- “Press the lower-right corner of the touchpad to right-click”
- “Pinch to zoom”
- Default scroll direction (default is “Down motion scrolls up”, also known as natural scroll direction for macOS users)
You can also go to Boot Camp Control Panel and modify some Trackpad settings such as tap to click, secondary click, and more.
It is safe to say that Apple has added these updates almost at a time when it is moving beyond Intel Macs to its own custom Apple Silicon Macs. However, this update makes it clear that Apple will continue supporting its Intel Macs for a long time and will not abandon them anytime soon.
