Last Week on My Mac: Lost Force Click

I’ve been a trackpad warrior since Apple introduced its first Magic Trackpad back in 2010. I was a bit tentative at first, as I had been using mice for well over 20 years by then, but I soon became hooked. While I still keep a mouse by my Macs just in case, I’ve happily stroked and tapped my way through those last 14 years, and have come to rely on one key diagnostic, the Force Click. When Macs have frozen or collapsed in a snotty heap, loss of Force Click in the trackpad has told me that a restart is required. Not that I generally use Force Click, as I invariably opt to tap to click instead.

A couple of weeks ago, the Magic Trackpad for my iMac Pro lost its Force Click, and now feels dead in the same way that it used to when my Mac was in trouble. It occurred at some time around the Sonoma 14.6.1 update, so I restarted my Mac, and restarted the Magic Trackpad. Nothing changed, and there’s still no Force Click. I can still press its pad firmly to achieve the same effect, but there’s no click, no haptic feedback, and it just feels solid and dead.

I thought I had discovered the cause when I compared that trackpad, now on version 3.1.1 of its firmware, with that on my Mac Studio, which was strangely still on 1.9.2. The latter has retained its Force Click, tempting me to conclude that the firmware update must have been the cause of the missing Force Click. This was apparently confirmed when I swapped trackpads: that from my iMac Pro, with firmware version 3.1.1, had no Force Click when wired to my Studio, and the Studio’s trackpad, stuck on 1.9.2, retained its Force Click when connected to my iMac Pro.

When I had returned the two trackpads to their correct Macs, and before writing this article, I checked their firmware versions again, and discovered that they were now both on version 3.1.1, but one of them was still missing its Force Click, just as it had been all the way along.

Firmware updates for Apple’s keyboards, trackpads and mice are among its most closely guarded secrets. The last time there was a keyboard firmware update, back in mid-January, I wrote “This update flew so far below the radar that it wasn’t available through Software Update, and made no record of its installation except in the firmware of Apple’s Magic Keyboards. The only way to tell if your keyboard has been updated is to check via Bluetooth settings.”

Like that keyboard firmware update, there’s no record of any update on either Mac. Even my app SystHist draws a complete blank. Neither is there any mention of this update on Apple’s support site, and all I’ve been able to find is a report from @aaronp613 on 18 June 2024 that Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad firmware had been updated to 3.1.1, as passed on by Filipe Espósito of 9to5 Mac.

Although Apple did announce its Magic Keyboard Firmware update 2.0.6 in January, there’s no mention of any Magic Mouse or Trackpad firmware update at Apple’s support site for keyboards and trackpads, although that may simply mean that its doesn’t address any security vulnerabilities, or that Apple has no intention of telling us. As there appears to be no way to obtain the update, and automatic installation is clearly neither timely nor predictable, Apple also appears uninterested in whether our Magic Trackpads and Mice are updated or not.

In the grand scheme of Macs, firmware for Apple’s comparatively expensive wireless keyboards, mice and trackpads may seem minor, but losing Force Click for no apparent reason after 14 years isn’t a good experience. There’s no good reason for these updates to fly under the radar, if and when they fly at all, nor for Apple to keep them such a secret.

So today’s announcement is that Apple released updates to the firmware of its Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad devices in mid-June, to bring them to version 3.1.1. Apple hasn’t stated what has changed in this new version, and hasn’t released any account of any security issues that it might address. No one appears to know how this update finds its way into your Mac, nor how it’s installed in the peripherals. The only way you’ll discover whether your Mac’s devices have been updated is through the Bluetooth section in System Information, and if that still shows a previous version, there’s nothing you can do to force or even encourage an update.

Should you discover that your Magic Trackpad lost its Force Click as a potential consequence of this update, please let me know in the comments. And if you find a Force Click out there looking for its trackpad, please point it in my direction.