Let your arms hang straight down. Now bend your elbows and lift your forearms so that they're at 90º to your body, i.e. parallel to the ground. Notice that your hands are naturally oriented so that if you were holding a pole, it would be much closer to pointing downward than sideways. Rotating your wrists "inward" so that your hand is parallel to your desk, in the position to use a trackpad, is not their normal position.

I used a magic trackpad for quite a while until I found myself in agony by the end of the day. One of my coworkers told me he was exploring using vertical mice and that caught my attention. I tried one and it stopped the pain, like, immediately. Mousing around was awkward for a few days until I got used to the different hand orientation and movement, but that passed quickly. Now I'd never, ever go back to a trackpad.

I'd considered making a little block to mount my magic trackpad sideways at, say, a 45º angle to my desk so that my wrist wasn't so pronated, but even then it nudges you toward radial and ulnar deviation which can also become uncomfortable over time. I'd rather just painlessly use my vertical mouse which uses forearm movement and write extension/flexion to zip the cursor around my screen.

It's got tenting, which approaches that natural tilt to your hands, and there are several mouse add-ons to choose from, I'm sure one of them will suit your needs.

[1]https://uhk.io/

Preferring a trackpad to a mouse seems not so unusual, right? I guess sticking to it so completely is. I prefer marble-mouse type devices, but I can’t say with any certainty that I haven’t accidentally touched a mouse in the past 14 years.

I tried, on my current laptop, to see if I could get used to having tap-to-click enabled even without actually using it; I wanted to see how far off I was from being able to deal with any non-ThinkPad. I ended up turning it back off after a few days, after many many clicks I didn't want to click.

That + sport and standing desk, did wonder to me.

MacOS just seems more tailored to the touchpad experience. Windows and Linux more tailored to the mouse experience.

I'm running a Framework 13 and other than the physical click requiring more effort than the haptic "click" on a Mac, it's pretty dang similar.

OTOH, I thought this might be a post from a keyboard shortcut wizard.

For years I used a Trackpoint external keyboard plus a mouse. The track point is great for small movements when you’re primarily typing, and the mouse is great for when you are primarily moving the cursor.

I don't understand why Apple does this. It's like the "allow ANC with one AirPod" setting, which is also inexplicably an accessibility option.

Also it is funny going back to a standard mice, it feels like you are awkwardly using a tiktak for input.

I did learn recently that Zowie released an ergonomic version of their mouse that I plan on checking out though. Unfortunately there's just not a ton of options out there for ergonomic gaming mice.

I have hear multiple times that patents are the reason for the bad trackpads outside of Apples products. But I have never been able to find a confirmation.

Talking about mouse alternatives I would like to give rollermouse a shout-out. Beside the relaxed arm position they give, I really like that they invite to use both hands at the same time. With the similar workload between both hands and arms I find the over all strain lower even with repetitive tasks for a long time.

And yet I'll use nothing else. Conversely, I have never gotten along with pointy sticks, all the way back to the original 1993 Toshiba Portégé[0] despite their apparent popularity.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook_Portégé