Double-tap fails intermittently when double-tap-to-drag enabled in macOS Monterey

It is easy to reproduce this issue when turning on both 'Tap to click' in 'System Preference -> Trackpad -> Point & Click' and 'Enable dragging (without drag lock)' in 'System Preference -> Accessibility -> Pointer Control -> Trackpad Options'.

That's how I have always run since the very first Trackpad. I can't think of any time I have seen what you describe.

One can simply open a website, keep trying 'double tap' on words. If 'double tap' works, the word will always be selected. But in some cases, the word will not be selected since 'double tap' fails.

I dropped by an Apple Store today, tried this on some macbooks. It turns out that all the macbooks with M1* or Intel chips have this issue. But the very latest models equipped with M2 chips are fine. Of course, the OS is Monterey. I am not sure though whether Big Sur has the same issue.

I sat and double-tapped everywhere on this page and I always succeeded (Intel, Force Touch trackpad). I tried various "taps" to see if I can find some pattern that would not select the word and found that if I tried to drag slightly between clicks I ended up with what appeared to be a non-selection, but if I held down and dragged, I got a selection. So, it may be that there is a slight slide when you double-tap such that it thinks you doing a click and drag. If you don't drag far enough, it is only starting the selection, so it appears that it wasn't selected.

Unlike the default behavior of Windows, drag-select does not select the entire word. It starts exactly where you start.

Hope this bug can be fixed very soon.

You'd have to let Apple know.

I’ll have to try to pay more attention, but I don’t think I've ever experienced that.

I have an Intel. MacBook Pro with Force Touch trackpad, and an M1 Mini with original Trackpad. I can’t think of any time I had problems with double-tap, but will try to pay closer attention.

Nobody here can fix anything. Most here don’t even work for Apple. Those that do don’t even have direct access to the software engineers.

I had a 2017 macbook pro I used for work that was running Catalina and using an external trackpad. Then a couple months ago I bought a 2022 macbook air (M2 silicon) and 2022 macbook pro (M2 silicon) for work. Both are running Monterey and experience the problem, especially when using an external bluetooth apple trackpad, both the older generation trackpad and the newest model trackpad.

So given multiple mac models, and multiple trackpads exhibit the problem behavior, I'm inclined to think something has changed in the OS after Catalina with regards to not accurately detecting double-tap's when the double-tap-drag option is enabled. Annoying as ****. Had to switch it use three-finger-drag, but I am not happy about having to unlearn a gesture I have been using for 5+ years.