Repairing an Apple Magic Trackpad

My client has an Apple Magic Trackpad (these are pure bluetooth powered devices with no dongles like in LogiTech’s etc) for which suddenly issues cropped up. The cursor was moving fine but the click was no longer getting registered. So left click and right click weren’t working. My client went to the store where he bought it from, iPlanet (iplanet.one) Seawoods, where he bought it on the 25th of January 2025 - exactly 5 days past the expiry of the one year warranty ! Had he given it just 5 days before he would’ve been eligible for a 100%-no-questions asked replacement. Talk about bad timing eh ! So the only option given was a buyback option (Apple re-cycle) for which a ₹1,000 ($11) would be discounted on any other Apple product. The MRP of the trackpad is ₹14,500 ($158) so buying a new one with the buyback still has a steep pricing curve.

Instead of giving the trackpad for Apple re-cycling, he handed over the trackpad to me in any hope of repair, if not, I could experiment with it and study it’s internals - since I never handled a Magic Trackpad before mainly because 99.99% of my customer issues are only Windows based. I rarely cater to Apple Macs and its’ accessories. If I get a hand-on opportunity, I clearly mention that I have to experiment with it and the outcome may not be a 100% success. Same was true for this time too.

So I started by opening the panel of the trackpad slate and started experimenting with the internals and sensors etc. I figured out where the depression was at and fixed it with 10 minutes of trying. Connected it to my Windows desktop and the click worked but not the right click (which is 2 fingers and click) probably because Windows doesn’t recognise a 2 finger click. Connected to my client’s Mac (Mac Book Pro 15.6" i7 2018 | macOS Sequoia 15.7.3) and it worked back like a charm.

The only regret I have is not shooting a video of the 10 minute operation to upload this to my YouTube channel.