Apple considering 2025 debut of touchscreen MacBook Pro

AppleInsider

Apple is allegedly working on adding touchscreens to its MacBook lineup, despite the previous assertion that the feature does not work well.

Credit: Apple

While Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had called touchscreen laptops "ergonomically terrible," a new rumor suggests that the company is gearing up to add a touchscreen to its MacBook Pro.

According to Bloomberg, the feature will make its debut in 2025 on an OLED MacBook Pro and will support both touch input and gestures.

Despite adding a touchscreen, the proposed model would still retain a traditional laptop design with a trackpad and keyboard.

While the company previously decried the idea of a touchscreen Mac, signs suggest it may be reversing its stance.

In 2019, Apple introduced Mac Catalyst, a way for developers to build apps that worked on both iPad and Mac.

In 2020, Apple gave Apple Silicon Macs the ability to run iPhone and iPad apps natively.

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netrox

It's much needed, people keep touching the displays nowadays.

avon b7

netrox said:

It's much needed, people keep touching the displays nowadays.

Definitely needed. Switching from a tablet to a laptop often gets moving my finger towards the screen. 

It would be a nice addition to functionality.

I'd prefer 3:2 aspect ratio too. 

edited January 2023

strangedays

Definitely not needed as it’s a gimmick feature. Had them on work Windows machines and they were an oft forgotten about annoyance. Reaching up to the touch the screen when your hands are on the keyboard is baaad, m’kay?

bloggerblog

JP234 said:

I don't know why a laptop with a full sized keyboard and a touch sensitive trackpad would benefit from a touchscreen. The screens on my iPhone, iPad and car all get gross after one day of use. The MacBook Air stays clean, and only needs dusting every week or two.

Correct, users can perform any touch task with their massive touchpad and without having to move their entire arm to the screen. I wouldn't be surprised if the leak Bloomberg received is for a new type of device. 2025 sounds too long-term for simply adding a touch display into an OS that already knows touch.

danox

JP234 said:

I don't know why a laptop with a full sized keyboard and a touch sensitive trackpad would benefit from a touchscreen. The screens on my iPhone, iPad and car all get gross after one day of use. The MacBook Air stays clean, and only needs dusting every week or two.

It doesn’t at the end of a long… working day reaching up to a laptop screen, or a desktop screen doesn’t work too well but it does on iPhones and iPads. They were designed to work that way from the get-go don’t complicate things Apple.

Windows, using the touchscreen, ribbons, dos prompts, is a mismatch of UI elements. Hopefully Apple won’t go down that road, concentrate on getting Stage Manager to work better than what it is right now.

brianjo

Touchscreen on a laptop would require re-designing interfaces to be more touch friendly.  Touch friendly requires larger targets and scroll areas.  So the trade-off is less potential operating space on the screen for fine detailed work you can do with a mouse.

Windows machines that have touch screens end up being quite frustrating to use because of this. You can TRY to touch anything, but getting it to actually respond correctly if it wasn't designed for touch is a mess of frustration.

If Apple implements a touch interface, they will have to make drastic improvements on how it operates.  You can test out how well touch works on MacOS now by pairing your iPad with your mac.  Some things it's handy for, but others it's downright impossible to get it to behave properly.

It doesn't mean they can't do it. It just means to do it correctly and seamlessly will require some pretty creative thinking.

racerhomie3

I pray to god that this BS isn’t real. 

dewme

I don’t really care either way as long as touch interaction is an optional method. I definitely can see where certain UI control elements like sliders, faders, rotary knobs, pinch & zoom controls, etc., would be interesting and more natural to manipulate via touch. Pretty much anything that Apple stuffed into the Touch Bar thingy on the previous generation of MacBook Pros could now be placed anywhere in the UI where it makes sense to do so.

Really, this is not a big deal and follows in the footsteps of other “we will never do that” things that Apple has in-fact, gone on to do, like the iPad mini and stylus’s. Ability to adapt is one of the three most important attributes I look for when hiring people, especially for software development and other technologies that evolve frequently and rapidly.

I never thought that iPads and physical keyboards/pointing devices were a logical match. But the iPad Pro and the Magic Keyboard w/trackpad are a match made in heaven as well as being an excellent prototype for how touch + keyboard + pointing device can work extremely well together. When my iPad Pro is on the Magic Keyboard I’d say that at least 90% of my interactions are done using the Magic Keyboard. I’d expect about the same 90/10 kb/touch percentage on a touch enabled MacBook Pro, which is perfectly fine to me.

Native touch support would also make it easier (and seamless) to bring iOS/iPadOS apps over to the Apple Silicon MacBooks.

danvm

StrangeDays said:

Definitely not needed as it’s a gimmick feature. Had them on work Windows machines and they were an oft forgotten about annoyance. Reaching up to the touch the screen when your hands are on the keyboard is baaad, m’kay?

IMO, is the same experience when using an iPad with keyboard.  Do you think is a bad experience in the iPad too?

bobolicious

danvm said:

» show previous quotes

StrangeDays said:

Definitely not needed as it’s a gimmick feature. Had them on work Windows machines and they were an oft forgotten about annoyance. Reaching up to the touch the screen when your hands are on the keyboard is baaad, m’kay?

IMO, is the same experience when using an iPad with keyboard.  Do you think is a bad experience in the iPad too?

... agreed, and such on the iPad along with capacitance or active stylus allows hybrid professional analogue / digital design work that might otherwise be difficult ...

Hooking up an iPad to a big screen seems a current option, yet has an eye-hand disconnect.  That said I would ask if it should be optional, as not everyone will benefit from such ...

www.microsoft.com/en-us/d/surface-studio-2-plus/8vlfqc3597k4?

mdw

Every time I go to show my sister something on my Air she's always reaching up to the screen and I laugh and say not on a Mac.

mike fix

This is how Apple innovates.  They wait so long that everyone forgot it should have been implemented 10 years ago, and then announce it like it's a miracle invention.  This is a long long long overdue feature.  

racerhomie3

mike fix said:

This is how Apple innovates.  They wait so long that everyone forgot it should have been implemented 10 years ago, and then announce it like it's a miracle invention.  This is a long long long overdue feature.  

Lol they made the iPad in 2010 ,which is more less a Mac replacement for most

edited January 2023

entropys

I have a touch screen on my work HP f dragonfly. I don’t use it. For scrolling, and that is about it. And let’s be honest, touchscreens are probably offered because for some unfathomable reason windows trackpads are crap, and have always been crap, despite the mac example to copy.

if apple goes touch screen in 2025, it will be because the iPadisation of MacOS is complete; or it has become too hard to get a non touch OLED display.

Ironically, we are getting a thinkpad P14s workstation for engineering student daughter. It doesn’t have a touchscreen. And comparably priced to a very tricked out MBP. But I digress.

edited January 2023

dope_ahmine

netrox said:

It's much needed, people keep touching the displays nowadays.

People have always been touching displays. I have been wiping smudges for more than 30 years. Maybe I could use this new feature to display a sign with the text “Keep your dirty fingers off my screen!”

danvm

entropys said:

I have a touch screen on my work HP f dragonfly. I don’t use it. For scrolling, and that is about it. And let’s be honest, touchscreens are probably offered because for some unfathomable reason windows trackpads are crap, and have always been crap, despite the mac example to copy.

if apple goes touch screen in 2025, it will be because the iPadisation of MacOS is complete; or it has become too hard to get a non touch OLED display.

Ironically, we are getting a thinkpad P14s workstation for engineering student daughter. It doesn’t have a touchscreen. And comparably priced to a very tricked out MBP. But I digress.

I have tried the trackpad in my customers ThinkPad P1 and Surface Laptops, and they are excellent.  Maybe they are not as good as an Apple trackpad, but they are very close.  Now, if we talk about keyboards, ThinkPad and Surface devices are far ahead of Apple.  I suppose there is no perfect device.  

dk49

If they do a detachable touch screen then it will kill the iPad. If not then a touch screen doesn't make sense. If they do a touch screen keyboard, it's going to be wierd and probably worse than simple touch pad plus mechanical keyboard. Plus hard to imagine use cases for most people. 

tenthousandthings

This will replace the 13" Touch Bar MBP, and fill the same spot in the marketing/pricing lineup.

mike1

I work in an office where half the staff has MS Surface Pros of some sort. I have yet to ever see anyone use the touchscreen on purpose. Only when someone is pointing to something on the screen and accidentally touches it.

opinion

Apple sadly seems to become a company far from the company it was when Steve Jobs lived...