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Will the next Macbook Pro have a touch screen?

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PhiladelphiaX

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 15, 2012
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Will the next Macbook Pro have a touch screen for a monitor? Kind of like the touch screen Windows 8 notebooks?

I'd be surprised if they didn't, to be honest. What do you guys think? Have they already hinted towards/announced anything regarding touch screen in their next Macbook Pro?
 
PhiladelphiaX said:
Will the next Macbook Pro have a touch screen for a monitor? Kind of like the touch screen Windows 8 notebooks?
Click to expand...

No.

PhiladelphiaX said:
I'd be surprised if they didn't, to be honest. What do you guys think? Have they already hinted towards/announced anything regarding touch screen in their next Macbook Pro?
Click to expand...

Yes, they have discussed it several times, explaining at great length why it is a terrible idea.

“We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work, it’s ergonomically terrible. Touch surfaces want to be horizontal, hence pads.” - Steve Jobs
 

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MultiFinder17 said:
No.



Yes, they have discussed it several times, explaining at great length why it is a terrible idea.

“We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work, it’s ergonomically terrible. Touch surfaces want to be horizontal, hence pads.” - Steve Jobs
Click to expand...

Great post, thank you!

richnyc said:
That's what iPad is for;)
Click to expand...


Good point! That's why I got an iPad! Plus, I feel that it would essentially eliminate the magic surrounding the iPad and other touch-screen products produced by Apple (including iPhone and iPod touch - although I think that iPods should have kept the scroll wheels, I love those things!).

If they added touch screens to notebooks, it would essentially ruin the notebook experience. No more mouse or touchpad?! And ergonomics is definitely something that should also be considered. Steve was always 10 steps ahead.
 
MultiFinder17 said:
Yes, they have discussed it several times, explaining at great length why it is a terrible idea.

“We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work, it’s ergonomically terrible. Touch surfaces want to be horizontal, hence pads.” - Steve Jobs
Click to expand...

They also said the same regarding bigger screens on phone, yet the iPhone5 got made.

Who knows at this point, i guess we'll find out in the betas for the next OS.
 
They've also said they'd never make a smaller displayed Ipad, said there was no demand for a video ipod and publicly dismissed the idea of a television.

I suspect they will do this eventually. It's inevitable that you'd want to be able to have the best of all worlds and be able to touch your data on screen from a laptop like an iOS device, augmenting existing keyboard/trackpad input methods.

Realistically it's probably 2 years away, given that the OSX would need to get a serious overhaul to incorporate finger usage ala iOS. With Jony Ive onboard now for interface design I'd expect a much more aesthetically refined OS update in 2013 and major functionality improvements to follow the second year. The current Macbook pro's are brand new hardware I'm sure we'll be living with them for a couple of years at least before a major revision.
 
MultiFinder17 said:
No.


“We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work, it’s ergonomically terrible. Touch surfaces want to be horizontal, hence pads.” - Steve Jobs
Click to expand...

"Given that all tablet users will already have a smartphone in their pockets, giving up precious display area to fit a tablet in our pockets is clearly the wrong tradeoff. The seven-inch tablets are tweeners, too big to compete with a smartphone and too small to compete with an iPad. The 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps." - Steve Jobs


On a side note, I do not think a touch screen would complement Mac OS X as much as a trackpad does. Unless of course your job is to click different buttons all day and nothing else.
 
I agree with lebbeus. What many hear fail to see is that notebooks can be both. Nobody would use them in normal mode and constantly use the touchscreen. Yet making a hinge that allows to slap the screen flat on, would allow for use as a couch web/pdf reader and later go back and use it as a notebook.
The real reason why it isn't going to happen any time soon ist because there are no hints on any OSX changes that would allow for it. First they'd need to fix the software or else the feature would be useless.

I think in the Windows space most ultrabooks will soon try to allow these things. The thinner the displays get the easier it is to slap them on. On big screens it wouldn't be as much use. But who wants to carry around an Air + iPad when they can have both in one.
IMO the solution with a heavy tablet as display and a light keyboard is suboptimal.

Apple will eventually offer that too because if you do it right it is the best solution. I wouldn't expect it any time soon though. 2013 unlikely but 2014 could be.
Touch screens added in the current models I would also rule out. Just putting in a touchscreen into a normal notebook is a marketing gag and no more. Positively useless with the current OSX GUI. Use would be limited to some few apps.
 
dusk007 said:
Yet making a hinge that allows to slap the screen flat on, would allow for use as a couch web/pdf reader and later go back and use it as a notebook.
Click to expand...

Except that there have been 'tablet PCs' that did that for years, and they've never got beyond a niche market - although they were/are expensive even by Apple standards.

I think the main problem would be coming up with a user interface that worked equally well for both touch and mouse/trackpad: one of the iPad's advantages was the purpose-designed touch UI c.f. the tablet PCs that were just running Windows.

If it does happen (never say never) I suspect that it would appear in the Air rather than the Pro - even the retina Pros are a bit big and heavy to use hand-held.
 
I doubt we will see one anytime soon. The OS isn't built around it and Apple has one thing perfected that Microsoft and all the other manufacturers do not, the trackpad. They don't need touchscreen as much as Microsoft does for that reason.
 
I would guess No.
I've been a PC guy for a very long time and always felt that trackpads were awkward to use until I purchased my Mac a few months ago....the Apple trackpad is awesome! I can't think of any reason why Apple would want to put a touchscreen on a laptop when they have the best trackpad in the industry hands down.
 
I feel like current laptops and pc's with touch screens are ergonomically terrible. They seem so awkward to use IMO. I've never used one (Windows PCs), but it doesn't seem like an Apple move in the near future.
 
PhiladelphiaX said:
Will the next Macbook Pro have a touch screen for a monitor? Kind of like the touch screen Windows 8 notebooks?

I'd be surprised if they didn't, to be honest. What do you guys think? Have they already hinted towards/announced anything regarding touch screen in their next Macbook Pro?
Click to expand...

This has been beaten to death in countless threads.

A touch screen is on a laptop is not ergonomic and completely useless.

Imagine holding your arms up flailing away at your laptop for hours on end, you'd have sore shoulders in less than 15 minutes!
 
jsolares said:
They also said the same regarding bigger screens on phone, yet the iPhone5 got made.

Who knows at this point, i guess we'll find out in the betas for the next OS.
Click to expand...

I'm not defending anything, but that statement could be mainly related to the width. Very wide phones are ergonomically bad and that's why the entire industry is happy to move on to 16:9 screens here. That's exactly how iPhone 5 got it's 4 inches and it was expected. I'm quite surprised they finally decided to change the aspect ratio since it causes numerous software problems and generally is never as smooth as it is for Android and even Windows Phone.
 
You guys and your crystal balls are assuming the form factor of the MBP will stay the same. Personally, I'd rather have an ultra book (like the MBA) that can double as an iPad thereby eliminating a device.
 
If touch screens were cheap to implement, I could see features trickling in over time. It just makes little sense to force people to use the touch screen if it remains perpendicular. They'd really need to bump notebooks to IPS or a similar technology if they moved away from the typical perpendicular display attachment. TN viewing angles would be horrible on something used in a tablet like fashion.
 
Krazy Bill said:
You guys and your crystal balls are assuming the form factor of the MBP will stay the same. Personally, I'd rather have an ultra book (like the MBA) that can double as an iPad thereby eliminating a device.
Click to expand...

Same here. I'd like to see a MBA (or even MBP) with a somehow clear display, such that it can be a laptop but you can shut the lid and it becomes a giant ipad. The front or the back of the screen goes white/opaque as required, and then you only have one display to manufacture.
 
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