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Apple Reportedly Working on Touchscreen Macs, Including MacBook Pro

"Introducing... the PadBook and PadBook Pro, with Apple Pencil Support, we think you're going to love it!" 🤣

In all seriousness, even if this is just in the R&D stage, I can only imagine somewhere in Cupertinos "SkunkWorks" facility, that there is my dream fusion of an 27" or 32" "iMac" with a giant iPad Pro as the screen. 😍

I'm not a fan of an ALL-touch version of MacOS, trust me. I'm an old school mouse/trackpad/keyboard individual. BUT...The iPad Pro WITH the Apple Pencil is a great device for my creative work and endeavors. I often find myself using my iPad Pro as a secondary screen for my OG iMac Pro, and its very accurate with the Apple Pencil as an input. If any company can make a fusion of the mobile and desktop OS ecosystem, I truly believe its Apple. 🤞
 
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darngooddesign said:
I don't want this kind of separation because it means I couldn't do anything Mac-related unless it is docked, and if I want to do something iPad-related I can't have it docked or I need a second iPad keyboard case.

And this is why hybrid OSes are so hard to perfect.
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I think that would be the minority of people that would want to use MacOS in a tablet form. You can already run IOS apps on a Mac with M1.
 
I want a keyboard-only Mac.

I can use it with my iPad as an iPad keyboard, or I can press a button and go into 'Mac mode' and use the keyboard and iPad as a Mac laptop with a detachable display.

Turn off the keyboard, and the iPad goes back into 'iPad mode' that still has access to all my files.
 
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I don‘t buy it. Sure, they are probably experimenting with touchscreen macs or maybe it‘s for a bigger ipad, but it makes zero sense for a mac, apart from the rare occasions when you reach out to the screen to touch something and nothing happens. Sure, on the day when MacOS and iOS will finally merge, it makes sense, but that has to be first or at least long in the works.

MacOS is not there, the form factor isn‘t there, and it would only increase price… ah, o.k. that could be a reason. I think it‘s just a rumor, but still I can‘t wait until Tim Cook steps down and maybe there‘ll be some fresh wind, and a refocusing on delivering the best products for the money, not the most expensive.
 
meson said:
As an older millennial, the folks that taught me computing were much more likely to prefer keyboard shortcuts than gui interactions via mouse or trackpad. My kids were born post-iPhone. They expect touch screens. I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve gently swatted fingers away from my computer screens.

This likely has been under consideration since the flattening of the OSX interface and greater spacing between UI elements years ago. The touch bar gave an example of a glass panel that was touch sensitive and didn’t get as grimy as an ordinary display.

As much as I don’t want it, the slab-of-glass generation is going to bring touchscreen Macs with it.
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As an older Xillennial, your kids need to express ourselves with touch screen, not with desktop computer or notebook.
That’s the point: iPad needs macOS, not younger generations needs a keyboard from a typewriter.
Everyone in young generations needs pencil and tablet, no more keyboard or mouse, that were old yet in 1980.
 
koelsh said:
Which is great and gives you the choice between which one makes sense in the moment. Having keyboard/mouse lets it be used at a desk for an extended period of time while allowing you to reach up to use the touch screen when a specific, short, tasks needs or benefits from it. Yet the touch screen and tablet nature means the user can setup away from the desk to use the system elsewhere as a tablet, even the most portable tablet is still chained to having a stable platform.
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The difference was that the iPad was designed as a touch-centric device with a touch-centric OS. Mac was not. It’s easier to incorporate non-touch elements to a touch-centric OS than touch to a non-touch-centric OS. Keyboard and mouse-driven interactions are more precise than finger-driven interactions, so the iPad “still works” when paired with a keyboard and/or touchpad/mouse. OTOH, applications for macOS (and Windows) were not designed with touch in mind, and so don’t easily work when touch capabilities are added.

What we have seen happen on Windows is that apps have started to become more touch-friendly, but it is a hybrid result. Icons and dialog buttons get bigger and more spaced out. Menus are replaced with buttons. But certain apps don’t evolve as quickly, and some legacy apps don’t evolve at all.
 
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from a pc touchscreen user: its a nice feature to have but i only use it 5% of the time
so at what extra cost is this gonna be??
 
Should have focused more development on the touch bar and squeezed in the function keys right under it to please both crowds.

I have a touch screen asus for work and barely use it. When it does get used its smudgefest 3000.
 
The only time I've appreciated touch on a laptop is at work when using scanner software. HP [not so] Smart has about twenty things to click to get one scan done, and it's far easier to move your hand and tap instead of moving the mouse constantly and fumble a pile of papers. The Xerox scan software is a little better, create a shortcut and it's three clicks or so. With a history of industrial 3D printer troubleshooting experience, it blows my mind how terrible 2D printers are. You'd think a system with an additional dimension would be worse.
 
The touchscreen laptops I've seen and used were a major fail IMO. This is most likely just more Gurman BS as usual. You might as well go to a tarot card reader at a carnival to get lame predictions...
 
Apple likely explores a whole lotta things at any given time. Including touch screens. And the idea of dropping a touchpad along with it (OK, just kidding... or am I?)... Gurman has a column to write after all so that could be just it.
 
How about adding a cellular capability to the existing line-up of Macbooks, better videocams and more stable MacOS releases? There are so many things that could be done better without all the gimmicky stuff.
 
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Seems it would be easier to just load the Mac software on the iPad and add the mouse trackpad to the interface. All done by this weekend.
 
npmacuser5 said:
Seems it would be easier to just load the Mac software on the iPad and add the mouse trackpad to the interface. All done by this weekend.
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Allowing it is easy, but why do you think developers would support Mac apps on iPadOS when they barely support iPad apps on MacOS? Mac apps would need to be revised to, at the very least, use the iPad file management.
 
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