That's what he said!
Seriously, I like my iPad, but at least the glass screen is easy to clean. Would an Apple touch screen laptop be iPad like (glass)???
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Reportedly Working on Touchscreen Macs, Including MacBook Pro
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Seriously, I like my iPad, but at least the glass screen is easy to clean. Would an Apple touch screen laptop be iPad like (glass)???
People that only use laptops occasionally will try to scroll by touching the screen. Personally I prefer to use a mouse or touch pad for ergonomic reason.
I didn’t say that did I. Let me clarify. I said load the 13.2 complete Mac OS on the iPad. Not current versions of the iPad. Some harware upgrades maybe needed. From a developer perspective no different than loading their software on a MacAir or MacPro. Call it MacPad!
Apple will introduce a 13" iPad Pro bundled with Magic Keyboard with dual boot iOS and MacOS in the near future. Eventually, the OS will be unified into the AppleOS. Apple get it done!
So is Apple never allowed to change its mind on touchscreen laptops just because they once believed they weren't very good?
The existence of a MacTablet, does not eliminate the existence of a MacBook, Mac mini, iMac, or Apple Studio.
A tablet is representative of a piece of paper or a book it’s meant to be held like a comfortable sized phone. People can take notes on a notepad standing up or sitting down or while lying down. Try doing all of those positions with a laptop. A detached tablet mode and docked laptop mode is the best of all worlds.
At least it would be something different from Apple instead of their typical "more of the same thing".
I'd love for them to merge MacOS with iOS/ IpadOS mostly because I love my iPad but can't run pro apps on it.
I'd love for them to merge MacOS with iOS/ IpadOS mostly because I love my iPad but can't run pro apps on it.
All good and my bad. Realize in an earlier post, I offered more detail (that was hopefully more clear) about my perspective on the topic.
As you were. 👍
My (PC) laptops have all been touch screen since 2013 and I personally wouldn't buy a laptop without a touch screen now.
As someone else mentioned, yes, the touch screen itself only gets used maybe 5-10% of the time (usually either during a training session when I have to mark up pages whiteboard-style, or when I'm using the laptop on a small surface and don't want to use a mouse - I am not a fan of touchpads or "eraser" style mouse things).
My latest laptop is a "reversable keyboard" type of 2-in-1 now, which makes the screen even more useful now. Particularly when I'm working with clients where I can set it to tablet mode and scroll through documents while helping them at their desk.
As for the other 90% of its usage, as a bog-standard laptop, having a touch screen hasn't really brought a whole lot of negatives into my workflow. Windows desktop apps work as they always have. I just have one more way to interact with them than a non-touch user has.
As someone else mentioned, yes, the touch screen itself only gets used maybe 5-10% of the time (usually either during a training session when I have to mark up pages whiteboard-style, or when I'm using the laptop on a small surface and don't want to use a mouse - I am not a fan of touchpads or "eraser" style mouse things).
My latest laptop is a "reversable keyboard" type of 2-in-1 now, which makes the screen even more useful now. Particularly when I'm working with clients where I can set it to tablet mode and scroll through documents while helping them at their desk.
As for the other 90% of its usage, as a bog-standard laptop, having a touch screen hasn't really brought a whole lot of negatives into my workflow. Windows desktop apps work as they always have. I just have one more way to interact with them than a non-touch user has.
This is the kind of thing us Apple fans would have trusted Apple with in the past. I think this could be one of those cases where the valid complaints that folks are raising here are implementation details Apple's competitors got wrong, not a fundamental failure of the product concept.
The biggest example is Microsoft- as I see it, their effort sort of stalled- they built a touch GUI layer on top of Windows, but could never get it complete enough that the user felt that it worked right- you would have to switch in to non-touch mode to do certain things, or certain features would get lost in transition.
Apple took a different approach with iOS/iPadOS by starting with touch from scratch with a touch-forward OS, (too) slowly building in features, but ultimately stalled short of feature parity/power use of MacOS.
I could have imagined Apple back in the day making the effort to really bridge the OSes well, making a hybrid OS that provides touch input but satisfies power users. But that would be a big effort, and I fear it would be a half-finished effort with the Mac side of things getting shafted. I guess that's why I join the naysayers here. I could have an open mind about a potential side project of a touch screen Mac, but the risk to this already neglected OS is too high.
The biggest example is Microsoft- as I see it, their effort sort of stalled- they built a touch GUI layer on top of Windows, but could never get it complete enough that the user felt that it worked right- you would have to switch in to non-touch mode to do certain things, or certain features would get lost in transition.
Apple took a different approach with iOS/iPadOS by starting with touch from scratch with a touch-forward OS, (too) slowly building in features, but ultimately stalled short of feature parity/power use of MacOS.
I could have imagined Apple back in the day making the effort to really bridge the OSes well, making a hybrid OS that provides touch input but satisfies power users. But that would be a big effort, and I fear it would be a half-finished effort with the Mac side of things getting shafted. I guess that's why I join the naysayers here. I could have an open mind about a potential side project of a touch screen Mac, but the risk to this already neglected OS is too high.
I remember some years before he passed, Steve Jobs actually had a prototype laptop Mac built with a touchscreen for him to try out. He hated it and that's why we don't see touchscreen MacBooks now.
Personally, I don’t like touchscreen on laptops. My son has one for school and I often click on something by mistake when pointing at the screen. Not to mention they’re more expensive to produce and they probably use more power.
The fact is, Apple will ship these in 2024 or roundabout, pleasing general consumers who wonder why it's missing -- and 99% of the commenters here will buy one too - whether they use the screen with touch/Apple pencil or not.
Apple knows this.
Inevitable.
Apple knows this.
Inevitable.
A waste of time and money.
I work for a large corporate which bought several thousand HP touch screen laptops and after 18 months of getting feedback found that virtually no one used them with the touch screen.
They are now being slowly replaced with standard laptops 😂
I work for a large corporate which bought several thousand HP touch screen laptops and after 18 months of getting feedback found that virtually no one used them with the touch screen.
They are now being slowly replaced with standard laptops 😂
Sure, MacBooks never had a camera until 2021. Oh, and, BTW, you know that MacBooks still have a bezel even if they have a notch, don't you? In other words, the notch didn't remove the bezels, yet it created a big usability problem.
Apple will probably implement this similarly to how it is implemented in the PC world, and Mac Users will immediately say Apple "did it right".
Switching between "Touch Mode" and "Desktop" mode in Windows is pretty seamless (and in most cases, is unnecessary). There are two settings (one in Office and one for the Start Menu) that switches some UI elements to a more touch-friendly version, but other than that, you just interact as you would normally, either way.
What you describe as two modes that you'd expect Apple to implement is really what Microsoft tried with Windows 8. It is possible that Mac users would be more receptive to that kind of a dual-mode interface or maybe Apple would do it better, but Microsoft quickly moved off of that paradigm and back to the "desktop with some touch enhancements" paradigm pretty quick with Win 10 and 11.
The rumor of touchscreen MacBooks existing inside Apple has kept popping up from time to time for over a decade now. My gut feeling is that there are people at Apple dedicated to keeping this going but it has never gotten the needed approval from upper management to become a real product.
What I'd like to see instead of a touchscreen Mac is an iPad still running iPadOS but also able to run development software and non-App Store apps like a Mac, that'd be a very compelling product but would also eat into the higher-margin Mac sales too much for Apple to pursue.
What I'd like to see instead of a touchscreen Mac is an iPad still running iPadOS but also able to run development software and non-App Store apps like a Mac, that'd be a very compelling product but would also eat into the higher-margin Mac sales too much for Apple to pursue.
Last edited: