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Apple Reportedly Working on Touchscreen Macs, Including MacBook Pro

MICHAELSD said:
I think it comes down to customer demand. The average Joe customer expects a Mac to have a touchscreen.

Personally I wouldn’t mind if the Mac and iPad crossed lines to become a hybrid product, although I’m not sure we’ll see that anytime soon.
Click to expand...
But do they? Admittedly I’m not part of the high school and college crowd but is this the expectation now? I wonder how many who expect the feature subsequently use it?
 
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Keep your darn fingers off my screen!

Seriously, I use mine 90% of the time with an external monitor, so unless there's a touch option for that, it's useless. Not sure I see the use case for it - want touch, run a touch OS. I wouldn't want to pay for something I'd never/rarely use, so hope it's an option and not a default, especially if it impacts cost, reliability, weight, or visual acuity.

I have no doubt they're doing R&D on it, but that's a far cry from actually producing one.
 
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*darth vader voice* NoooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

==================

In all seriousness though, this may explain the bad UI decisions in macOS and "unifying" the look and feel. In preparation for a touch screen mac... I feel as other's do, if I wanted a touch screen I'd get an iPad (which i have).

Honestly, when I use my iPad with a keyboard/trackpad pair, I mostly forget about the touchscreen and really try to use it more as a desktop, which doesn't work great in some circumstances and half the time leaves me scratching my head. Perhaps it's my old ways of using a desktop all my life...

I really hope this rumor is a flop, but if it comes to pass... I shall leave judgement for when it finally comes (if at all).
 
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and I was under the impression that the glorious yet to be announced mAR/VR headset would replace the iPhone and all other computing devices ... /s
stupid idea, the few Windows laptops I had with touchscreens - always disabled that in the bios
 
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It would only make sense if they can make it with a detachable screen and make it work with Apple Pencil. If they keep the same form factor and just add multitouch to the screen, it'll be very awkward to use. They need to redesign it to make it work.

Really, the ideal setup would be similar to an iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard, except for more ports and macOS.
 
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To be fair, Apple has internally tested and trademarked touchscreen Macs since the mid 2000s, this doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.
However, there was another recent rumor that this might tie into which gets me way more interested…
appleinsider.com

Apple rumored to be testing macOS for M2 iPad Pro | AppleInsider

A leaker has claimed that Apple is working on a version of macOS exclusive for the M2 iPad Pro, with it expected at some point in 2023.
appleinsider.com appleinsider.com
From the article:
“Testing is being done with a 25% larger macOS UI so it is suitable for touch. However, apps run on the product would still be iPad-optimized versions, not macOS ones.”
So maybe these rumors about upcoming 14 and 16 inch iPads aren’t actually about iPads at all, but more about an entire new product category.
Unlike Quo though, I highly doubt Apple would release the touchscreen Mac/iPad combo thing as a MacBook Pro.
More than likely it would have its own product name, at least at first.
iPad Ultra?
MacBook Touch?
Either way, very interested to see what Apple does.
They’ve been on an absolute roll with the Mac of late, so I’m quite intrigued.
Also, this just further is my idea that 2025 will be the year that Apple finally strips macOS of all X86 compatibility.
The current OS is already 2017/18 and up, it’s just a matter of time before it’s M1 and up.
 
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You know, I kinda wondered if they were planning this from the launch of Big Sur. The information density of the OS decreased from Catalina. More padding was added to the title bar, specifically, but Mail also decreased in info density.

Still not a huge fan of touch PCs, if only for the smudging you get and have to deal with. I like a clean desktop display. Maybe it’s a ploy to sell more polishing cloths.
 
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This sucks. It means the interface for macOS is going to change to accommodate touch whether or not you want to use it.

I prefer information density for a non-mobile OS. I don't want to be dealing with huge touch targets just on the off chance I feel like using my finger instead of the wonderful industry leading trackpad Apple already provides.

Hopefully this is several years away.
 
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If it looks, feels, and acts like an iPad normally, but turns into a Macbook when plugged into a USB-C dock, I _might_ consider it. Otherwise, why? My laptop screen already gets enough smudges on it without my trying to touch it, and I can't see any interaction that would be faster/more intuitive by having to lift my hands up and touch the screen instead of just using the trackpad.
 
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Wow Gurman is really smoking the good stuff lately!

Honestly I wouldn’t be too surprised if this happened. Big Sur scaled up lots of UI elements in a way that seems clearly designed for touch input. Now Apple Silicon Macs can run iOS / iPad apps natively, being able to touch them would be a natural step too. Platforms converging.

I agree with the HIG reasons why Apple resisted touch on the Mac, but the problem is that Windows and ChromeOS went ahead and added touch input on their mouse-oriented desktop UIs, and a whole bunch of users are used to it now, to the point where many are surprised they can’t touch the screen on a Mac.

If they do this it would be a “switcher” strategy, like making bigger iPhones after keeping them small for so long, because the market got used to big Android phones and not having comparable sizes was hurting iPhone sales.

If your future Mac has a touch screen and you don’t want it, I’m sure you’ll be able to turn it off or ignore it. The iPad proved that touchable interfaces were the future, and personally I don’t particularly want a touchscreen Mac, but I’d love to see MacOS stay relevant in the future.
 
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