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Apple Says Touchscreen Macs 'Not a Particularly Useful or Appropriate Application of Multi-Touch'

I absolutely agree with Jony Ive that a touchscreen laptop or desktop is not a great or particularly useful idea when you have a big, beautiful trackpad like you do on MacBooks and MacBook Pros. This is simply a question of ergonomics. Do I want to be using a touchscreen with my arm extended in front of me? Not really. Touch input is much more comfortable and useful when the positioning of the input device is more-or-less parallel with the floor.

Honestly I am very impressed by Ive's sentiment with respect to finding a balance between the mechanical and the adaptable and think it is a highly reasonable approach.
 
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I've never used a touchscreen laptop, but I have watched people on the plane next to me using them and it seems like it would be the most frustrating thing in the world. I do believe the touchbar could be more productive; because you don't have to move your hands away from their normal position. I can pivot my hands to reach the touchpad and the touchbar, without lifting them. My only concern is if the touchbar is big enough to provide enough controls. The biggest place I'd like to try it is in the Develop module of Lightroom. This is an area I've long wished for some better controls because using the mouse to hit the little sliders is very frustrating, and using the keyboard is equally so. I have a feeling that they should have made the touchbar twice as deep though.

So, count me as someone that doesn't want a full touchscreen laptop.... but the pricing on the touchbar is kind of crazy.
 
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Floris said:
Say that to my mom who's so used to iPad she keeps touching the MacBook Pro screen when dad shows her a picture and she tries to pinch to zoom and swipe to check more pictures.
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Maybe she won't do that on the new one now that there is a touch bar lol
 
Trusteft said:
I find the idea of a touchscreen on a laptop, not particularly useful...to be polite. I am sure there are people who like it. I am not one of them. I don't want to have fingerprints, dirt, etc on the screen. I want it to be as clear as possible without having to clean it 10 times a day. Also, fingers are just too fat to replace a mouse cursor and they block the view.
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I'm inclined to agree. If it's not a tablet convertible I really don't see much point in swapping those inputs.
 
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What should have come first? The touch bar or the iPad?

Apple is working backwards. Funny thing is, now they are about to go forward again from here. They could have done the touchscreen keyboard already. The iPad Pro has several mouse pad features built right in, like moving the cursor with 2 fingers.

I still stand on not being mad at the updates. The fact that Apple touted this as a main feature is frustrating though; even more so either the ridiculous price increase.
 
Trusteft said:
I find the idea of a touchscreen on a laptop, not particularly useful...to be polite. I am sure there are people who like it. I am not one of them. I don't want to have fingerprints, dirt, etc on the screen. I want it to be as clear as possible without having to clean it 10 times a day. Also, fingers are just too fat to replace a mouse cursor and they block the view.
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I don't find the idea particularly useful either, but why does every argument against it have to rely on the not too well thought out fingerprint argument? All you have to do is... not touch the screen. It's not an all or nothin', binary proposition. If an MBP had touchscreen capability, those who wanted to use it, could. Those who wanted to avoid the dreaded fingerprint issue could simply continue using the laptop in the conventional fashion.

Me, you, and a lot of others don't see the need for touchscreen MBP's. That doesn't mean they shouldn't exist. For if they did, I'm pretty sure no one would be forced to use the touch. Let's drop the fingerprint argument. It doesn't hold water.
 
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erzhik said:
Laptops with touchscreens are extremely useful. Ask any Surface Book or any other touchscreen laptop owner. None of them would ever go back to a laptop without touchscreen. And a touchscreen is a hell of a lot more useful than a Touch Bar.
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I mostly agree.

I like the idea of the Touch Bar, but I really like the idea of a full multi-touch macOS device and, what's more, would be prepared to pay the top-end prices of the new MacBooks to obtain it.

I know that plenty of people will say the pointer/keyboard paradigm is "better", but incorporating multi-touch doesn't do away with that, and Apple have far better and more extensive experience with multi-touch than any other supplier so I'm sure they'd have the ability to produce something which far outstrips the MS Surface range. The very fact the we have iPad Pro and Apple Pencil shows that they recognise the utility of this paradigm. I'm certain that that utility could be applied to macOS, with spectacular results and without too much pain.

I'm a diehard Apple user, but I honestly believe that Apple need to up their game and move forward, quickly, with a multi-touch macOS.
 
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Trusteft said:
I find the idea of a touchscreen on a laptop, not particularly useful...to be polite. I am sure there are people who like it. I am not one of them. I don't want to have fingerprints, dirt, etc on the screen. I want it to be as clear as possible without having to clean it 10 times a day. Also, fingers are just too fat to replace a mouse cursor and they block the view.
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This.

It's also a hideous experience to reach up - It made me give up using the iPad Pro with the keyboard straight away - but hey if you like that sort of thing you do have the iPad with a keyboard and you do have the Surface Book - why you'd want it on a non touch optimised OS like macOS for the sake of it I don't know (and for all you whingers, Apple really would be dead to me if they suddenly took Microsoft's lead and redesigned macOS to work for touch going through a Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 experience first....no thanks! Just make iOS as good as Windows 10 tablet mode, that'll do nicely)
 
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Instead Apple wants us to move our eyes from the screen and touch a tiny strip, and move our eyes back to the screen. How's that intuitive? It's a total gimmick.

If Apple decides to remove a perfectly fine keyboard and replace it with the horrible butterfly thingie - which types like **** - why not take the extra step and remove it altogether? There's almost no tactile feedback anyway.
And, the keyboard made sense on MacBook, being ultra portable and ultra light, but for a Pro laptop? Really?
 
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The iPad would have a tough future if the MacBook had a touchscreen (and specially the Retina MacBook). They know this would hurt iOS growth while would favor the user freedom to use a real OS and not being as controlled by Apple through the "I know where you are and what you do" iOS lifestyle.

So of course they would never put a touchscreen in a MacBook... except if the MacBook runs iOS. Then they wouldn't mind.
 
yegon said:
Unfortunately, Apple is sticking to old paradigms until at least 2019.
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I echo your thoughts. The paradigm in the way users interact with their computer is slowly shifting. As the computer screen gets larger, touch and finger gesture will make more sense on the desktop and laptop platform. Apple can keep putting off confronting this reality at the cost of being gradually left behind.

Dangers are lurking everywhere for Apple. AirPlay is losing to Chromecast, Siri to Google, input integration to Microsoft, iPhone to Pixel... Apple TV hasn't gotten off the ground yet. I actually can't name one cutting edge area where Apple is out-innovating its competitors.
 
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Why do some on here keep clamouring for touch screen Macs? Mac OS isn't designed for touch. Minimising and maximising windows with your fingers, for example, isn't ergonomical because the buttons are too small to give a precise enough touch. Not to mention the constant arm ache it would cause. I thought you would all know this by now yet I still see people, and bizarrely more Apple fans, asking "why don't they just make a touchscreen Mac?". Steve Jobs said it himself this is the reason why, because it just isn't natural nor comfortable. Your hands want to rest downward towards a keyboard, not waving around in front of you. It would also cause a lot of arm fatigue. This is why they made the iPad instead, because it's designed for touch, and more comfortable to actually hold in your lap or wherever. Although it's no where near featured as a Mac, think of what it'll be like in 10+ years. The Mac has had 40 years to get where it's at today, while the iPad is still growing.
 
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d4cl00 said:
Instead Apple wants us to move our eyes from the screen and touch a tiny strip, and move our eyes back to the screen. How's that intuitive? It's a total gimmick.

If Apple decides to remove a perfectly fine keyboard and replace it with the horrible butterfly thingie - which types like **** - why not take the extra step and remove it altogether? There's almost no tactile feedback anyway.
And, the keyboard made sense on MacBook, being ultra portable and ultra light, but for a Pro laptop? Really?
Click to expand...

I agree.. It sounds like Ive and Apple spent a long time on the Touch Bar.. I still feel that touchscreens are simply more useful than a small bar to do contextual actions that take you away from your content vs a touchscreen that you can interact with you content on screen. (Not counting the whole fingerprints debate.. anti-fingerprint or fingerprint resistive coatings)?

It's funny to see if you have kids or any friends who have them, they will always try to touch your computer screen like an iPhone or iPad.. it's just starting to become part of our culture (which iPhones had a large part in making true).
 
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Touch screens on laptops work fine as long as they fold flat or the keyboard is detachable. Assuming that it would be a standard macbook with touch slapped on isn't really thinking about it.
 
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About 10 years ago, the tech world began to talk about moving into the "post-PC" era. I think we're now moving toward that new paradigm more aggressively than ever before. Within a decade, I predict that the majority of consumer-level computing devices will be tablets and other such limited touch devices, whereas the majority of pro-level devices will be more "traditional" computers - mostly laptops with very few non-portable desktops.
 
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