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

[pyguycharles]

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.

Same here. If you've used a iPad Pro with a keyboard, or any Windows touch screen laptop, you start jabbing at your MacBook Pro's screen pretty frequently. Regardless of angles, no trackpad or mouse is going to be as comfy as just pointing to it on the screen.

 

[Romy90210]

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.

i TAKE IT YOU NEVER USE AN IPAD OR AN IPHONE? OR ANYTHING ELSE THATS NEW IN THE TECH WORLD???

 

[sunapple]

Ive, you and Cook need to go...

Ive is all the Jobs you can still have in Apple right now. I can already see the top comments: Ive would never have done that!

 

[iapplelove]

I think the 10th anniversary iPhone will give us a clearer indication of whether he needs to go or not.

I agree with this. I posted on another thread I hope it blows us away but it seems most members already lost hope lol

 

[imajez]

The idea is great; the implementation, horrific -- when your two flagship products -- released within two months of each other -- cannot communicate with one another or share accessories, you've made a terrible mistake.

This.
Utterly absurd.
The new iPhone should at the very least come with connectors of both types of port. But when you can sell a poorly made Apple lead separately for £25 why bother?

 

[Trusteft]

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.

First of all, I never said that, I never said to not have the option. I clearly said that I don't like the idea of a touchscreen on a laptop. Not that it shouldn't be an option.

Second, history tells me any more expensive options will become the default "option". Look for example the touch bar. I don't care about it, others don't care about it, but it is here. As an option....as long as you want the least powerful 13" mbp. If you want the larger more powerful 15" without a touch bar, you are screwed. Even if you never use it, you have to pay for it. I don't see Apple including a touchscreen and not asking for more money for it, whether you want a touchscreen or not. You know, courage or whatever.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

I've grown sick and tired of the incessant complaining and whining here. Apple's design team has spent thousands of hours designing and testing the Touch Bar. I think they have a little more insight on this than every single person here that has never used it or even seen it.

Get a grip folks. Put on your big boy pants and stop whining. Let's make MacRumor's discussion forums a great place again instead of what it has become.

 

[maflynn]

I think Apple is missing the big picture, people expect, and want touch screens. I find it useful on my Surface Book and have when I owned Surface Pros.

I know the touchbar is Apple's answer to touchscreens but I think touch screens offer more flexibility and options - just my $.02

 

[imajez]

Apple's innovation is doing some different... not doing something better for their users...

iOS 10 feels like it simply different from the previous version, just to warrant a new name. Whilst being made clunkier and less functional than before.

 

[Romy90210]

Touching a laptop screen is overrated. I would lose my mind about having to constantly clean it if I did. It's why I haven't used my old iPad since the iPhone 6 came out with a big enough screen. The only thing I struggle with is the cost of the new MBPs with the Touch Bar and wondering how it will be incorporated to do really functional work. The early things seem kind of like a gimmick, and my MBP spends a lot of time glued to an external display anyway with a keyboard and mouse.

SO HOW DO YOUY USE YOUR IPHONE?? YOU NEVER TOUCH ITS SCREEN?

 

[8692574]

"Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical" - Steve Jobs

Microsoft agrees, the Surface Studio goes almost flat for that purpose .

Is Jobs now "working" for Microsoft?? No they simply have a clever C.E.O.

Hardly vertical

EDIT:

"Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical" - Steve Jobs

Seems Apple cannot follow it's own ideas

 

[brianvictor7]

When pushed, Ive refused to elaborate on why Apple "doesn't think a touchscreen is a particularly useful or appropriate application of multitouch", because it would lead him to have to talk about things his team are currently working on.

Ears perked up at this one!!! Something more useful than touchscreen in the works?! Best guess is he's hinting at augmented reality. Thoughts anyone!?

 

[apolloa]

Which basically reads as: we don't want to butcher our iPad and iPhone and iPod Touch sales...

Because their is no reason apart from attempting to use marketing and sales tactics for Apple to on the one hand, state a touch screen computer, like our competitors make, is pointless, and then state in big bold letters an iPad Pro can replace your computer oh and we've made this clever connector to power a new keyboard cover we've made for it.....

It's funny watching Apple execs fall over themselves when they talk marketing and sales tactics..

 

[littyboy]

i TAKE IT YOU NEVER USE AN IPAD OR AN IPHONE? OR ANYTHING ELSE THATS NEW IN THE TECH WORLD???

It depends on the device. If it's a pure laptop, then it's not really that practical. However, if it can convert to a tablet like the surface pro, then yeah touch screen is very well needed. For macbooks however, not as much.

 

[maflynn]

I've grown sick and tired of the incessant complaining and whining here. Apple's design team has spent thousands of hours designing and testing the Touch Bar. I think they have a little more insight on this than every single person here that has never used it or even seen it.

It doesn't matter if they spent a million hours designing the touchbar, if its not a good component or doesn't increase a person's efficiency, its not good. Personally, it seems very gimmicky and won't be something that will last

 

[asiga]

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.

Very true, but think what this means: It means that a decade ago everybody could learn programming in their devices because they were computers. They could also learn OS administration too. And a lot of computer skills. However, a decade from now, only programmers and professionals will use computers, and this has at least two very bad consequences: first it's not clear that freelance developers will have freedom to publish software (because webstore-centralized apps may impose fees, or a mandatory SDK, or any other rules). Second, the vast majority of people won't have a computer so they won't have the possibility of learning computing skills.

When my parents bought me the ZX Spectrum in the early 80s, they told me "we prefer to buy you this instead of a game console because even if you use it for playing games, you'll be able to also learn and program it". And they couldn't be more right. I'm developing software today just because of that decision from my parents.

This is mainly why I wish the most complete success possible for MacOS, and the most catastrophic, fatal failure to iOS. Because I love computers, and because I love that people learn to use the available tools and modify them to suit their needs. That's how technology has evolved through History. MacOS has helped in that evolution while iOS goes in the opposite direction.

 

[jetho]

The amount of times a wished I had a touchscreen on my MacBook ist zero. Ze-ro!
I don't think a touchscreen on a laptop makes a lot of sense mainly because of two reasons:

1. The current laptop designs distinguish between an input area (lower half) and a viewing area (upper half). Adding a touchscreen just messes these things up. When utilizing the touchscreen part of your viewing area gets blocked, plus you'll smudge it entirely. Also, over longer periods of time I think ergonomically it is a disaster as your hands can't just rest on the lower case, but you constantly have to lift them up.

2. The biggest problem in my opinion is UI. Touch and mouse input are fundamentally different and therefor require different approaches in UI design. Allowing both methods as input will only lead to a huge mess. To this day, I haven't seen a single application that is equally good with mouse and touch input.

There are certainly some devices where adding touch input makes sense. But I don't see laptops being one of those devices. One example could be Microsoft's new Surface Studio. When using it in "drawing mode" (i.e. completely tilted screen) touch input makes sense, although strictly your are not using touch, just the stylus is utilizing the same technology. But even in that case the UI problem is still there (I don't know how well this issue is taken care of by the Sufrace Studio and its (third party) apps.) I still doubt though that even on the Studio anyone will seriously use touch input in "normal computer mode".

I think, for traditional laptop designs, Apple could have found a sweet spot with the TouchBar. It seems to tick all the right boxes (with maybe only tactile feedback missing), but, still, it first has to prove itself under real world usage.

 

[StevieD100]

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.

You can already use touch with Lightroom by using the iOS or Android apps. It seems to work quite well once you accept that it syncs via adobe. i.e. your pictures sync up to the Adobe cloud and then to the iPad and back again after the work has been finished. Going back is quicker because only the changes are sent back to the Lightroom host PC/Mac. The principle of non destructive editing that Adobe has used with Lightroom makes this easy.
Personally, I'l prefer to use the ipad just as an input device to tools like Lightroom that are running on my Mac and displayed on a 4K or 5K screen. Even so, the mouse seems to be a more appropriate tool than touch.

 

[Trusteft]

i TAKE IT YOU NEVER USE AN IPAD OR AN IPHONE? OR ANYTHING ELSE THATS NEW IN THE TECH WORLD???

I use a keyboard most of the time, including the CAPS LOCK KEY. BUT NOT ALWAYS BECAUSE IT IS VERY ANNOYING TO THE READERS.

I was using computers and touchscreens since the 80s. To answer the very specific question of yours, I don't use an iPad or an iPhone. I have a tablet and a smartphone which have touchscreen. The common thing with both of them is...neither of them is a LAPTOP. THANK YOU FOR YOUR QUESTION!!!!!!

 

[guzhogi]

Why not let the users and developers decide that? I'm sure there are a bunch of developers who can come up with ingenious ideas for a touch screen Mac. I wonder how people use ModBooks.

 

[CEmajr]

I actually agree with them here. My university recently bought brand new touchscreen windows machines for the engineering department and I have to say it's mostly a pretty useless feature. It feels like it's there just for the sake of being there and almost no one actually uses it. It faster and more efficient to just use the mouse and keyboard for basically every task. Maybe it's the implementation but either way in the current form touchscreen computers aren't very useful.

 

[Komiidian]

Two years of "innovation" for a touch bar that is not even on every model? I think it's time for apple to hire some new designers. Maybe they could've just spent more time on things that matter like a magsafe usb-c connector and an updated macbook air with a retina display.

 

[brianvictor7]

s OHOW DO YOUY USE YOUR IPHONE?? YOU NEVER TOUCH ITS SCREEN?

The iPhone and iPad leave you with no choice but to touch. And I am constantly battling the smudges :/ Also, the ergonomic payoff is there (you're holding it your hand). Aaaand, if what I'm doing requires typing, I'd rather use a trackpad any day. "Point and click" is almost always more precise, efficient, and reliable than "reach (up) and tap".

 

[linuxcooldude]

As explained by Apple long ago you would have gorilla arm after a while. Using a touch screen in a vertical position would end up giving you the worst carpal-tunnel ever. Thy probably did proof of concept prototypes and ended up why it would not be practical over an extended period of time.

 

[luciferuk]

Touch screen's on notebooks are confusing and out of place, it just does not work.

The screen itself isn't sturdy and the whole experience just feels entirely wrong. Just because you can do a thing, doesn't mean you should; touch screens on Mac's are one of them.