Mostly agree, though could be kinda cool for iOS devs to be able to test on a single device.
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Apple's Rumored MacBook Pro Redesign: 6 New Features Anticipated
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Mostly agree, though could be kinda cool for iOS devs to be able to test on a single device.
Why not just dock the iPhone into a Mac shell, or an iPad shell, for that matter, and sell it for just a couple hundred dollars. The phone screen would make a great touchpad. Would work for cars as well. Store everything on the web with storage and battery in the shell. Lose a phone, just download a new one and ready to go.
Ubuntu attempted to do this but got booed out of the room. The first phone company that does this is going to be the next Apple. There are a million schools out there waiting to buy this.
Russia is closest to this. Every student is at least exposed to Linux of one flavor or another.
What is the use case for the touchscreen? That you can’t do with touchpad.
Gorilla arm.
I can assure the universe at large that the overwhelming majority of touch inputs on MacBook Pro screens will be when the user is cleaning the screen.
I can assure the universe at large that the overwhelming majority of touch inputs on MacBook Pro screens will be when the user is cleaning the screen.
It doesn’t make it more expensive for you. Apple wouldn’t change the price unless they were already planning to do so. Apple targets pricepoints and maximizes margins at those pricepoints. They don’t do cost + x%.
Apple potentially saves a some money (multiplied by millions of devices) by excluding a touch enabled display. You don’t save anything.
I'm so torn. I got a macbook air m1 and just bought airpods pro 3
but if the redesigned macbook pro oled comes at the end of 2026...I think I'd better wait for it , and get it with free airpods pro thanks to student discount , no ?
but if the redesigned macbook pro oled comes at the end of 2026...I think I'd better wait for it , and get it with free airpods pro thanks to student discount , no ?
unfortunately that is the main (even sole) reason why I returned it and kept my macbook air m1..I just couldn't use those new macbook pros without being in pain
s
same. it'll likely make it cost much more too. what's the point of a touch-based mac anyway? i truly fail to see the appeal
I have 14” M1 and it’s still the best laptop I have ever used. But the changes I want are always seem to be 2 years from now. Don’t need 5g, touch screen or design change. Don’t care what chip. Just give me and Oled display with punch hole camera in q1 2026
Touchscreen would be a mistake IMO, unless they allow us to turn it off. I hate touchscreens on laptops and desktops. I disable my touchscreen on Windows.
Adding a touchscreen implies they'll re-work the Mac OS user interface into a mess similar to what has become of Windows.
- Widespread inconsistencies between new, legacy, first-party, and third-party apps.
- Bigger buttons.
Would like to have cellular connectivity. Cellular option can also be available with the M5 version. OLED display will also be nice. Overall the changes are exciting. Wish they also have a bright color in addition to silver and black/grey. High time Pro lineup gets some colors.
Touchscreen computers are these worst in every single possible way imaginable.
So sad to see macOS keeps getting dumbed down into an iPad.
So sad to see macOS keeps getting dumbed down into an iPad.
Touchscreens almost always have a negative impact on display quality. Might Apple come up with a solution that doesn’t? Perhaps, but it is unlikely they will be able to completely eliminate all negative impacts.
Also, UI elements for precision inputs vs touch are fundamentally different. If Apple released two versions of macOS - one for technical users and one for finger poking toddlers, then fine. But we all know Apple isn’t going to do that. Spacing and toggle switches on macOS have already gotten pretty ridiculous for precision input.
So in the end, everyone who cares about having a precision computer will suffer, when Apple adds this useless gimmick to their Macs.
(Now an iPad that ran iPadOS when alone, but macOS when docked with a keyboard and monitor or something would be pretty cool. But turning macOS into iPadOS is rather heartbreaking.)
The highest quality display a lot of people have is on their phone, which has touch capability. The OLED MacBook Pro is rumored to use on-cell touch technology, meaning the display layer would be one and the same instead of two layers (which can reduce light transmission a little). That said poor quality PC laptop touch screens generally come from starting with a low quality display, backlight, and plastic screen (instead of glass) to begin with, not the touch layer.
If Apple uses the display tech they are rumored to be using, the touch layer is going to be there regardless of whether Apple enables it or not. Nor does Apple need to adjust any UI in MacOS elements for touch is a secondary input method. Touch screen PC laptops don’t run a different version of windows. I stand by my point that simply adding a touchscreen to a Mac (and doing nothing else) doesn’t have a consumer facing downside, even if you never use it.
My thoughts about where Apple wants to take iPadOS are separate from this, and would have consumer downsides. I do wish iPads running macOS, switching to an iPadOS UI when undocked were on the table.
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The UI does have to be different though. Increased spacing between elements to accommodate larger fingers vs a tiny pointer, decreasing information density per page, replacing small checkboxes with larger toggle switches, etc. Touch and input control have fundamentally different optimization needs.
Regarding Windows, I have no idea how they deal with touch. Last time I used Windows was Windows XP. But if your telling me that you can simply put Windows XP on a computer with touchscreen hardware and everybody is honky dory with absolutely no UI changes, well then I guess I might change my opinion on the issue.
That all said, I am pretty sure macOS has already started transitioning for touch input beginning with macOS Ventura. There has definitely been a deliberate shift to make macOS more touch friendly with every release beginning with Ventura.
You can put a touchscreen on anything if you want. Nothing about the UI "needs" to be different. Obviously a device designed around touch "should" be different, but I specifically called it a secondary input option for a Macbook, not the primary. You need to design for the primary and accommodate the secondary, that's it. People that use the touchscreens on PC laptops don't use touch for everything, just the random scroll or touch on an element that is large enough to be touched. The trackpad still exists, and it's still the primary way the computers are used. My point has been that simply giving people the option to do this isn't a negative. It may not be much of a positive either, but it's not negative, and especially not a negative proportionate to the opposition it can see here; which has a bias toward painting things Apple isn't doing as negatives, only to see the opinion flip once they do.
You are right that Apple has been making changes to better accommodate touch in MacOS for quite some time now though. I think it pre-dates Ventura. They boosted things like maximum icon size before that anyway. I think it's something they've considered for a long time, specially because adding a touch enabled display isn't a major undertaking. The biggest challenge Apple faces with touchscreen capable macs is deflecting attention away from a perceived foot in mouth moment.