Haha the irony of it. Mac die hards constantly putting down M Powered iPads with iPad OS 26 “trying to be like a Mac”, and here we have a Macbook trying to be like an iPad 
.
.
Last edited:
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.
CES 2026: Snap-On Accessory Adds Touch Display to Your MacBook
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You're not touching the screen, you're touching a glass digitizer laid over the screen.
Another example of SG's correctness. Phablets are a blight.
It’s all a matter of perspective. For those who grew up without touchscreens the idea of a Mac with touchscreen is repulsive. For those who grew up with iPhones, touch screens, it’s incomprehensible why the screen is not touch. I have lost count how many times i have seen my wife try to use touch screens movements on laptops. My toddler son always tries to touch the screen on MacBook Pro. It feels inevitable that touchscreens will come to mac laptops.
I think the iPad makes sense as a touchscreen device because you can lay it flat or hold it in your hands at a natural writing angle. But you can't do that with a laptop at all (unless, as you say, it folds backwards) which makes it pretty awful to reach up and interact with for any length of time.
He wasn't wrong about that. The big tell for iPhones getting too big to use one-handed was when they released that corny "reachability" feature that slides the whole display down halfway so you can reach the top.
20 years down the road, we have all collectively decided the trade-off of balancing our phones on our pinkies is worth it for the bigger screen, but there's no denying it's a total kludge ergonomically.
I'm afraid that ship has sailed. MacOS has been getting sloppy seconds from the iPhone and iPad for some time now, and it only seems to be getting worse. And I don't mean from third-party app developers, but from Apple themselves: apps like Messages and System Settings and Weather are limited to basically the same sh*tty "universal" (aka lowest common denominator) layout they have on the iPad.
Hell, there was a time when apps like Pages and Keynote had control palettes you could spread out across your desktop so everything was quickly accessible. Now everything is constrained in a single window with sidebars you have to open and close over and over. Why? Because it's the same interface as the iPad.
Fact is, the Mac is now a comparatively small slice of Apple's overall sales, so the big money maker of iOS gets all the attention and the Mac gets a warmed over version of that.
Last edited:
Agreed, for whomever has tried this on a windows notebook, it doesn't work.. First thing I disable on my work notebook. The physics don't work at all... Flipping it all the way back like you said, is the only way it could prove useful.. Still the UI isn't optimized for fingers..
These were available back in the early '00 for the PowerBook and iBook, along with the iMac. They didn't sell well by any means.
I agree with this take. I can't see Apple doing a touchscreen Mac anytime soon because it virtually renders the iPad irrelevant. I love the form factor of my Surface Laptop Studio 2.
You might not want to use it, but others will. Wacom, a publicly traded company, had been selling hardware, appealing to this crowd for over 4 decades. Last fiscal year their revenue was € 610 / $ 713 million.
Most people don't use a stylus, let alone a pressure sensitive Apple Pencil with their iPad, but that doesn't mean Apple can't make millions selling them. Even if just 1% of iPad owners buys one, they'll sell over 100.000 and makes millions on Apple Pencils alone.
Similarly, most MacBook customers probably do not want a touch screen, like most won't buy a purple iMac, but it might still be a very lucrative niche.
I would not use it for macOS. A combination with a pressure sensitive stylus in Affinity / Photoshop / etc is where this shines. Not when dragging files around or copying folders.
I am considering purchasing this and using it to create a video lecture. I need to record a PowerPoint presentation with handwriting using the built-in recording feature for my online class.
Unfortunately, the iPad version of PowerPoint does not support built-in video recording features.
Unfortunately, the iPad version of PowerPoint does not support built-in video recording features.
Better, but I still can't help but think it looks strange and fragile.
And I've used tons of Surfaces which this looks very much like, and it's not fun. The OS is not designed for touch, even though they retconned touch in there so that it is technically now designed for touch.
But it's still too much like good old wince.
I've been using the pictured device (Surface Laptop Studio) for the past several years, and I'd say it's durable. I don't treat it any different than my MacBook Pro anyway, and it hasn't had any damage.
But I agree it's not a good touch device/OS. I don't use it for touch at all actually except on accident. I would disable touch if I could (MS apparently disabled that option for some unknown reason). I only use it for pen input.
I'm well aware of Wacom, as I've owned several of their tablets but recently switched to Huion display tablets because they offer the same quality for a fraction of the price than Wacom's Cintiq tablets. Don't even get me started on Wacom discontinuing driver support for their older products.
That being said, people are not using Wacom for touchscreen applications. They're using them for the pressure sensitive stylus combined with graphics software for creating artwork.
More affordable than an iPad plus Apple Pencil. It can also be detached and used as a Wacom.
He was right if we only consider one-hand use and ergonomics is your top priority. So... he was wrong, most of us just use their phone with two hands and we're fine. Using the keyboard with one hand has never been optimal ergonomics anyway.
He was absurdly short-sighted and stubborn about this and it was one of his biggest mistakes when predicting the future of phones. Not to dismiss all of the great things he foresaw or imposed to the market (I'll never thank him enough for murdering Flash Player) but he was a smart dude, not Nostradamus.
The best selling iPhones (and among the best selling models ever) are iPhone 6 and 6 Plus followed by 6S and 6S plus. As if everybody was waiting for iPhones to catch up with other phones' size. So yours is just a personal opinion.