How much MORE expensive would a touchscreen make the MacBook Pro?

[TheRealAlex]

I’m excited for the Rumor that a touchscreen is coming to the MacBook Pro line potentially. And having laptops all my life I fully understand that MacBook Pros are the best hands down. As is, so I don’t know what benefits a potential Touchscreen can bring other than significantly higher costs.

 

[hristob]

Honestly, the hardware cost is probably minimal at this point. Touch panels are cheap. The real cost is the software side. Apple would need to rethink macOS fundamentals.

 

[maflynn]

Ram, and SSDs are more likely going to be the reason we see higher prices. Apple is like a decade behind the industry when it comes to touch screens [on laptops], so its not like they suddenly discovered new technology.

 

[ifxf]

Honestly, the hardware cost is probably minimal at this point. Touch panels are cheap. The real cost is the software side. Apple would need to rethink macOS fundamentals.

If Microsoft can do it, Apple can certainly add support.

 

[whitby]

It would obviously add cost, how much is debatable, however the major issue would if the form factor of the MacBook would change to allow the device to be operated in tablet mode.

I have a Microsoft Surface Laptop (to keep me familiar with the Windows world) and I can safely say I have never ever used the touch screen on the device. Mixing keyboard, touch pad and, maybe, mouse input devices with touch screen, does not work for me. However I can see that dual purpose laptop/tablet mode might make sense like the Microsoft Surface ( not the laptop version). Apple do not have such a device and MacOS is not a touch or stylus friendly OS. Thus a lot of changes would have taken place place in addition to adding a touch sensitive screen. Note that in the Windows world a touch sensitive screen can add 10 to 15% to the price.

 

[kasakka]

Apple would need to rethink macOS fundamentals.

Which would mean all the ******** from iOS. MacOS Tahoe might be the first steps towards that.

I really hope that the touchscreen is just a rumor, because it makes very little sense unless the form factor is also changed into something akin to an iPad Pro or Lenovo Yoga where the screen can be flipped.

Just stuffing it on the current MBP design makes very little sense. It would be awkward to use and largely a far worse option to just using the trackpad.

I could see myself even be interested in an M6 Max iPad Pro that has a touchscreen but no keyboard, because I use external keyboards anyway.

But you can bet your ass it will be more expensive. This is Apple we are talking about.

 

[TheRealAlex]

A tandem RGB OLED display would be much better