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.
'MacBook Ultra' Coming Soon With These 12 New Features
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
remove the dumb ports, USB C/thunderbolt 5 is better.
I have no problem with a touchscreen MacBook. Three things tho
1. There’s more in the notch than just a camera so those things will have to be moved.
2. A lighter body is going to make the whole thing feel as top heavy and unstable as the big iPad in its Magic Keyboard.
3. Not sure how the dynamic island will work with menu items. Will it cover them up or make them move which is going to suck if you were just about to click on one. LOL.
1. There’s more in the notch than just a camera so those things will have to be moved.
2. A lighter body is going to make the whole thing feel as top heavy and unstable as the big iPad in its Magic Keyboard.
3. Not sure how the dynamic island will work with menu items. Will it cover them up or make them move which is going to suck if you were just about to click on one. LOL.
In corporate environments and their conference rooms a dedicated HDMI is significantly better than a dongle you have to remember to bring with you.
I use my sd slot regularly so I hope it doesn’t go away.
Nothing here for me, except:
M5 - if it is really a performance improvement, but thinner laptop, smaller battery, probably not.
cellular - could be, but it is an old Intel design, probably not. Apple has never been good at RF.
16.3 screen, meh. 17 or 18 inch and it is a sure purchase.
M5 - if it is really a performance improvement, but thinner laptop, smaller battery, probably not.
cellular - could be, but it is an old Intel design, probably not. Apple has never been good at RF.
16.3 screen, meh. 17 or 18 inch and it is a sure purchase.
StrollerEd
macrumors 65816
I use my 16in MBP as a move-around-the-house desktop replacement, and so a larger and better screen appeals; a touch screen option, maybe for occasional use; don't need more heft / by way of chip.
A touchscreen without a detachable keyboard? All I can say is: “That's a reach.” (a reach past the keyboard if you don't quite get it).
I suppose it's OK. But I get enough fingerprints on my screen as it is. As long as it isn't mandatory to touch, I suppose it's OK if the macOS doesn't have to be so modified to accommodate as to diminish its native usability.
I suppose it's OK. But I get enough fingerprints on my screen as it is. As long as it isn't mandatory to touch, I suppose it's OK if the macOS doesn't have to be so modified to accommodate as to diminish its native usability.
vegetassj4
macrumors 68020
This is what it looks like when you go to trade the Ultra in a few years
Apple’s new MacBook Air borrows a lot of things from the iPad, including hyperportability and instant-on flash storage. But the Air won’t use an iPad-like touchscreen. Neither will any of Apple’s laptops
Apple’s new MacBook Air borrows a lot of things from the iPad, including hyperportability and instant-on flash storage. But the Air won’t use an iPad-like touchscreen. Neither will any of Apple’s laptops
Plutonius
macrumors G4
I just feel what others have pointed out above, that the people who care about touchscreen aren't necessarily the ones who need the Pro chips. How would people who do more serious, professional work on their laptops actually benefit from a touchscreen? At the same time, every time I have a kid use my laptop, there will be one moment where they try to use the monitor as a touchscreen.
It's great for consumption, sometimes to push a window around, especially when there's more than one person in front of the computer, like when you're watching something with your kids. But all the use cases that make a touch screen compelling for creating work best when it's more flat and in combination with the pen...
Perfect machine for me and many people I know would be something like a Macbook Air 15 with better speakers (lowest on the list), the Macbook Pro screen with Nanotexture option and an SD-card reader. It's not that the Macbook Air isn't great as it is. But I would much benefit from the better screen, especially with Nano, SD-card read reader and better speakers but I don't need any of the other pro benefits such as the better cooling, faster chips and graphics performance. One can dream.
While I totally agree, development for this would have begun way before the massive rise in costs of ram and storage etc.
aleni
macrumors 68030
TVreporter
macrumors 68030
TJFDenver
macrumors 6502
hopefully this will drive a used M5 Pro 64gb/4tb down to that 60 cents on the dollar range … then I’ll pounce like a leopard on a shrew
Vincent Hanna
macrumors 6502
You just described the redesigned, thinner lighter 14” OLED touchscreen base M7 MacBook Pro, coming in the first half of 2027.
Vincent Hanna
macrumors 6502
TVreporter
macrumors 68030
Surely this means we are also getting the Apple Polishing Cloth Pro and Ultra versions!
Can’t wait!!!
Can’t wait!!!
Last edited:
needsomecoffee
macrumors 6502a
Go 360 degree hinge or go home Apple. Older 15 inch Thinkpad Yoga running Ubuntu is my favorite computer experience. Ubuntu works great with the touch screen despite not being optimized for it. It scares me to read about Apple planning to "optimize" MacOS for the touch screen. Their UI folks have -- imho -- really, really lost the plot in many ways. Hopefully JohnT can fix this and the software group's inability to deliver quality** (although AI seems to be helping them of late). HTH, NSC
** CraigF's "charms" are now lost on me. Hope he retires or JohnT takes SW management away from him.
** CraigF's "charms" are now lost on me. Hope he retires or JohnT takes SW management away from him.
If Apple are going to invest in developing an OLED display for the Mac then incorporating a touch screen into it is a no-brainer that probably won't add a huge amount to the cost (esp. if it shares economies of scale with iPad screens). I don't think its going to be a game changer - but touchscreens are a common feature on PCs with retina-class displays so at the absolute minimum it will help on comparison charts...
Adding multi-touch support to MacOS will improve compatibility with iPad apps (which is currently an under-used feature) and make it easier to use an iPad as a second display - something that is more likely to make me buy a new iPad than a MacBook Ultra, but Apple still wins.
MacOS can't become "touch first" until/unless Apple designs some sort of convertible device & a touchscreen studio display (ideally with 'easel' mode) because Jobs wasn't wrong about the "gorilla arms" effect. There's still a handful of applications where it occasionally makes sense to reach out and touch the screen (mixers and virtual instruments in Logic etc. spring to mind).
...now Apple are a trillion (ish) dollar company and can afford a more extensive range. Plus, the market has changed with the laptop sector largely taking over mass-market sales and several new product categories emerging industry-wide (like: ultrabooks, netbook/chromebook, ultra-portable workstations, small form-factor desktops and all-in-ones). Come to think of it, most of those "new categories" have Jobs' sticky fingermarks all over them!
...and portable music player. Wait, what!? Whittling down the inventory gave Apple a few more years of life. Ignoring "back to basics" and going off on a total tangent with the iPod made Apple a massive global brand name... Rules are there to make you think before breaking them.
The sad truth is that not everybody is suffering under the current economy and there are still customers out there with $4000 to spend - and something "new" like the rumoured "ultra" might be more inclined to open wallets than a spec bumped MBP. Prices have gone up across the entire industry which is suddenly encountering inflation for the first time in its history - and Apple's recent percentage rises haven't so far been as large as some other products. A year or two down the line - maybe the AI datacentre boom will have peaked out and prices fallen back, or maybe people will just get acclimatised to the new prices & inflation. Meanwhile, Apple have released the Neo to address the tight-budget end of the market.
Also... remember the original MacBook Air, which was very expensive for those specs, but after a couple of years had evolved into the entry-level replacement for the MacBook. Or the 2012 Retina MBPs which were a substantial price hike from their predecessors (which actually got a spec bump and remained on sale for a year or more).
Does that mean making the bezel bigger or the screen smaller? Macbooks, iPads etc. seem to have quirky screen resolutions/aspect ratios (rather than industry standard UHD etc.) so it's moot whether you'd be losing or gaining pixels c.f. some hypothetical notch-free screen.
Glass half empty: "notch" (a bite out of your 4k full-screen)
Glass half full: "ears" (useful extra space for clocks, battery indicators etc.)
I mean, I'd prefer a pop-up camera so you could know it was off for real.
