MacBook With Foldable Display Will Actually Have 18.8-Inch Screen, Analyst Says

virtual keyboard sounds like a disaster, unless it has some kind of next-generation haptic feedback.

hopefully the pencil works with it too
 
This is a foldable iPad abomination, not a MacBook.

#1 - I don't want to touch my laptop screen. Extending your arms generates fatigue over time and there will be smudges everywhere. I've used touch screen Windows laptops and they're pointless.
#2 - I need an actual keyboard with tactile feedback. This is why playing games meant for a keyboard/mouse on an iPhone/iPad with emulated controls sucks, and also the same reason I make typos all the time on my iPhone. I have no idea where I'm typing because I cannot feel where I am on the screen. I can do 100+ words a minute on a normal keyboard though and I never look at it. Ever try to play a virtual piano vs a real one? It sucks. Same problem.
#3 - This is a solution looking for a problem. Why do we need dual screen foldable MacBooks with no keyboard and trackpad? What needs is that addressing? This just seems like a tech demo that looks cool with no practical application.

If this is the direction MacBooks are going, I'll have to begrudgingly switch to a PC for my laptop so I can actually use it. Steve Jobs described MacBooks to be akin to trucks. Some people need trucks to do a job. The majority of other people are fine with a car, or iPad. I need a truck and I think most people using a MacBook do also, or they'd just buy an iPad.
 
MarkDeMoss said:
Is the M5 chip a few years away? Seems they'd want to release M5 sooner since the Snapdragon Elite has 40-45 trillion op/s compared the M4s 38 top/s.

Either way, sign me up for one.
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Well, Intel's Lunar Lake is supposed to have 100 TOPS and it is coming in the 3rd quarter. NPU will be 45 TOPS. The Snapdragon Elite X Total TOPS are going to be 75.
 
I'm guessing this will be the spiritual successor to the Surface Neo that Microsoft never released.
  • Single-screen foldable display
  • Apple Pencil support
  • Keyboard accessory to cover one display and provide a laptop-typing experience
  • Support for multiple "postures" so the device can be used in landscape or portrait
  • New OS/features specific to this hardware
 
MacRumors said:
Less than two hours after Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said a MacBook with either an 18.8-inch or 20.2-inch foldable screen would launch in 2026, display industry expert Ross Young has said the device will indeed feature around an 18.8-inch screen.


Foldable-Screen-MacBook-Concept-Astropad.jpg


A foldable-screen MacBook concept by Astropad​

In a post on social media platform X, limited to his paying subscribers, Young said he expects the device to be equipped with an 18.76-inch display instead of a 20.25-inch display for "cost reasons." In a folded position, Kuo said an 18.8-inch MacBook would be similar in size to a traditional 13-inch or 14-inch MacBook.

It is expected that a MacBook with a foldable screen would feature an all-screen design with a virtual keyboard, but exact design details have yet to be rumored.

Kuo said Apple is aiming to make the foldable screen "as crease-free as possible," and he said this could result in the device being nearly as expensive as Apple's Vision Pro headset, which starts at $3,499. He also said the foldable-screen MacBook will be equipped with Apple's next-generation M5 chip, which has yet to be announced.

It seems like a foldable-screen MacBook is still a few years away, and Apple will firm up its plans for the device as its launch gets closer.

Article Link: MacBook With Foldable Display Will Actually Have 18.8-Inch Screen, Analyst Says
Click to expand...
Looks like an Apple Surface rumor of sorts.
 
vabello said:
This is a foldable iPad abomination, not a MacBook.

#1 - I don't want to touch my laptop screen. Extending your arms generates fatigue over time and there will be smudges everywhere. I've used touch screen Windows laptops and they're pointless.
#2 - I need an actual keyboard with tactile feedback. This is why playing games meant for a keyboard/mouse on an iPhone/iPad with emulated controls sucks, and also the same reason I make typos all the time on my iPhone. I have no idea where I'm typing because I cannot feel where I am on the screen. I can do 100+ words a minute on a normal keyboard though and I never look at it. Ever try to play a virtual piano vs a real one? It sucks. Same problem.
#3 - This is a solution looking for a problem. Why do we need dual screen foldable MacBooks with no keyboard and trackpad? What needs is that addressing? This just seems like a tech demo that looks cool with no practical application.

If this is the direction MacBooks are going, I'll have to begrudgingly switch to a PC for my laptop so I can actually use it. Steve Jobs described MacBooks to be akin to trucks. Some people need trucks to do a job. The majority of other people are fine with a car, or iPad. I need a truck and I think most people using a MacBook do also, or they'd just buy an iPad.
Click to expand...
I agree with everything you said, but this is not the direction "MacBooks" are going. This is a different product unto itself that is closer to iPad than anything else.

You said it yourself here:

This just seems like a tech demo that looks cool with no practical application.

Sounds an awful lot like Vision Pro.
 
Apple sold laptops w/ faulty butterfly keyboards for over 5 years ... this solution is long overdue. (FYI-A dual display laptop was introduced from DELL way back in 2020.)

This would kill the iPad, and in this case, the death of the iPad is completely justifiable. I always believed the iPad was nothing more than an oversized iPhone and that the APPLE pencils should be able to work with all products, including iPhones.

The latest iPad has more powerful silicon (M4) than current laptop offerings. Am I the only person who sees APPLE's new iPad offering as a nothing more than a corporate money grab?
Screen Shot 2024-05-23 at 12.58.44 PM.png
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
I'm sure a touchscreen keyboard could be made to work just as well as the current physical ones (if not better).

There definitely needs to be some tactile feedback... IDK that it has to feel mistakable for a real physical keyboard, but it definitely needs to convey how close you are to the edge of the key and which direction the center is in. And somehow it needs to be possible to identify two specific keys on home row (f and j for qwerty keyboards, IDK which keys are signified with bumps on other keyboard layouts.)

If they can pull it off, it'd be a huge breakthrough for all touch controls everywhere, not just the Mac. Maybe we'd finally get a decent replacement for joysticks on touchscreens, a decade after people stopped asking for it.

Edit: Honestly, maybe these are thoughts of just our generation. Younger and older generations never knew the joys of touch typing.
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Interesting thoughts on how to use haptic feedback to guide the typist on where their fingers are relative to the virtual keys.

Now kind of curious how practical Apple could make something like this work for a laptop/keyboard alternative. I've been reading Asahi Linux's reverse engineering of Macs and it’s kind of amazing how much engineering/software has gone into making "compromised" hardware (e.g. to fit in a laptop) appear uncompromised.

However, I think its more than just finger placement and the feeling of key travel (though important). I believe glass is 3-10x harder than plastic and that would be noticeable during 8-12 hours sessions. I suspect my fingertips will get sore/hardened in a way touchtyping on hardened glass compared to the plastics used in most keyboards. All the other issues aside I didn't enjoy typing on my iPad Pro and quickly got the external keyboard. Typing on glass is fine for web addresses or filling out web forms, but I can't imagine serious composition that way.

Granted perhaps Apple knows that Gen Z and beyond have already numbed their fingers and realizes AI will take over all serious composition anyway...

In the meantime, my old-fashioned self would rather see foldable screen deployed on laptops as wings that let me carry and use a Mac with portrait dimensions and then unfold into a two screens configuration (e.g. something I could carry and use in 8.5x11 mode but unfolds to 17x11 when I need extra screen real estate) while preserving something like a keyboard/trackpad/etc. Adjust for A3/A4 or A4/A5 as you prefer…

Not that I think a keyboard/trackpad is the pinnacle of UX/HID. I just haven't seen anything better overall for knowledge work.
 
A touchscreen foldable petite MacBook running MacOS would kind of replace that thought of a iPad with MacOS that some iPad Pro users want? Likely to be M5 based. :cool:
 
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Cirillo Gherardo said:
macOS has nothing to do with this rumor, or the underlying product.
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Recently, Mark Gurman mentioned in one of his Power-On newsletters, that Macbooks will be getting touch screens some time in 2026. This foldable product lines up with Mark's prediction. Definitely plausible that this foldable "laptop" runs a touch-based version of macOS.
 
I actually PREFER to type on glass these days over a standard keyboard.
This is the iPad MacBook crossover I’ve been wanting for a decade
 
For creative projects and anything adapted for a touch screen, I'd see this better suited for a foldable iPad rather than a Macbook.

An on-screen keyboard as a main input method is a sure way to have throw the thing against the nearest wall.
 
danny1305 said:
I’m sure people will find a way to complain about this as well
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They alredy have. This has been discussed before as has a foldable iPhone and there were PLENTY of naysayers. Wouldn't mind betting you that half of those people end up with one.
 
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