Yes … Yes … Yes!
The potential problem however is this is a common sense solution, highly attractive to many in my tech circle of friends and associates. Is common sense allowed in Cupertino 😉
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Touchscreen MacBook '100% Confirmed,' Says Reputable Leaker
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The potential problem however is this is a common sense solution, highly attractive to many in my tech circle of friends and associates. Is common sense allowed in Cupertino 😉
I've tried hiding that stuff and only found it irritating having things pop out just by moving my mouse to the edge. It drives me nuts how many things pop up just by hovering a mouse over them these days in UX design so I turn all of that off I can. I just want the dock and menu bar visible all the time unless I'm watching a video in full screen.
Also, screen savers are nice, but I will quite often put a schematic up on my screen to reference it while soldering things and having it go to screen saver too fast becomes an irritation real quick so I usually make my screen saver only come on after 30 minutes or more have passed. In fact I have the hot corners set where bottom right immediately turns on the screen saver, and bottom left disables it entirely so it never goes to screen saver. I use that bottom left corner a lot when I'm doing stuff like that but then I have static stuff on my screen for a long time.
johnsawyercjs
macrumors 68000
Same here. Unfortunately all the tandem OLED displays that Apple is ordering from Samsung for the upcoming Macbook Ultra will have the touchscreen layer, and so they'll be installed only in the Macbook Ultra. Apple isn't ordering any non-touchscreen OLED displays for now, for the Macbook Pro line. Fortunately the mini-LED LCD IPS displays Apple has been using for years in the Macbook Pro, including on my 2021 M1 16 Inch, are pretty good.
I’ve had touchscreen windows laptops before, and for me it is a very meh feature. In the end the only thing I consistently used it for was scrolling a web site or document while standing up since that was more comfortable than using the trackpad. My current work windows laptops does not have one and I’ll be fine if my next one doesn’t either.
Luftkopf
macrumors 65816
Unless it's optional, we still have to pay for it.
I didn't even realise hiding the menu bar was a thing! I just tried it, and if it would let me use the space either side of The Notch, I'd be on a winner!
Apple's first touchscreen MacBook is now "100% confirmed," according to the prolific Chinese leaker known as Instant Digital, who appears to have insider information from sources in the supply chain. The leaker made their definitive statement this morning in a Weibo post.
Instant Digital has a good track record for Apple rumors and has provided some strikingly accurate information in the past, so it's always worth noting what they have to say about Apple's plans. The claim is also backed by several recent reports.
Recurring rumors about Apple's touchscreen MacBook development actually go back a few years. In January 2023, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that a MacBook Pro with an OLED display would be the first touchscreen Mac. The machine was initially slated for 2025, but that timeline never played out.
Since then, reports have become more frequent and assertive. In September 2025, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the first touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro would enter mass production in 2026. Gurman has also repeatedly stated that the next 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models will have touchscreen and are slated to launch in late 2026 to early 2027 – with the global memory chip shortage potentially making 2027 more likely.
Touchscreen support is expected to be one of several major upgrades coming to Apple's next-generation high-end MacBook Pro models. Other rumored features include M6 Pro and M6 Max chips, an OLED display, a Dynamic Island (i.e., no notch), and a thinner design. The new laptops could also adopt MacBook Ultra branding.
Notably, macOS 27 Golden Gate also introduces a more touch-friendly interface, since Apple's Sidecar feature now allows users to tap and interact with macOS interface elements using a finger on their iPad.
Apple apparently is not going to advertise the new MacBook Pro/Ultra as a touch-first device like the iPad – it will be "touch-friendly, not touch-first," according to Gurman. In that sense, Apple will let customers use touch and mouse gestures interchangeably for all functions.
Apple has long rejected the idea of a touchscreen Mac, so moving ahead with one would be a major shift in the company's thinking. In 2010, Steve Jobs argued that "touch surfaces don't want to be vertical," citing the arm fatigue that comes from repeatedly reaching up to a screen.
More than a decade later, in 2021, Apple's hardware engineering chief John Ternus – soon to be Apple CEO – said the Mac was "totally optimized for indirect input" and that Apple saw no compelling reason to change that approach.
Are you looking forward to touching a future MacBook's screen? Let us know in the comments.
Article Link: Touchscreen MacBook '100% Confirmed,' Says Reputable Leaker
Insert “but, why?” Gif here.
johnsawyercjs
macrumors 68000
You don't have to pay for it if you choose not to buy a Macbook Ultra, but instead buy a Macbook Pro since the Pro line won't have a touchscreen, at least for a few years.
RaoulDuke42
macrumors regular
I find it odd that we haven’t heard any rumors regarding the form factor of the MacBook Ultra. El Jobso famously declared that Apple would never “just slap a touch screen on a laptop,” which leads me to believe (or well conjecture wildly anyway) that we’ll see some sort of MS Surface laptop kind of thing (but thinner and prettier) that allows one to pull the screen down and over the keyboard and trackpad, easel style, for optimal Pencil usage. If it is indeed just a touchscreen normal laptop configuration, then yeah, booooo.
Luftkopf
macrumors 65816
It’s a bit of a moot point for me. I don’t expect to upgrade until the M10, and who know what things will be like by then!
My point is, I think a touchscreen on a laptop should be an optional extra for the few who actually want it.
ThunderSkunk
macrumors 601
Having sat through two decades of the parrots obediently regurgitating Apples half-baked excuses for why a touch-enabled mac just couldn’t possibly work, zomg the drama, this news is particularly delightful.
Meanwhile, those of us with the need have had them the entire time, though the Cintiq just costs (and weighs) as much as a small car.
Meanwhile, those of us with the need have had them the entire time, though the Cintiq just costs (and weighs) as much as a small car.
johnsawyercjs
macrumors 68000
But isn't that effectively what Apple will be offering by restricting the touchscreens to the Macbook Ultra line (or whatever it'll be called), while leaving the Pro line as it is with its current mini-LED backlight LCD IPS displays? Possibly you mean that some customers would like the beefier hardware that might also be only in the Ultra line, but they'd like to leave out the touchscreen?
I wonder, given Apple's Macbook Pro lineup in the past, which tops out with the Max CPUs, what Apple could add to the Ultra Powerbooks that would make them significantly faster, more features, etc. than a Macbook Pro that contains a Max CPU. From what I understand, the Ultra CPU is too large and hot to go into any Macbook.
Touchscreen Macs are inevitable. Us oldheads around here don't need them, but every kid growing up today is going to expect all screens to be touchscreens when they start buying this stuff themselves. Apple will be the only holdout in the industry if they maintain their 2010 stance.
And you're not supposed to use the touchscreen as the primary input. It's just an option that might feel more natural for some things in some situations. And I assume there'll be Pencil support.
And you're not supposed to use the touchscreen as the primary input. It's just an option that might feel more natural for some things in some situations. And I assume there'll be Pencil support.
Luftkopf
macrumors 65816
Sorry for the unclear communication, I'm not at my best. Yes, I did mean that some might like the Ultra without a touchscreen.
It is interesting to think about how Apple might differentiate the hardware between the Pro and the Ultra beside screen tech. The Ultra won't work in a laptop without special magic batteries and cooling, unless they decide to completely change tack and reverse years of design and make it a big fat luggable computer. I can't see them doing that.
I'm not sure they'd want to introduce next gen Pro and Max chips in the Ultra and delay them in the Pro where they sell the bulk of their laptops either.
If it offers full pen support it might be interesting...
Dirk Pieters
macrumors 6502a
As if a 4 trillion company - that is as secret as can be about their upcoming products - is going to announce what they will be shipping a few years down the line.
Dirk Pieters
macrumors 6502a
2 things.
First: I wonder how this Ultra machine will differentiate itself from the Pro apart from oled and touch.
Second: the amount of drama in here is crazy. You know you don't have to buy this machine, right? And even if you buy it, you don't have to touch it. You can use it with a mouse and keyboard and all will be fine.
There seems to be a crazy amount of people here who somehow want hardware - that they don't personally like - to fail or die. Neo was like that. iPhone Air was like that. Now this. This device isn't going to hurt you in anyway. Even if you don't want it, you will be fine. Nothing bad will happen to you. It's completely fine.
Not everything requires you to be for or against it. A lot of things aren't black and white.
First: I wonder how this Ultra machine will differentiate itself from the Pro apart from oled and touch.
Second: the amount of drama in here is crazy. You know you don't have to buy this machine, right? And even if you buy it, you don't have to touch it. You can use it with a mouse and keyboard and all will be fine.
There seems to be a crazy amount of people here who somehow want hardware - that they don't personally like - to fail or die. Neo was like that. iPhone Air was like that. Now this. This device isn't going to hurt you in anyway. Even if you don't want it, you will be fine. Nothing bad will happen to you. It's completely fine.
Not everything requires you to be for or against it. A lot of things aren't black and white.
Dirk Pieters
macrumors 6502a
I bet these leaks are carefully curated by Apple. We were talking about Neo here almost a year before it was released. Same with this. It keeps people talking, guessing and creates expectation.
It's all marketing.
