jakey rolling
macrumors 65816
Why do people have such trouble understanding that this problem was largely solved over a decade ago?
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Touchscreen MacBook Pro to Be 'Touch-Friendly, Not Touch-First'
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bigandtasty
Suspended
groove-agent
macrumors 68020
The iPad is my favourite Apple device. I'd just like to do my daily driving docked on my iPad. This would require Mac apps on iPad. That's what I'm dreaming about.
And I am tired of the "You don't need to use it" responses. This WILL resort in the UI changing. This WILL cause an increase in price even if I don't use it. This will negatively impact those that DONT WANT IT.
It was not. Windows 8 was the best for touch. Horrible for desktop pointer based interaction. Now we moved to Windows 8.1 then 10 and now 11. Which makes it horrible for touch again.
So it’s all about you and other people don’t matter. Got it. There’s a word for that. Selfish.
The person I was responding to (the people say "you don't need to use it") are literally the ones "all about you". THOSE people are the selfish ones. I was responding to those comments. Windows suffered horrible from touch, this will happen again on the Mac.
groove-agent
macrumors 68020
The interface issues is a very easy solve in my head.
With respect to a "MacBook Touch", have partial touch capability when in normal mode, but when the bottom case is folded behind the screen in "tablet mode", have the UI change to an iPad like interface.
Similarly when an iPad is docked to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, have the interface to change to a MacOS style UI.
Heck, save the duplication and just develop an iPad that runs a touch version of MacOS while docked, or connected to a keyboard/mouse, or allow the customer to choose. Any app that hasn't been converted to the new UI will prompt the user to connect a keyboard/ mouse or warn that the interface will not be ideal.
Note: AI generated image below is wrong given the bottom case would be upside-down, but you get the idea. 🙂
🤔 You know what you be incredibly cool...
If the camera and onboard AI were able to determine if you're raising your finger to touch the screen and it altered the user interface to make the selectable items slightly larger or highlighted.
Like, if you took some of the Liquid Glassesthetic engine and the graphics on screen had an organic magnetic attraction towards the tip of your finger. As you scanned your finger near the screen, selectable objects would get 'pulled' out from their 2D plane and appear 3D.
If the camera and onboard AI were able to determine if you're raising your finger to touch the screen and it altered the user interface to make the selectable items slightly larger or highlighted.
Like, if you took some of the Liquid Glass
TrackZero72
macrumors newbie
Steve Jobs famously opposed touchscreen MacBooks, calling them "ergonomically terrible" in 2010
.. He argued that vertical touchscreens cause "gorilla arm" fatigue from lifting arms to a vertical surface for extended periods.
.. He argued that vertical touchscreens cause "gorilla arm" fatigue from lifting arms to a vertical surface for extended periods.
I think the actual gambit here is next generation touch bar: a flexible OLED panel with the touch surface “below the fold” above (or unfortunately, probably replacing) the function keys. A quick action/widget tray is a proven—and more importantly, preexisting interface framework that works in tandem with the Desktop OS paradigm.
jakey rolling
macrumors 65816
The only thing that largely sucked from a desktop pointer perspective on Windows 8 was the Start menu, and even its biggest problem was that it was a huge departure from what people were used to on Win 7. Mouse and Keyboard interaction with Desktop apps in Windows hasn't changed very much at all between Windows 8 and Windows 10, and even in Windows 10 you had the ability to switch back to a full-screen start screen if you wanted.
It's nowhere near "horrible" for touch. If it were, PC manufacturers would have abandoned touch screen computers a long time ago because nobody would be buying them. Instead we have a whole plethora of reversible and 2-in-1 laptops that are quite popular.
I switch between keyboard and mouse and touch on my laptop all the time, depending on what I'm doing. There are some tasks naturally better suited for keyboard and mouse (ie, word processing, spreadsheet, coding, basically anything with a lot of typing). There are very many tasks that work fine with a touch screen, especially on a hybrid laptop.
Maybe true, but this argument is largely a red herring. UIs change all the time. That's been a constant theme is the evolution of operating systems for decades.
Now, how those changes look with respect to touch on macOS specifically is anyone's guess. Despite what some Windows haters in these forums will try to convince you (or themselves), though, Microsoft has actually done a pretty decent job at finding a balance between touch and keyboard/mouse interfaces in Windows.
Apple should be able to learn from the 15 or so years of evolution of Windows' touch UI and not fall into some of the same traps that Microsoft fell into. Considering the fact that macOS lacks the legacy baggage that Windows has to contend with, Apple would have to screw up pretty badly to get this wrong.
Any new feature added to a computer will cause an increase in price, whether it is a better quality screen, faster CPU, better RAM, or whatever else you can think of. Yet the prices still seem to fall on these things over time. There have been plenty of inexpensive touch-enabled machines in the Windows and Chromebook world for many, many years.
You don't seem to have a problem with other Mac users paying a premium for a metal case or premium speakers or a high-end embedded webcam that they may never really care about just so you can have those things. Why should it be any different when it comes to features that you don't personally care about?
You mean sort of like a smart keyboard and a machine that can be hooked up to an external display? Maybe running the M5 chipset? Have I got news for you!
jakey rolling
macrumors 65816
Here's a non-AI version of that very thing at this very moment (this is my laptop, on my desk, with my stylus).
Ubele
macrumors 6502a
A few years ago, my work-issued Windows 10 laptop had a touch screen. After playing with the feature for a bit and not finding anything that was easier than using the mouse, I never used the touch screen. Of course, my work laptop was always tethered to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse as a desktop setup. If I'd ever needed to use it on my lap, I might have felt differently.
My home computer is a MacBook Pro. I have it tethered in a desktop setup, but I also use it portably. As good as the trackpad is, I still find it cumbersome, and I use my MBP with a mouse and mousepad when there's a surface to put them on. When I'm stretched out on the couch or in bed, I'm usually consuming content rather than doing serious work, so I use my iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard.
Assuming Apple offers both touch-screen and non-touch-screen MBPs, would I pay extra for a touch-screen model? It would depend on how much extra Apple charges, as well as what the feature can do. I don't need a touch-screen laptop, but there have been plenty of things that Apple has released over the decades that I didn't think I needed or wanted but that are now indispensable to me (e.g., the iPad). I used to replace my computer every four years or so, primarily because it would become sluggish. I'm still using my 2021 M1 16" MBP, and there's absolutely no reason to replace it. So I probably would pay a premium for a touch-screen MBP when the time does come to replace it.
My ideal would be an iPad Pro/Magic Keyboard/Apple Pencil combo that runs a single, cross-platform operating system that's a context-sensitive hybrid of iPadOS and macOS. If you have a non-touch-screen MacBook or Mac mini, the touch options wouldn't be available. If you have an iPad or touch-screen MacBook or iMac, all options would be available. For something like Logic Pro, the touch-based instruments would be available only on a device with a touch screen. For something like Procreate, it wouldn't install on devices without a touch screen. If I currently spend $X on a MBP and $Y on an iPad Pro, I'd pay somewhere between the two figures for a hypothetical hybrid device. If Apple charged $2X or $2Y, I'd continue buying separate devices. There are times when it's convenient to have both.
My home computer is a MacBook Pro. I have it tethered in a desktop setup, but I also use it portably. As good as the trackpad is, I still find it cumbersome, and I use my MBP with a mouse and mousepad when there's a surface to put them on. When I'm stretched out on the couch or in bed, I'm usually consuming content rather than doing serious work, so I use my iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard.
Assuming Apple offers both touch-screen and non-touch-screen MBPs, would I pay extra for a touch-screen model? It would depend on how much extra Apple charges, as well as what the feature can do. I don't need a touch-screen laptop, but there have been plenty of things that Apple has released over the decades that I didn't think I needed or wanted but that are now indispensable to me (e.g., the iPad). I used to replace my computer every four years or so, primarily because it would become sluggish. I'm still using my 2021 M1 16" MBP, and there's absolutely no reason to replace it. So I probably would pay a premium for a touch-screen MBP when the time does come to replace it.
My ideal would be an iPad Pro/Magic Keyboard/Apple Pencil combo that runs a single, cross-platform operating system that's a context-sensitive hybrid of iPadOS and macOS. If you have a non-touch-screen MacBook or Mac mini, the touch options wouldn't be available. If you have an iPad or touch-screen MacBook or iMac, all options would be available. For something like Logic Pro, the touch-based instruments would be available only on a device with a touch screen. For something like Procreate, it wouldn't install on devices without a touch screen. If I currently spend $X on a MBP and $Y on an iPad Pro, I'd pay somewhere between the two figures for a hypothetical hybrid device. If Apple charged $2X or $2Y, I'd continue buying separate devices. There are times when it's convenient to have both.
Again, you don’t have to use it. It’s not all about you. Every Apple product I own has features I don’t use but I don’t whine and complain about them on forums. I recognize that some people like and want those features and that it’s not all about me. You should try that sometime.
And yet, in that very same year…
He said no video iPod, and then there was a video iPod. He said Apple would never make an E reader or an e-book store, and then introduced the iPad and the iBooks Store. He said the iPhone didn’t need third-party applications, and then introduced the AppStore.
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
"I don't have to use it" ---> but I need to pay for it and deal with the UI changes as a result
The same statement goes to you. It's not all about you. You don't NEED a touch screen on the Mac either. So at what point, why even discuss anything at all?
I had to deal with it when Windows 8 was around. I suffered because I DID NOT USE touch. This is literally the same arguments that were being made when Windows 8 was announced and rumored and Surface devices were starting to come out.
This isn't like additional RAM. This will require an entire paradigm shift in macOS just like what Windows went through. Heck even iPadOS has trouble with touch I HATE how they handle windowed apps on iPad. macOS and iPadOS need to be separate. iPadOS is getting much worse, macOS will get worse.
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If this is true then we can kiss our "snow leopard" OS release goodbye. Even limited touch is a major new feature. I was really hoping that the end of Intel meant we would get an OS that's slimmed down, optimized and relatively bug free, but I guess that's just not going to happen.
I do understand that young people who've grown up with phones and tablets want to be able to smear their greasy fingers all over their notebook screens so Apple eventually has to offer that option, but I personally have absolutely no use for a touch enabled Mac.
I do understand that young people who've grown up with phones and tablets want to be able to smear their greasy fingers all over their notebook screens so Apple eventually has to offer that option, but I personally have absolutely no use for a touch enabled Mac.
jakey rolling
macrumors 65816
My gosh are some of you guys yelling at clouds right now.
Both of these comments bring me back to the heady days of the late 80's and early 90's when people (mainly DOS users, of course) were complaining about how "needing a mouse" just to use the computer was going to be such a pain and a massive productivity suck. "Real" power-users didn't need a mouse, after all.
Fast forward to the mid-90's and the early 00's when most Mac users didn't "need" such fancy things like preemptive multitasking, protected memory, multiple users, or OS-level security. Can you imagine still using "Classic" Mac OS because Mac OS X in its early iterations was too slow and buggy for "real" users? Heck, going into the early 2000's, most people didn't even "need" always-on internet service.
And then fast forward to the mid-2000's when people didn't "need" the power of a full computer crammed into their cell phone.
Things change, dudes. Time for Apple's tired desktop OS to join at least the 2010's.
DownUnderDan
macrumors 6502a
I'd be happy to trade the cost of the touch screen and the development effort to support it, for more storage in the base MacBook Pro.
pigeonguy
macrumors member
Hard disagree with pretty much everything you said.
Bringing liquid glass to the Mac was step 1 of the process of enabling touch based input in macOS. Mark my words.
It's coming.