Touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro Coming in 2026 With Dynamic Island and Redesigned macOS Controls

[TechnoMonk]

iPad I just hardware it could certainly run macOS in theory but the big issue is battery life. iPadOS is very limited and locked down which allows for the great battery life on such things batteries. So full fledged Mac would blast through that battery. And of a big battery know it’s more just a laptop if they severely limited functions now it’s worse than laptop so no go either. Certainly options but will be interesting what paths they take.

Agreed.

 

[teaneedz]

Touch? My MacBook Pro screen????

I cannot stand it when my idiot boss and I would be looking at something on my MBP screen and he would touch my monitor!!!!!!!#@#$##%$^$%%

I actually though about his demise.

You want to touch things and yourself, you get an iPad. If there is actual computer work, you get a MBP.

Apple, DO NOT monkey with this!

VIVA LaRevoltution!

✊🏽

 

[Sooby]

Hopefully they enable Apple Pencil support as well.

 

[wikiverse]

Well, definitely don't buy the near future M5 Pro models.

Some of us just need a new computer and don't care about OLEDs or Touch Screens or Dynamic Islands.

Some of us have also been burned by 1st gen redesigns of Apple products.

 

[jeroenvip]

IPhone Fold, M6 Touch Screen , iPads all have the same problem. Smudges. So Mark Gurman did not see this one coming

 

[subjonas]

No hardware design changes? So a touch screen in just a regular laptop form factor? I have trouble imagining Apple doing that. The iPad Magic Keyboard at least floats the screen closer to make it more comfortable to reach up and touch. Even then I sometimes prefer using the trackpad which is inferior to the Macbook trackpad.

Also no mention of Pencil support. That's what I'm actually interested in, not touch. But, again, it's not useful to me unless the form factor changes. Ideally, to a convertible like the Surface Laptop Studio.

 

[JohnC1959]

No hardware design changes? So a touch screen in just a regular laptop form factor? I have trouble imagining Apple doing that. The iPad Magic Keyboard at least floats the screen closer to make it more comfortable to reach up and touch. Even then I sometimes prefer using the trackpad which is inferior to the Macbook trackpad.

Also no mention of Pencil support. That's what I'm actually interested in, not touch. But, again, it's not useful to me unless the form factor changes.

I get the feeling they aren't targeting any heavy touch or pencil use. I think it's just for occasional situations where some unique usage of some unique app might happen to benefit from touch.

 

[Vincent Hanna]

What if this Touchscreen OLED MacBook is indeed MacBook Ultra/MacBook Studio which will be another tier of the current MacBook lineup?

I already suggested the March M5 Pro and Max MBPS will stay on sale in October when these new M6 touchscreen OLED models become a new higher tier above them, but I don't think they need a separate line with a different name.

It will just be one more level of choice in the recently redesigned Apple store configuration page.

 

[wikiverse]

I get the feeling they aren't targeting any heavy touch or pencil use. I think it's just for occasional situations where some unique usage of some unique app might happen to benefit from touch.

So, like the touchbar and the Vision Pro, it will be the 'we'll just build it and let developers figure out what to do with it' plan.

 

[JohnC1959]

So, like the touchbar and the Vision Pro, it will be the 'we'll just build it and let developers figure out what to do with it' plan.

Could be. After all it probably only adds a small amount to the cost and has no negative impact on those not using touch. I don't see myself using it, but at the same time I always make a point of never saying never for such things. Keeping an open mind for when the right situation might present itself.
EDIT: I was thinking a bit about what sort of apps might benefit from touchscreen and I think any that involve a lot of drag and drop such as editing a lot of video clips into a movie.

 

[lowendlinux]

I like OLED screens and find touch screen portables pretty handy

 

[capamac]

I guess the oleds wear out fast, get burn-in. Was watching some video of a PC user and he was upset the latest Windows update disabled his task bar auto-hide feature. He wanted auto-hide to avoid burn-in on his oled, he said.

 

[IDMah]

Just iOSX and be done with it already!

 

[omihek]

I hope the price doesn't go up because of these touchscreens that no one will use

 

[omihek]

How does the dynamic island, presumably offset from the top of the display as it is on an iPhone, provide more screen space for content than a notch along the top edge? What am I missing here?

Because courage

 

[Yr Blues]

Ugly notches and islands.

 

[JohnC1959]

Ugly notches and islands.

But sure beats large bezels.

 

[jecowa]

There has to be more to this. Just adding touch seems so unusual and Apple has said over and over again why they won’t do it. Reaching seems so much less efficient regardless of UI tweaks. Now if the keyboard is detachable and then suddenly it’s like an iPad running iOS that would be amazing. But battery and everything under keyboard so that doesn’t seem to be doable. Now if the trackpad area was a touch screen somehow that could open possibilities since the main problem with Touch ID was it was out of reach (a touch screen is Even more out of reach. So either there is some radical change and new approach or they simply are adding for the smaller niche use case for some creatives that it would be beneficial. But the cost and power to do that for a smaller subset of users still seems odd.

The problem with a detachable keyboard is having to fit the computer and battery into the display.

360 Hinge absolute must with touch screen.


The hinge is an issue I've long wanted fixed.
It doesn't open enough.
For tall people using even a bit of an angled stand the screen doesn't open enough to look straight at it.
Standing at a desk... Terrible. Have to lay it inverse angled.

A 360° hinge would make it like a drawing tablet and would probably be appreciated by lots of artists on Macs.

 

[Saturn1217]

The article seems to say that while menus will be larger for touch, that will ONLY be seen if you launch the menu by touch. I suspect a primary design goal will be to have zero changes visible for those that never touch the screen.

The issue is, it is pretty clear that in macOS Tahoe, Apple has ALREADY designed the UI with a future touch interface in mind. The damage is already done and now we know it isn't going to be corrected in macOS 27 as many had hoped instead they will have to continue leaning into the weird bubble design and inefficient use of space and horribly huge corner radii to support the new touch screens.

 

[Winterpark]

Another catastrophe approved by Tim Cook...a touchscreen MBP. Looks like I'll buy the current MBP with the M5 Max chip and lots of ram and hope it gets me well into the next Apple CEO's ideas...hopefully they're better then Tim's poor decision making.

 

[JohnC1959]

The issue is, it is pretty clear that in macOS Tahoe, Apple has ALREADY designed the UI with a future touch interface in mind. The damage is already done and now we know it isn't going to be corrected in macOS 27 as many had hoped instead they will have to continue leaning into the weird bubble design and inefficient use of space and horribly huge corner radii to support the new touch screens.

Interesting. For me, I barely noticed any UI changes in Tahoe. Somewhat rounded corners (it was fine squared but I don't mind curved either). In general, I not the sort that minds change much so it takes some bigger issues to really bother me. By the way, I can't see how the round/bubble design is motivated by a touchscreen. Seems a touchscreen could work as well with the older squared design or the curved.

 

[seek3r]

Actually it would.

To update a laptop twice in a year?

The MacBook Pro was updated twice in one year in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2020

The MacBook Air was updated twice in one year in 2020

The MacBook was updated twice in one year in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009

The PowerBook G3 and G4 were updated twice in one year in 1998, 2001, and 2005

The iBooks were updated twice in one year in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004

Should I go further back?

 

[Ry L]

This is funny given how anti-touch screen they were on laptops.

When I got an iPad Pro and added the Magic Keyboard with touchpad, it was like my iPad was a new device. I preferred using the touchpad over the regular touch screen.

Now they’re adding touch to the laptop.

Same. Once I added that Magic Keyboard to my iPad Pro, I use that little trackpad for almost everything. I treat it like a MacBook now and hardly ever touch the screen.

 

[torontotim]

The Pros will jump 25% in price and be backfilled with non pros like the iPhone and iPad lineups.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

If a non-touch version is an option it will be the option I personally will choose. My bet is that the audience for touch screen laptops is not the audience who buys Apple’s top of the line machines. It would get more use from the MacBook Air users. I also use Windows and I do not buy PCs with touch screens.