That means Apple will begin imposing all sorts of UI dreck on all of us, whether we want to use our screens as touch surfaces or not.
This is basically what happened with Microsoft - Windows Vista and 7 were installed in plenty of laptops with touchscreens, and customers would complain about not being able to maximize windows without closing them, not being able to open menus without touching toolbar buttons, etc.
Eventually Microsoft listened to them and we got Windows 8. Now this is the beginning of the same process for macOS.
Same goes for Linux. My CachyOS install on my Framework 13 Pro has a touch screen. There’s literally no downside for me having it. I don’t have to use it if I don’t want to. But if I want to scroll a website or scrub a video the option is there.
1. Takes extra battery 2. I’m not touching my screen regardless. It gets dirty enough
My last three or four laptops, which never even booted Windows, have had disabled touchscreens
what i've learning developing and creating products over the years is that harmless features tend to be the ones that cause the most problems. for ex, now you have to add touchscreen code to the OS vs previously not having it at all. and this code or feature we will support for the rest of the lifetime of that product.
In the case of touch screens, it hasn't caused a lasting problem in Windows or Linux.
Basically a product for the people currently carrying around a MacBook Pro and an iPad Pro.
Just touch on a laptop screen makes no sense. I’ve never felt the need to do this.
Buttons sized to be hit by your physical thumb and buttons sized to be hit by a tiny high-precision cursor are very different things.
I am sitting on a macbook pro with the vertical tab pane open in chrome, with 12 tabs. The outer joint of my thumb covers the entire list, in both width and height. A touch-friendly version of that would be humongous in comparison.
I mean the entry level price for this is $2,899, "only" $400 more than the comparable non-touch MBP.
The end result will be akin to taking keyboards away from Platinum league top tier Korean pro RTS players. 500+ operations per minute down to 10
That just hasn’t happened with Windows touch screens.
Yes, Microsoft did fuck around and find out with Windows 8, but by the time Windows 10 landed an entire decade ago, this whole issue has been completely settled. That’s right, your Windows/Linux user friends have been using touchscreens (or no touch screens) without issue for a decade. No UX sky has fallen in this regard.
There’s absolutely zero downside to having a touch screen on Windows and you also absolutely don’t need a touch screen to use it.
I’m using a touch screen on my Linux laptop right now and it’s great. I don’t have to use it. The screen being touch didn’t cost me extra money. It’s just there if I want it.
The Apple camp seems to believe that every technology included with a product must have some kind of intentional holistic value. Apple removed the USB-A port because USB-C is the future. Apple removed the escape key and the function keys because the Touch Bar would replace it.
But the truth of the matter is, sometimes the option to just include both isn’t some kind of magical barrier that Apple can’t do.
You go out and buy a ThinkPad X9 15p and it has 3x thunderbolt, HDMI, SD card, and USB-A. Why doesn’t a MacBook Pro include USB-A? Well, remember, USB-A is the past! It’s legacy!
But the thing about it being unnecessary doesn’t change the fact that it remains trivially expensive to include, and it comes in handy for a bunch of peripherals that aren’t even that old.
So, I think this is why everyone assumes that Apple is going to destroy the OS because of some new thing they add to the hardware. Because the Apple cult is all about the mythical finely crafted experience. If you don’t do things the Apple way you’re holding it wrong. but in Microsoft/Linux-land, they don’t really care. Linux is fully free, and Microsoft knows their demographic net is too wide and their marketshare is too high that they can’t dictate form factor, choice of peripherals, etc. Their whole philosophy is that Windows is suitable for anything and everything.
The Apple culture can’t contemplate a technology company just including an extra option for users with no specific intended use case. PC manufacturers include a touch screen because, screw it, it only costs a few cents extra and maybe someone might like it, software integration be damned/that’s not our problem.
We forget this because Windows 7 was ugly and Windows 10 and 11 are nicer looking and that feels like progress, somehow. But you don't get nearly the functional information density with Windows 11 that you did with 7.
Windows laptops never expected tough screen adoption to hit 90% and still touch degraded the experience.
The worry here is that with Apple's e2e design control over the Mac, that this pivot will mean our MacOS UX will be removed in lieu of a more iPad-like experience.
Just look at other developer-friendly features like unlocked bootloaders, background jobs, unsigned software that Apple has removed from their hardware .
So this is a big deal and significant. It's different than you running Linux on your Windows laptop because the touch experience there never had a chance to push out the traditional UX.
What Microsoft introduced touch surfaces, they came out of the train wreck of Longhorn and they were under the belief that they could push windows down to phones. Reality was that they pushed touch surfaces in a barbell distribution… ultra high end and ultra low end. Mostly low end as screen costs were super high.
With Apple, look at the pencil and the iPad. They’ve had a lot of fits and starts, but the Apple Pencil didn’t fundamentally change the iPad, but it did open the door for a very high value use cases for things like procreate.
* For the 14-inch: 3.5 lb (1.59 kg) -> 3.0 lb (1.36 kg)
* For the 16-inch: 4.7 lb (2.13 kg) -> 4.0 lb (1.81 kg)
About 15% lighter on both models. Switching from LCD to OLED saves weight because the screen does not need a backlight and has fewer layers. They also made the laptop thinner by nearly 1 mm. But that's not enough to push the weight down by 300 grams. They must have redesigned internal components to cut weight as well.
There must have been a dedicated effort to reduce weight. Kudos to the MacBook Pro team!
Oled:
Height: 1.50 cm (0.59 inch)
Width: 31.08 cm (12.24 inches)
Depth: 21.63 cm (8.52 inches)
Weight (M5 Pro): 1.38 kg (3.0 pounds)
Weight (M5 Max): 1.40 kg (3.1 pounds)
Height: 1.55 cm (0.61 inch)
Width: 31.26 cm (12.31 inches)
Depth: 22.12 cm (8.71 inches)
Weight (M6): 1.55 kg (3.4 pounds)
Weight (M5 Pro): 1.60 kg (3.5 pounds)
Weight (M5 Max): 1.62 kg (3.6 pounds)IF memory prices drop, apple product prices will likely drop. And it will stay lighter.
I have an M1 Max but I am not paying 50% more than a few months ago to upgrade.
I have bought Apple laptops since 2004 but I can’t justify the current extortionate pricing, so I’ll sit it out (permanently if need be).
And you’re right that Apple is hesitant to change prices on models. But that cuts both ways. Apple notably held off of bumping prices across their product line for a considerable amount of time, very plausibly eating the cost of RAM price increases.
It would definitely be atypical but given the unique and extreme nature of the current situation, I wouldn’t be shocked if they cut prices somewhat once the RAM situation relaxes.
The first gen apple TVs were $300.
The second gen was $99.
The first and second 4k gen were $179.
The third gen was $129.
They might not drop prices on existing models, but they have definitely dropped prices on new versions of product lines.
They then bumped UP the 3rd gen: $249 (+$100) and $199 (+$70).
And the 4th gen has only one option, at $299.
So we've not only "not dropped" prices on the 4K Apple TV, but they've gone up forty per cent.
They have dropped the price of the MacBook Air a few years ago and the Mac Mini as well. So your statement is categorically false.
That said, with cpu, ram and storage prices the way they are right now, prices won't be dropping soon. But there is hope long term.
I hear you though on the cost. The Mac Mini was a killer deal a year ago, especially if you could get it on sale for <$500. Not today though.
All the pricing is bad everywhere.
If anything, the longer you hold your laptop, the more you amortize the cost, and can more easily afford the next one.
My work machine went from an M1 with 32GB to an M4 with 24GB and it definitely wasn't worth the time to upgrade.
I had to prove the OP wrong though; my M1 Max's keyboard died this year, and I had to upgrade to the M5 max this season, after the hikes. I kissed 9k EUR goodbye for something not much better functionally than the M1 Max it replaced, bought for 3.4k Canadian dollars in the wonderful 2021 (that was barely over 3200 EUR back then).
https://support.apple.com/en-us/111945
EDIT:
Yes, 13" ≈ 14"
The form factor of this new 14" PROLED and the old 2019 13" is nearly the same (due to smaller bezels)
PROLED: 0.59" x 12.24" x 8.5"
2019: 0.59" x 11.97" x 8.36"I would rather have 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports than 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports, an SD card slot I won't use, and 1 HDMI port that can only be used for HDMI instead of whatever the hell I need it to be another Thunderbolt port can be.
I would rather have a ThinkPad X9 15p Aura Edition, which has 3x thunderbolt, SD Card, HDMI, and USB-A, all at the same time with no dongle.
They can also be used on any brand of machine or even a smartphone. They're just Thunderbolt/USB-C.
They don't take space away from the battery, the battery on the Framework 13 Pro is almost the exact same size as the one in the MacBook Pro 14, and as of the M5 model the Framework 13 Pro gets better battery life than that Mac.
Because the Dongle-heads do have one thing right, one port that can be turned into lots of other kinds of ports with a dongle is more versatile than a port that can only be a video out, especially when the device doesn't have a ton of room for lots of ports.
But I also only have an m1 16” so it may not be a brand new change
https://support.apple.com/en-us/126320
Macbook airs are lighter because they are smaller and lack fans (and maybe for other reasons too) so it is not comparable, but it is one of the reasons I like fanless laptops (whatever cuts a bit the weight for mobility is welcome).
It's so bad that the first time I used my M series I thought I needed to RMA it because the display must be broken it it looks this bad, right? Nope.
If this was the case, one the one hand they should be criticized for releasing such bad laptops on the market but if they had already decided on developing their own silicon then maybe it made sense to just accept that some generations of Macbook were going to have thermal issues and focus all efforts on the future.
Edit: I was incorrect, I thought I had clicked the 16" spec page but had not. The 16" MacBook is still at 100 Wh.
https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/proled-xdr-display/specs/
The 14" went from 72.4Wh to 72.6Wh.
For those not aware, the 100Wh limitation is not Apple, but imposed on them by the airline industry (IATA)[1]
Anything over >100Wh && <160Wh requires airline approval at individual passenger level. Anything >160Wh is classified as dangerous goods and must be prepared and packaged correctly and put in the hold.
[1] https://www.iata.org/contentassets/6fea26dd84d24b26a7a1fd578...
The airline rules are a bit arbitrary. They have allowances for mobility devices but don't seem to take any extra precautions for them when they have bigger batteries. There are still a lot of dangerous gaps in airline safety when it comes to lithium batteries.
They're absolutely arbitrary. From what I've seen, one of the major problems is wild variation in quality. An 80Wh battery from six-random-letters-off-Amazon is going to be more dangerous than a 160Wh battery from a reputable manufacturer.
is the touch part of the display toggle-able? i don't mind a better display but i have no, not a single desire ever to touch it.
- Most OLED PCs were not anywhere as bright as the old MBP miniLED display.
- Almost all OLED PCs have terrible blue shift when viewed at an angle.
- Apple miniLED XDR displays are no slouches either. They are not quite OLED, but they implemented the dimming zones very well with uniform backlighting and deep blacks.
I have not seen Apple's on MBP, but I bet it meets or exceeds iPad Pro Tandem OLED which does not have the two problems above.
So no, it is not the same as the decade old PC OLED. And I have ignored all the potential durability issues.
Also don’t understand the iPhone duo, I’d rather have a normal iPhone and an iPad Air. Cheaper, and better for mobile use and for couch media consumption.
I think some of those folks should face some facts:
- The notch on the MacBook Air and Pro lineups is unnecessarily huge and embarrassing. It’s obvious that Apple intended to implement FaceID and couldn’t get it into the notch by their deadline, then they just left the huge notch there with barely any software consideration for it, like how your menu bar icons and menus can just disappear if there isn’t enough room with no recourse.
- There is no design or cost reason for Apple to be this late on offering a touch screen on their laptops. There is no downside to a customer who buys one and doesn’t want a touch screen, they can just disable it.
- The 60Hz displays on the Air are not necessary for any kind of product quality or cost reason and are simply below-par for what you can get on similarly priced Windows laptops. 100% artificial product line anchoring.
- The idea that there was no such thing an OLED display that was “good enough for a MacBook Pro” before 2026 is absurd.
Switching to OLED in 2016 makes zero sense when brightness and burn in issues are not solved.
The only ones that work as a unified product, yes.
When they introduced the Apple Pencil and people were like “haha it’s a stylus”, the thing was decidedly NOT a stylus (it actually couldn’t be used to control some parts of the UI). It was an actual digital pen, something that used to be specialized and expensive external hardware, and it worked beautifully with the iPad. It was literally “stylus but GOOD”. I saw it and thought “people will make memes about this, but Apple totally gets it”.
When they introduced the Vision Pro, VR was just kind of shit. Bulky, ugly, uncool. Vision Pro tried to resolve some of the issues, but it was still kind of half-assed. Like they wanted to have a VR device but couldn’t actually make it work. Good resolution, but not great. Vergence-accomodation conflict not addressed. Still bulky and ugly. Isolation kind of addressed (with the AR-ish UX and the “see-through” display), but not enough.
Now we got the foldable iPhone and a touchscreen MacBook.
Foldable phones are still awfully delicate and the whole concept doesn’t have a clear “killer” use case. There’s no new UX, no new features, it’s just an iPad Mini in a marginally smaller device that’s expensive as hell. Apple didn’t even try to address the obvious shortcomings, they just built the same stupid thing everyone else is failing to sell.
Touchscreen laptops still wobble, they still get covered with fingerprints, they’re still uncomfortable and there’s still no meaningful UX. This thing doesn’t even try to address any of that. Their marketing images literally just show hands hovering above the keyboard and touching the screen for no good reason. They’ve been mocking touchscreen laptops for years now and now they release one like it’s the most obvious thing ever. 1984 vibes.
And the HomeView, which also feels like it lacks a clear “killer” use case.
Maybe I’m just not the intended audience for any of these products, but I’m also starting to wonder if Apple are throwing things at a wall and hoping something will stick.
It doesn't have its own app store. It runs the apps on your phone, so feel free to add any of the 2,000,000+ apps on the iPhone App Store to it.
First Liquid Glass, then the 17’s design, then ads and ecosystem subscription bloat, then Duo/HomeView, and now the touchscreen Mac. Jobs is rolling in his grave.
How come they just released a Macbook Pro yesterday with the latest M6 chip, to release the day after another Macbook Pro with a year old chip?
Why is there not one Macbook and one Macbook Pro?
I am a dev with a m1 air 16gb and I have 0 reason to update yet, it's been 6 years now, laptops are solved for 90% of people, they need to introduce gimmicks to create demand
Ironic: when they introduced the Apple Watch, the narrative around it was "whatever it will be, it WON'T be just another smartwatch" and yet it was.
Game + Video
Messaging + Browsing
App + Development
Notes + Research
etc
I want to know why I want my phone to cost twice as much and have a dozen delicate moving parts in order to fold. Like the movie quote: “sell me this pen”. I’m waiting for someone to sell me a folding phone. I thought Apple would be able to do it, but they haven’t even tried.
But they aren't iPhones.
Then again, it really doesn't matter to me at all what the screen looks like or what features it has, I use my MBP docked 99% of the time with the screen closed, to the point that my next computer will almost certainly be a Mac Studio and I'll just use my MBP on the rare occasions I need it on the go.
No, you don't get it. She wants the keyboard, she wants a first class desktop experience, and she wants a touch screen.
Watching her work is... different. She mostly uses her laptop on her lap, on the couch, scrolling and "clicking" with touch... and when she needs to type something she slides it back slightly, and types. Almost never uses the track pad.
If I'd never used a laptop before I'd probably do the exact same thing as the kids!
Keyboard and mouse don't give you any more autonomy over the application developers state machine.
I'm not sure I understand the claim of "being in control". The UX is different, sure, often. But that's not "control" over the design of the application.
On a touchscreen, I can tap. That's it. Select? Tap. Move? Tap. Highlight? Tap. The only one that makes sense is draging for moving, but even that's a pain in the butt because it often misinterprets the tap+hold duration that's necessary before it works. When I'm editing text (navigating, cut-n-paste, etc.), it gets what I want wrong more often than it gets it right, I mean like 80/20.
With the phone, they had a green field to design an entirely new UX for touch interfaces, so there's no legacy to blame.
Some people don't intuitively use trackpads so they'll use a mouse and if they discover touchscreens that becomes a feature that needs to come with any laptop after that.
It's pretty eye opening really. If it weren't for seeing someone close to me do it, I'd be in the same camp, wondering who in their right mind would use their laptop like that.
Another possible use is when I want to show some page or content to someone, I always prefer manipulating it with my fingers, instead of "remotely" control it from the trackpad and a mouse.
And if it has stylus support it's cool for drawing (like my current laptop) but Macs do not have a hinge suited for that I think (no 360° support and their focus on a "weak hinge" for the weird and useless obsession from tech content creators of being able to lift the hinge with one finger, something I actually not really value because I sometimes wish that the hinge was stronger and sometimes weaker).
Finally there are also multitouch apps like the piano shown on the presentation and iPad apps I guess, but on macOS I think this matters less (Mac apps are not made with this in mind at all, iPad apps are limited).
I'm sure there are good use-cases, but IMO everyday average-home-user computing is not one of them.
Sugar in sodas, burger buns and ketchup for example is linked to type 2 diabetes.
Touch things with your hands. Your body literally needs it to be healthy. Avoiding it ONLY makes you sicker in the end.
I totally agree with exposing immune system...but at the same time, I guess I am weak enough that there is still downtime in the aftermath when I go out into the city(especially during seasonal transitions and when visiting busy packed rooms).
You don't have to have the other extreme of touching every dirty spot especially in a org like mcdonalds which is more likely than not to have people who dont respect basic hygiene. At the same time you dont need the extreme of not touching anything. There is a middle ground.
A touch screen would be actually better than a laptop, but android tablet won't cut it (we make some of the test hardware so are in control of the drivers, but for most of it we don't)
As an occasional "pinch to zoom that thing centered on my fingers, and adjust it to show what I want to someone 10 feet away" tool: it's fantastic. I could learn the key combo, but "use two fingers" is dramatically easier to remember and control.
Or to guide someone through something on screen, you can just tap it rather than having them mouse to precisely the control you meant. (yes this is often a terrible idea for teaching, but not everyone has fine motor control and sometimes there's random interruptions from other software - having them push those away can make it harder for them to learn/remember the actual goal)
Or for signing your name on a document, or anything else even slightly related to drawing.
Or if it's propped up on your chest in bed and your hands are naturally more comfortable on the screen than the keyboard (which is far too close).
Or if it's dark or you're at a low angle and can't read the keys.
It doesn't cost much, doesn't influence the display much, and is very useful occasionally. A great hardware feature to have IMO.
Perhaps, but on a Mac you can already do this via the touch pad.
Odd feature omissions in Apple-land get debated endlessly just because there are so many random things that Apple arbitrarily decides you can’t do, and the marketing excuse we get is that they’re being intentional or holistic.
I've never felt the need for a touchscreen when e.g. using Miro because I can scroll and all directions and zoom intuitively on the Mac's trackpad.
But I also only ever bought 2-in-1s. Not an obvious “must have” for me, but I prefer closing it “the other way around”, holding laptop in panorama rotation, when reading a pdf or something. I really don’t like reading longer texts on laptop opened in a typical “clamshell” way.
Unlike you I don't see myself switching to the Studio or Mini. My MBP has been extremely performant and its capability of on the go work makes it the perfect product IMO!
If nothing else, the more complex hinges create significantly higher failure risk.
I found the touch useful for momentary interactions, like buttons. It's quicker and easier to reach up and hit NEXT than it is to find the cursor, move it to the button, and click.
Definitely don't use it nearly as much as on a phone, but it is useful for surfing.
Anyway that experience made me think that touching a super high image quality screen will only lead to heartbreak. Better to use a cheap screen if you want to touch a lot.
Always enjoyed touchscreens on my laptops. Nice thing is, you can just ignore it when you don't want it. It doesn't affect battery life, or thinness, or brightness, or clarity provided the implementation is good; it's just a bonus input method. I'll never say no to a laptop offering a touch option.
My retired parents. When they borrow my laptop, I see them trying to touch my regular non-touch screen.
However I have noticed that when I am dictating more using typeleas or whisperflow I use the touchscreen more as it’s more faster and has a good flow if you wanted speed
Maybe this is the reason they doing it now
I can and do live without it on other devices (my desktop PC), but it's a nice addition that should just be standard equipment everywhere.
It's not a tablet-doable thing, really, and I don't really want to take the effort to get it in an app store. But adding touch-able buttons made it a bit nicer UI overall, so I'm glad I did it. Now this person, and anyone else, can also use it with a touch screen if so desired.
Non-touchscreen laptops are an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
I dislike fingerprints too much to feel that temptation, but when using a phone I do feel a kind of dread every time I want to select some text or precisely position a cursor.
When I have it folded, it's intuitive to use the touchscreen like a tablet. But I wouldn't want to run the i3 setup I have on my desktop. The Wayland UI bandwagon and huge touch targets are for something after all.
I use the trackpad most of the time, even for right and middle clicks (2/3 finger click), but I prefer the buttons when I have to select, and the middle button when I need to paste repeatedly. I don't use the touchscreen much, but it's the easiest way to swipe between virtual desktops on Linux. The touchscreen works well with the laptop turned "inside out" (my kid's laptop does that). Screen doesn't get smudges because of its texture. The example shown mentions the desktop swipe, and the piano keys are for setting up a chord, not playing a tune, both of which make sense (and try to set up a chord without multi-touch).
A bit of a shame there is no M6 Pro and M6 Max...
A fun aside is a New York Times reporter pulled up some drawing app on his phone at a holiday party to show my kid and was visibly shocked when my kid just started creating using the on screen icons before the guy could even start tutoring him. I don't recall if the Microsoft thing had any intro or demo that guided him on the tools a little or if he just absorbed it.
My boss wont have a non touchscreen laptop purely for ease of scrolling up and down reports and around spreadsheets
But it sucks to use application designed for mouse with touch.
So it's not that "touch is bad UX modality" it's "applications should be designed for touch as first class citizen" and by design I mean _proper_ design as in from the ground up not just prettier colors and slihgtly tweaked layout.
So it is just table stakes at this point.
I have never had this. I don't think this is the expectation among people using laptops either? Pressing escape is much faster, doesn't obscure the screen, and doesn't require me to aim.
This includes a lot of remoting into Windows machines (using Jump) where I use the trackpad more, but the touch is still really nice to have.
Scrolling through long docs is also comfortable with touch if it’s on your lap or a flat surface directly in front of you. You scroll with the thumb while your hand/arm rests comfortably.
I mostly use MBPs now and resort to using my iPad as a mirrored screen to draw on slides. It is hacky.
No idea why anyone would want a laptop form factor with a touch screen; seems like an RSI nightmare. Especially since you can already pinch-and-zoom and do other gestures with the existing touch pads!
I have no idea how this keeps getting repeated. No one with a touchscreen laptop is just hovering their arms in front of the screen like a zombie for hours.
It’s another input. You use it when it makes sense. For some, that’s pretty frequent. For others like you, maybe never.
Only the Surface line, as in where the tablet is the main form with an optional keyboard makes sense here.
I guess for the most part if you like this you'll use it and if you don't you'll just ignore it.
Sometimes I use it in Linux. Sometimes it makes my system freeze, requiring a hard restart. Perhaps it would be wise to disable it in BIOS.
But with a conventional laptop I've only ever accidentally used the touch screen.
> Steve Jobs told a crowd at an Apple event in 2010 that the company did “tons of user testing” on putting touchscreens on MacBooks and decided against it because, he said, “It doesn’t work. It’s ergonomically terrible.”
> While previewing Mac OS X Lion in 2010, Jobs explained the main issue was comfort, saying, “After a short period of time, you start to fatigue, and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off.”
Design is the art of compromise. A laptop works. Physical keyboards are better than onscreen keyboards. Laptops with detachable tablets end up with a heavier screen so the base has to be heavier so it doesn't tip over.
I honestly don't know what the use case for touchscreen Macbooks really is. OLED? Sure. Why not? But touch? Who is this for?
[1]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/steve-jobs-said-a-touchs...
If you lock the screen position with hardware it just lifts the keyboard when you touch just a little too hard.
You need stability for touch and a superlight laptop just does not have that.
All the cons are real (which Apple figured out in the aughts), but enshittification at a corporate bureaucracy is inevitable without a strong person in charge.
(Like most millennials, she grew up with computers and even works on a desktop every day; there's something about the medium that makes her think "this has a touch screen".)
When I was buying them a second one and asked about touchscreen, they said they don't care anymore for it, so second laptop also was without touchscreen.
While it worked, it was useful for me, mostly the drawing I guess was the most different, as I used to use Wacom tablets for that, but seeing exactly where you draw makes things a lot easier.
If I was still in the market for a laptop, I'd probably again get a touch-based one, as long as it's not Microsoft, as that was the first and last time I bought any Microsoft hardware. Probably not Apple either as the OS and software is such a mess, so probably leaning Asus or Thinkpad with Linux on it, if anything.
At this point it's a huge loss to not have it on a display. Don't like it? Then shut up and don't use it. Don't yuck others' yum.
I guess if you have a laptop that functions in tablet mode, it makes sense (I don't love tablet modes either).
Someone called out the surface - which is great with the surface pen. I'll agree this is a great use case. I would say this use case is rarer than the prior use cases where you use your meat sticks.
It's neat I guess, but he finger is a terrible mouse, obstructs the screen, and it's super awkward. It is a spec sheet checkbox like so many things where people do the "But it doesn't have this {must have} so it sucks" bit of nonsense, and Apple fell for it.
"""
Does anyone actually use <the new feature>?
I personally prefer <the status quo> and don't think I ever have a need for <the new feature>.
Also, I don't like <some drawback that comes with adopting the new feature>.
But that's just me, I'm a simple guy. Like and subscribe!
"""
Whenever someone wants to point out something on my screen, I’ve already mentally prepared for the next step of having to wipe the screen, because it’s impossible to point at something without contacting the glass. Apparently.
So this device would not be for me either.
I'm a lawyer by trade and am forced to lean on GUIs with little keyboard-control support. When I code (for pleasure), I don't miss the touchscreen, but I often miss it when I'm trying to read PDFs and Word documents on the go.
On Macbooks the trackpad is so large that you can reach it even from the sides of the laptop and the two finger scrolling actually works without second thought.
I don't really expect anyone to use it as a touchscreen, but if they do, at least that will work too.
There's a lot of small niceties that pile up into a better experience, the sister comments cover a bunch of those, so I'll focus on a macos specific nice point:
iPad and iPhone apps can now get direct touch when running on a laptop, instead of the mouse mode. With this, there is now a perfect platform able to run Mac, iOS and iPad apps outside of the ill-fated Vision Pro.
That's too little to late for me, but I think many will appreciate the benefits.
I mean just imagine how jarring it is to go from touching the macbook screen to mess with your app to needing to input text. Whether you use the macbook keyboard, or the on screen keyboard, it's just kinda rough.
The only situation I could see it being useful in is if it came with a pressure-sensitive pen, so you could use it for sketching and drawing. But even then, that would only really work well if the screen folded all the way around, so it would sit flush against the base or if it opened 180 degrees, so you could lay it flat on a table without it wobbling around on a hinge.
Maybe the the intuitive and natural way of interaction is touch and the generations between the boomers and the Gen Z are the only ones who command the skillset to use computers in any other way.
Seems like it would be useful for app development being able to do touchscreen for the iOS and iPadOS simulators.
Even now, I find myself resisting the urge to tap things on my Macbook display as it is.
The world moved on. Touch is standard, and Steve Jobs was incredibly wrong with his weird opinions.
This is like people arguing that a computer mouse is not necessary in 1990.
- Steve Jobs
Apple: check our new vertical touchscreen!
The same kind of people are now doing it again, it will take time but every decision apple has been taking is giving me a bad taste.
even the evolution of macos and IOS. They are much closer to windows and android now.
ESPECIALLY the evolution of macos and ios.
Personally I find I miss touch screen after using my iPad and Magic Keyboard for extended periods and then switching back to the laptop. I mostly use the keyboard but it’s very nice to be able to scroll, position things, etc
"In addition, a newly designed hinge provides greater stability while using Touch, and advanced video stabilization automatically smooths the camera feed in real time while using Touch on a video call."
Its hard to describe but its surprisingly comfortable looking and allows her to tap her way through everything without actually having to hold the screen up. If she lets go, the hinge keeps it up. If she needs to type, she just skoots it back back slightly
https://tech.yahoo.com/ai/apple-intelligence/articles/ergono...
I got my first laptop with a digital pen and touchscreen in 2008 or so. They were rare back then, but nothing groundbreaking new. The touchscreen did suck though.
Now it's a "how will you still need an iPad" problem, that they have solved perfectly because it's a usability problem.
I hope this sells well enough that they might later go the EXTRA step to a Pencil supported 360-hinged MBP.
I'm a hardcore iPad Pro + Pencil lover. And I'm very tired of carrying both a MacBook for the full OS + keyboard, PLUS a whole separate tablet for sketching, illustration, annotation, etc.
Apple better have some better use examples than THAT.
I have a good 88-note hammer action stage piano. I love it for acoustic pianos and it's OK for electric pianos (Rhodes, Wurlitzer) but it sucks a bit for organ, clavinet and synths.
I've seen people play Hammond really, really well on a weighted keybeds but it's much easier to just plug a second cheap(er) synth action controller in for organ parts.
I've never met anyone that really liked playing a tablet screen though. :P
Repliers: stop pretending you make music. You don’t and it shows. Producers are going to love this.
I don't think I'd every want to "play" on it except as a last resort but it could definitely be handy for other virtual interfaces.
Imagine a knob per function synth or a modular setup being able to go straight the control in question would be useful.
A foldable iPhone, macbooks with touch displays, apple watches constantly listening to your conversations, dropping updates for not so old devices like AWU 1, I understand that I am not a target audience for those products but to me this just speaks a lack of vision for the company and their products. I mean this is one of the most valuable companies in the world with some of the best people working there and this is the best that we can get a foldable iphone and a touch display I don't believe it.
The last keynote also was probably the worst one I ever saw couple of years ago I couldn't wait for keynotes this year I am totally over them we are at the Tron meme scene where one the board member asked what was new in the new OS version and seems to be just the number - [0]
[0] - Hacking Encom's new operating system – TRON: Legacy (2010) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qeh3E67brBs&t=115s
I think that's likely the logic they operated from inside. Personally, I agree something like the AWU should have been supported longer because longevity is one of the core defining elements of the premium watch market, and thats the market they chose to enter. To Apple's eyes though these are all still 'gadget-like computers' rather than 'computer-like gadgets' [1], and thus the expectations and culture of the fast moving computer industry dominates.
These are the devices people use all day every day. Iterating on them makes sense.
They are also working on AirPods with vision, released a home hub with display, released AR goggles, releasing GPU heavy servers, creating a framework for AI interfaces, …
Are you hoping for a replicator or transporter?
- Not solderable components so I can upgrade my machine, ok maybe this is too much I will just take an easy to replace battery. - Longer lasting battery for wearables like watches if the competition can make a battery last 15 days I think Apple can too especially given how efficient the arm chips are in their laptops. - Some hardware design changes Apple watch is literarily the same design since its launch, not to mention that the Apple watch ultra had different shades of orange for the button and the wheel I mean come on. - Software wise I really don't mind the new glass design system but I don't understand why I can't have basic features that an intern can push I literally bought and sold the apple watch like 5 times because I just wanted a simple step counter widget I didn't want a third party app a simple step counter widget and they released it this year 2026 a step counter widget maybe it is harder to do than a replicator who knows.
I really want a fridge with easily replaceable condenser, washing machine with easily replaceable bearing, and a Subaru with great access to spark plugs... You still live in era of 2003 phones where battery was accessible via a flap, but at the same time you want a top tier computer in your pocket and waterproofing. You people are ridiculous sometimes.
The Mac itself still hasn't proven that it has a place in the future. It's not any more profitable than the iPad in revenue breakdowns, and doesn't come close to the install base of the iPhone. Compared to Windows PCs and Linux servers, Apple has entrenched the Mac as a second-class citizen for traditional computing. Instead of pushing to make macOS an unavoidable flagship operating system, Apple promotes insular API/SDK usage and seemingly leans towards a less-profitable B2C market segment. Tim Cook's obsession over service revenue caused Apple to forfeit the high performance ARM market, which is a shame, since Apple Silicon is quite competitive in ways that the Vision Pro and HomeView will never be.
Once they go down that path, they open themselves up to whatever technology changes and drifts happen in an entirely different market, which right now is going through a tectonic shift with AI. We don't even know what happens in that market in 1-2 years let alone 5 or 10 or more. The business cycles are different, the customers are different, the demands are different. How do you even begin to plan for that?
You're zeroing in on a technical advantage Apple currently has with silicon while ignoring the lack of advantage they have everywhere else in their operation. That'll never happen and it's the antithesis of a half century of company history.
As far as the Mac, it's the truck that does the heavy work so the other platforms like iOS are light [1]. That's been the guiding philosophy, the sandbox it plays within.
> If Apple is going to renege their stupid decisions, now is a great time to find a place for Apple Silicon
Apple's B2C obsession isn't smart. Their service revenue is quite literally deemed illegal and exploitative in several courts, they cannot rely on the App Store and iCloud-style tie-ins forever. The progress that they've made on the A-series chips goes largely unnoticed to a cohort of users that scrolls TikTok and Polymarket. The progress of the M-series chips has not moved the needle on macOS' market share even with 7 years of sales marked down. Right now, they're lining themselves up for the worst of both worlds; being shackled to low-margin B2C products that aren't legally allowed to ammortize costs with lock-in "ecosystem" services. Apple will be forced to make changes if the status-quo continues to punish their business strategy.
So... why not lean into their strengths? iPhone customers will rarely notice fast single-core performance, but devops and enterprises will. Apple fundamentally supports expansion via PCI on Apple Silicon, and their SOCs demonstrably handle Linux, CUDA and Vulkan without any significant bottlenecks. The Mac Pro was 90% of the complete package for a particularly rich type of customer, and Apple refused to invest in the last 10% to uphold a pointless grudge. This stupid decision is why terrible ARM SOCs like Ampere and Grace have dominated the AI buildout even when Apple Silicon destroys them on-paper. Depreciating the Mac Pro is a solipsistic, insane decision that formally abandons Apple's attempts at dominating anything except the prosumer market. This isn't even an Xserve style slip-up, it's a radical steering decision that prevents customers like Pixar from even considering Apple Silicon for a server farm.
> As far as the Mac, it's the truck that does the heavy work
For now. Apple has laid the groundwork for what comes after, though: https://developer.apple.com/xcode-cloud/
MacOS market share went from 7.5% (2020) -> 9% (2025)
Mac gross margins are harder to estimate but suggest a change from 24% (2016) [1] -> 41% (2025) [2] if you divide profits from revenues. These exclude services.
PC market profit share is >60%, as in Apple get most of the money made in the PC market.
So the idea that apple silicon didn't really move the needle isn't supported. Apple also cares about profit share far far more than market share. Market share can be a liability because of antitrust and supporting less desirable users and use cases. A few decades ago they chose not to get into the Netbook fad when everyone else was because of this philosophy, so its not new.
Apple is certainly ramping up their server hardware as it seems to be angling to run models on their own silicon, and Xcode cloud is a natural extension of that activity. I'm not sure that suggests selling servers or server capacity though. The end result is the same: the people using this server capacity are still individual customers. It's the same biz model.
The main question about the AI buildout right now is a ton of money is being invested and the returns on that capital are highly speculative. Everyone is investing, sure, but there's a lot of economic headwinds. If Apple jumps into something, they tend to do it with a decade-long perspective. What you're arguing for is that Apple should have jumped in early, when regardless of B2B v B2C, is not Apple's style.
If apple were to get into that and leverage their silicon advantage, they'd need to significantly increase their supply of silicon. They're already at capacity for what they have, and they typically do big capital investments with places like TSMC to build out the capacity they need for nextgen process. Same with ram, probably even more of a limited resource right now. If they were to jump into enterprise in a big way, it wouldn't just be 'make more chips' it would be drastically increasing their capex to expand capacity, and that takes years of lead time to do. The AI buildout is very new, its really all just in the last 2-3 years. I just don't think they could have delivered on this idea right now, based on what they knew in ~2024. If anything their strategy, whether intentional or not, is looking rather prudent. But another month or two passes and maybe that will change too. Things are changing very fast right now.
[1]: https://asymco.com/2016/11/02/wherefore-art-thou-macintosh/
[2]: https://asymco.com/2026/03/18/the-biggest-surprise-of-the-ma...
They worked so hard to "think different", get a following with people that would willingly spend more for a product inferior technically because it was just bold.
i am the first one to appreciate the direction apple is taking, as a customer it will bring even more competition to the windows laptop market because everything will be similar, but when i put my self in steve jobs shoe, i want to puke.
It used to be: think different
It used to be: It just works…
Now we got “apple intelligence” and subscriptions all over the place and also the lock-in feels stronger over time. Don’t even get me started that one can’t easily replace the battery oneself. They gradually convinced us that reduced repairability is fine.
I got my first MacBook Pro in 2006… things were quite different back then.
Anyway, I’ve decided I wanted to get away from BigTech a while ago. Apple is the hardest part for me. They used to have this annoyance-free usability that I loved so much. iPhone Duo, Touchscreen on the Mac, liquid glass, visionPro, etc. are all valid things to go after and I don’t think these are bad things per se. But it is not what I care about. And clearly the focus has shifted away from the values I used to share with this company about what constitutes a good product.
I took the hit on the ownership/control side because their products were so ‘seamless’.
Now I hope the Framework and Fairphone (with eOS) have matured enough to not regret when I am getting off the Apple-train. I don’t expect a frictionless experience - it just has to be sufficiently annoyance-free. I’ll happily take some rough edges in exchange for greater control and ownership.
“Unfortunately” their products are really sturdy and it will take a while until my M3 MacBookAir and iPhone 14 need to be replaced ^^
It's a nonissue when you look at the state of macOS attention to detail nowadays, regardless of which side of the fence you're on.
To begin with, yes. The decline only started around ten years ago.
So, it may makes things a little easier for some GUI scripting. I can also see the UX improving for some disabilities, but I know that is merely coincidental rather than intentional.
Same applies to spaces where there's also delay applied before it appears for whatever reason. It would be nice if this fixed (on non-touch Macs as well).
Touch affordances and UI does have to be visible, and there is only one screen. So the touch affordances and mouse affordances are mutually exclusive: targets get larger, padding expands, UI gets dumbed down, etc etc.
Of course, there's the extremely common case of keyboard support being half-assed or missing from GUI apps. But that's not mouse affordances making things worse, that's developers just not having the time or inclination to have great keyboard support.
Whereas, touch affordances seem like they'll be a lot more disruptive.
1. Since many iOS apps can run on Apple silicon Macs now, this might be useful for apps where touch matters for more than just clicking buttons.
2. For mobile app developers, you can actually try real touches events on the simulator/emulator while developing and get better sense of how it feels without needing to pull out a physical device.
I have a touchscreen on my Googlebook (I know, early adopter issues galore, but I love mine now). I basically forget I have it most of the time, but every now and then, it's been cool.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-to-make-a-hackintosh-lap...
(And yes, I know the code got mangled. I don’t run the Vice archives.)
It was fine then, it will be fine now. This is a non-issue.
(for comparison, M4 pro has 273 GB/s and M1 pro has 200GB/s and M1 max has 400GB/s)
M5 Pro (20-core GPU): 307 GB/s memory bandwidth (supports 24 GB, 48 GB, 64 GB).
M5 Max (32-core GPU): 460 GB/s memory bandwidth. (36 GB)
M5 Max (40-core GPU): 614 GB/s memory bandwidth (supports 48 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB)
For an M5 max top bin with 128GB Ram:
- mac studio: $5,899.00 (with 2TB ssd bump to match the default macbook sku)
- macbook 16: $7,399.00
Portability gets a hit but I feel you can have a thin client and let the studio do the heavy lifting back at your home/studio(heh).
- The general consensus seems to be that the frontier models are kind of (understandably) "benchmaxxed" towards coding benchmarks and have suffered in some other areas like writing, art, etc. Lot of tweaked/specialized models on huggingface
- Getting around the censorship in commercial models
- While local models don't match frontier coding agents, you can run them for multiple 24/7 with a long running goal (The fans in Macs are presumably not built to run 24/7, but this can be mitigated to a considerable extent IME by simply pointing a desktop fan at it, and you can throttle things in software. On the discrete GPU side of things, you can usually get big power savings without much performance impact by throttling the GPU clock; things are usually bottlenecked on memory)
- Even small 27B/35B models are getting darn good, definitely more than powerful enough for classification etc... you don't need 128GB to run them
- Right now, providers like OpenAI are running at huge losses. At some point, they are going to need to turn a profit, at which point they may get significantly more expensive, and "hosting your own" may make more economic sense than it does today -- and be a valuable professional skill, even.
- Even more speculative: perhaps the future for many applications is training and running your own hyper-specialized models. Right now, training your own is nowhere near cost effective on self-hosted hardware vs. renting GPUs
Note: whether any of these use cases are "worth it" is up to the individual. I'm not trying to sell anybody on the idea. I don't personally do much local LLM stuff at the moment, but it's attractive and I've been close to pulling the trigger...
My raw data alone is terabytes, and it takes hundreds of GB sometimes to run very simple analyses. So there's no way I can have a local AI orchestrating the analyses locally.
But I realize some people have different kinds of data. So I'm interested to hear how exactly people use local models.
The point where it'd make sense for me is if someone makes a compact machine with 512 of unified memory in a couple of years and it costs less than a down payment for a house...
It's more "software & gear discussion" than "use cases", admittedly, I think because the people looking for software/gear discussion already have use cases in mind that they're trying to achieve.
It’s quite evident that the api models can and have been nerfed at the provider’s discretion, then there’s the abliteration aspect too(api models refusing what they consider “harmful”) which makes the case for local.
But then you have to compare to buying a GB200, sticking it in a closet and sharing it out in a workgroup and having a lower specced laptop. Decisions..
Rumor is that Apple is skipping the M6 Pro and Max chips this year in favor of releasing the M7 Pro and Max sometime next year.
The odds of > 128GB are very good, AMD have already bumped the Strix Halo to 192GB of RAM and both AMD and Nvidia should have successors to their offerings in 2028 that will compete with the M7 Pro and Max. Both AMD and Nvidia will be using TSMC N2 too so the competition will be ramping up.
Once I got my MacBook - with it's phenomenal touchpad - this was no longer an issue, and over the years since, I have never, not once, wished it had a touchscreen.
All Apple needed to do was to introduce a MBP variant with an OLED screen, as an option for those willing to risk burn-in to gain perfect blacks, and that's it!
I liked the old Gold they used in the mid 2010s too.
Black is 100% the least appealing.
Basically $400 premium for a screen upgrade. I'm sure the screen is brilliant but mini LED is very much not bad. It's a real bummer that we seem to be entering an era where each year with tech it leans more towards a new product offering that is more but for more money versus getting more for our dollar consistently.
OLED feels pretty established at this point... could they really not have pulled off just making that the default screen on pro's or is this just a price gouge for a premium feature.
1. The trackpad on it is so god awful that using any sort of multi finger gesture is a non-starter. In this case the touch screen works significantly better.
2. I wanted to draw in a whiteboarding tool. Drawing with my finger is not ideal so I tried a passive stylus. Drawing with a passive rubber-tipped stylus leaves a lot to be desired. I would much rather use an active stylus or a pen display for artists if I could.
Apple is known for the best trackpads. They have set the bar high and they have consistently met that bar for over a decade. I don't need a touch screen for gestures when their trackpad feels just as good. To my next point, there is no pen support on this screen.
Given this, I feel the touch screen is going to be seen just like the touch bar, a pretty feature that receives some good niche support, but ultimately does not align with how the majority of users use a laptop. I just hope there's an option to turn off the touch screen when they inevitably start shifting this display down to the base model.
probably the only reason -- and this is mitigated with a mouse.
Apple has always positioned the Pro as having the best display in a laptop. Now that’s no longer true.
Are we really moving to 3 tier of laptop displays: Air, Pro, and Pro with ProLED XDR?
That seems unnecessarily confusing for consumers.
“Pro” used to mean you were getting Apple’s best hardware, designed for "professionals".
Now “Pro” doesn't mean that anymore.
It's really hard to maintain a perfectly positioned product lineup while managing underlying shifts in technologies. It's usually the availability and price of new components that cause this, along with needing to iron out issues before bringing a technology fully mainstream. Here the touchscreen is new, the hinge is new, and the screen tech is new to the platform. You can't always just drop something that on the mass market.
For Apple, product & hardware come first, marketing and positioning is secondary.
You have the MacBook Pro with three tiers of SoCs, each with binning options.
There was already an option for screen coatings and now an option for a new screen type.
That’s not to mention storage and RAM choices.
Its still the MacBook with HDR display and active cooling and more inputs. I’m not sure why options are an issue
Up until today, Apple's positioning was:
* Consumer = Air (light workloads, no pro use cases like video where you need best display)
* Professional = Pro (heavy workloads, need best display for color correctness)
After today, it's what exactly? Is it:
* Consumer = Air
* Business = Pro ???
* Professional = Pro with PROLED XDR
The base level has fewer ports / less beefy cpu / less features; right now the 14" M6, but previously dual core, two thunderbolt 13" intel MBPs without touchbar. These are popular with corporate fleets.
The 'real' MBPs have all the ports / beefy cpu / best features / optional bigger screens.
Apple likes its market segmentation but it's not precious about it in the face of big technology shifts. If there's hardware they love and want, they'll try to ship it and sort out the segmentation after.
I don’t think you’re making a compelling argument here. Arguably a processor is more relevant to a wider range of professionals than a screen is.
Or are you forgetting that you could choose display types on the old PowerBooks and MacBooks , or choose drive options for a premium etc?
There’s nobody confusing the Pro for the Air or the Neo.
Nobody is confusing the iPad base, air and pro. They’re all strongly segmented.
Nowadays it feels like a gilded copy of existing tech that also failed to find PMF
Moreover they lost sight of excellent UX, each new OS update adds more bloatware and needless "features" while the calendar app weeps in the corner and slow performance and bugs plague the system
i hope there's a linux analog to pro display xdr at which point i can jump ship
I don't get why they're doing this other than making another step towards unifying iOS and macOS (and visionOS?).
How many Macbook Pro owners are mobile app developers though?
You don’t have to touch it?
I mean it's a $400 up-charge over the same model without touchscreen. Not that unreasonable if you are a heavy app developer IMO.
2. Even better speakers
3. Thinner and lighter while retaining the 100 Wh battery
4. No more notch
Seems like a solid all-around update to be. Other than cellular, I can't possibly imagine what more people could want.
Meanwhile they just added a touchscreen. No new hinge. No new UI. Not even a Pen support.
WTF are they doing?
Presumably adding a feature that doesn't cost them very much or otherwise negatively affect the product, but which some users might like.
It's a negative on the brand because that sort of consistency is something that made Apple.
And there was an answer given by John Ternus:
"The Mac is first and foremost an indirect input device, built around the trackpad and keyboard. But I think there's times when it's comfortable and handy to have touch.
We needed to get to a point where adding touch didn't make the product lesser in any way. It didn't make it heavier. It didn't make it thicker. That came together with the OLED screen, the best display we've ever put into a Mac. All of these things, and, oh yeah, it has touch as well."
Apple has had more flops than hits in recent years. The Vision Pro, the Glass interface, the Duo hinge flaw that will almost certainly end up with a recall. The Apple Watch always listening, now the bangle touch display with nothing innovative to back it up?
They don't deliver like they used to. I was their fanboy for 10 years and they did deliver the quality and innovation consistently, I just don't see it anymore. The only thing they have going is the CPU.
A 16" M3 Max with 128GB of RAM and no other upgrades would have been $5000 at launch.
They started shipping at the end of 2023, so you couldn't have bought a refurb.
Either you're remembering the price wrong or you got a crazy deal.
It's also pretty fucking sad how this thing comes with less RAM than my low-end Mac Studio from 2022. I only upgraded from a 512 GB SSD to 1 TB, and I still have 32 GB. And even still, I paid 2599€ for it, where as the OLED MacBook Pro is 4049€.
I have a Linux laptop with touchscreen, and my main use is to test the touch interactions on web apps, sometimes Android apps.
Sure it's possible to open it on the phone, but that's an extra step usually not justified.
For a dedicated iOS dev that's worth the hassle, for someone managing a team of devs or employees only needing apps to run without requiring a full dev env, it's quite convenient and potentially cheaper.
I think there's a real possibility that AR takes off in the next 1-5 years. The combination of LLMs + smaller AR glasses makes AR a viable computing platform.
For example, simple things like, "Where are my keys?" is a lot easier to solve if (a) you're wearing your AR glasses already and (b) they have access to a frontier LLM.
However, it's very difficult to simulate "touching something" in AR using a mouse/trackpad and keyboard. What if you want to "twist open" a peanut butter jar? I could imagine touching the screen and twisting my fingers in a rotational pattern along the top of the can.
I think half of y'all are trying to justify your most recent MBP upgrade. Those of us still on the M1 are probably looking at this thinking about how fortunate it is that we've waited this long.
This feels more like a marketing gimmick, anyone remember the Touch Bar?
I think this is the wrong device to start with, though. The demand for touchscreens is probably highest in the cheapest lines. But presumably this will trickle down over the next few years.
Right? ... right? ... wait
oh
oh wait what
wait seriously?
tim. wtf is this shit, tim
And let’s be honest, I bet those of us that use touch screens often enough have instinctively touched their laptops screen trying to scroll it on more than a few occasions, I know I’m guilty of it.
EDIT: I already can’t stand when people touch my display just to point at something, I definitely don’t want my own oily fingerprints smeared all over a screen I spend all day looking at.
Everything from my watch to my printer has a touch screen, it's kind of strange how long Apple has held out, especially with the ultra expensive market they target with their laptops.
Who plays a musical keyboard on a vertical surface? Nobody.
But having had to emulate pinch-zoom in an Android emulator has made me wish I had my touch screen laptop back. Emulated touch events also don't work like real touch events, so web dev can also be a bit annoying sometimes.
So, I'm curious about how you use it. Do you have a specific use case where touchscreen made you life easier?
I have a phone with a QWERTY keyboard that also acts as a trackpad, yet I rarely use mouse mode on it. Seeing kids interact with laptops for the first time and touching the screen expecting them to work like every other device they use is also probably a sign of the times.
I understand why not everyone likes them, though. Some people prefer to disable their trackpads too, or prefer ball mice, or prefer mouse gestures over keyboard gestures. To each their own. I welcome the diversity.
If Apple went through the effort making macOS touchscreen-ready for this new MacBook Pro, then perhaps we’ll see a tablet with macOS one day. I’d buy an iPad Pro with macOS in a heartbeat.
Although it's a lot more useful on laptops that can fold into a tablet, which neither MacBooks nor my Thinkpad can do.
How so? I have an M2, carry it in a bag daily but my screen is still pristine
Meanwhile the M1 Air I had for more than 3 years never saw the issue.
2) AI is forcing UI evolution that is hard to anticipate, but I suspect will be served well by having more kinds of inputs available in advance.
Steve would agree: "We've done tons of user tests on this, and it turns out it doesn't work. Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical. It gives great demo, but after a short period of time you start to fatigue, and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn't work. It's ergonomically terrible."
It's like having a remote control to read your kindle that's sitting on a stand 2 feet away (which, coincidentally, Amazon just announced).
Apparently the Ternus era of Apple is focusing on whether something can be built, not whether it should be released.
> “We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work,” “Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives great demo but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off,”
> “It doesn’t work, it’s ergonomically terrible.”
“Back to the Mac” event in 2010.
After the unnecessary iOS "glass", touchbar, and now this USD400 'arm-fatigue feature', and other - made soley for the media-money-shot 'features' - Apple is really just in the 'great demo' business and departs even further 'great product' business.
Remember when he was trying to tell us that the original iPhone having no App Store was intentional, we don’t need it, because we have the best web browser? Yeah, that was just a plain lie because the App Store wasn’t ready.
Or the time he got on stage and acted like the Rokr was a good phone (although you could see through that one a little better).
I'm curious to see this in person. Looks like the "PROLED" is not using an RGB stripe layout.
Pixel density can reduce text fringing, but I have not seen a laptop OLED panel that renders text as well as an LCD yet.
The layout shown in that document is quite different.
But touch will go about as well as the touchbar did
The laptop touch screen always felt like an awkward use case to me because the ideal UX for touch and KBM are so different. If you're designing for use on laptop/desktop you need to design for KBM-first -- since the majority of devices will be -- and therefore the touch experience suffers, and users with a touchscreen just use the KBM.
I don't think the average consumer cares that much about this either. I've noticed my grandparents often buy laptops with touchscreens accidentally and then proceed to mostly interact with it by accident.
Part of me wants to believe that a company like apple must/would do this right if they were going to do it but on the other hand there's the whole touch bar debacle and it doesn't seem like their foldable phone is starting off with the best reviews either.
Which is why I think it makes sense for certain things where you can update the experience to be enhanced for touch but not, like, daily email & web browsing. But those things that will do well with touch do seem to align with the creative side of Apple's market - things like manipulating 3D objects, moving audio tracks around, that kind of stuff, if the interface is re-thought for a touch experience then I think there's a lot there.
Certainly there are times, even just basic things like looking at pictures, where I wish I could touch my monitor like it was a tablet.
I don't want to try to tap a link on a desktop rendered website, a mouse is more precise for that kind of thing, but I can imagine a lot of use cases that will improve if you assume that a large subset of your users has some kind of touch device.
Glad I'm not alone. Unfortunately every week I have to clean it from dust and also smudges that gets passed from the keyboard when you close the lid.
My comment was not about touchscreens in general, it was about touchscreens on laptops. The phone touch experience is excellent because everything is designed for touch. Correspondingly, if you plug a KBM into a phone, it's a very poor experience.
If my phone's display is oil repelling, it simply doesn't work very well. I regularly wipe the screen to keep it clean. Luckily, this is very easy to do since my phone is the size of my hand and the display is attached to a solid box with no hinges involved. I can clean it with my shirt when I notice smudges and am in the habit of doing so. A laptop screen is much more annoying to keep clean.
I’ve always been interested in HDR video (HDR 10 +, Dolby Vision, HLG) and have wondered if the marginal upgrade in producer display quality will further impact the consumer HDR consumption. Also I think it’s noteworthy that they showcase DaVinci Resolve instead of Final Cut Pro, which is their own non linear editor and color grading app.
Update: The one nice thing I noticed is the weight of the 16" is only 4.1lb vs. 4.7lb from the previous model. I guess OLED is a lot lighter. THAT would be nice.
For example, raising your arm to interact with a screen for any sustained period just doesn’t work ergonomically. In my experience, people who buy touchscreen-enabled laptops quickly loose the habit of using the touchscreen for exactly that reason.
It also makes the display look dirty. I expected Apple to pair this with some new coating or display technology that would reduce fingerprints and smudges, etc, but I’m not seeing anything like that either.
Overall I’m surprised Apple would add a whole new interaction model to the MacBook and barely explain why. Given how central UX has always been to Apple (they make a big deal of the mouse, the click wheel and multi-touch, etc.) That feels very... un-Apple.
I have not experienced that at all. I see people touch their touch-capable laptop screens all the time.
I don’t understand how people legitimately hold this belief that no one could or would use a laptop touchscreen. This is exactly how millions of people use their tablets every day. You hold it in your lap and you poke the screen. Or you use the stand to prop it up on a table and you poke at the screen. And shockingly, your arm doesn’t fall off.
I've always thought the ideal future is to have the phone just be the desktop when docked, if computing advances well enough, and super disappointed this is just some random touch laptop.
The OLED is great as I use a 32" 4k 240hz OLED on MacOS and it has made a huge difference in my eye strain but I don't understand the point of the touch without a proper use for it.
* that you can use the Duo folded 90deg like a mini laptop.
It's wild to think that even just 12 months ago, I would have hailed the touchscreen MacBook Pro. Now I don't need much more than an Air. (I also did more video editing back then, whereas now I don't really do it) (and I also want to play games)
- Native mobile apps
- Bigger iPhone
- Pen, as you mentioned
- Foldable iPhone
- Now touchscreen laptop
Touch while still being a normal laptop does feel odd. I would be curious who wants touch in this form factor.
I guess if users don’t touch it, then you just have to keep trying with something bigger to touch.
Absurd it took this long when they basically led the field in touchscreen innovation (especially on the UX side of things)
I always thought the Surface Book design by Microsoft was very Apple like and it always seemed like the logical step: let the screen detach but keep the extra horsepower in the base.
Flip-around convertible or kickstand with soft-cover keyboard both work a lot better, but also both have trade-offs.
I somewhat fondly recall my old HP Windows Pen PC where the screen would twist and lay back down over the keyboard. That thing was a brick, but it had the correct balance for a laptop and the keyboard keys were out of the way in tablet mode. Maybe Apple will bring that form factor back, but with a super thin OLED display and a really lightweight device.
If only you could run Linux on the damn thing so you could play games now.
Where is the reverse engineering army when you need them lol
The entire purpose of the laptop (for me at any rate) is to do real work without the touch screen.
I’m not sure what pro workflows would actually benefit from this vs. a wirelessly paired iPad. I would not pay a dollar extra for touch personally - but that screen does look nice.
- Native mobile apps
- Bigger iPhone
- Pen, as you mentioned
- Foldable iPhone
- Now touchscreen laptop
Anything else?
Having said that, I'd be afraid to touch it. On one of my MBPs, I held it by putting my hands near the hinge, with my thumbs resting in the lower corners of the screen. Over (a short period of) time, the protective(?) coating on the screen wore away.
I had it very badly on Intel MBP, and now on my M3 Max. I tried some screen protectors, but none of them stuck (pun intended).
I suppose touch only makes it worse?
Windows laptop took the same path, for the better.
How on god's green earth is this worth $2900?
If I needed one of these for my work (I don't) and was going to be using it every day for the next two years, I think I could justify it. It would be about $4 / day which is within reach. Add in the fact that Mac's have decent resale value and the daily expense could be quite a bit less.
1. Mini LED is fantastic so the OLED jump is marginal at best 2. I know many people with a touchscreen windows laptop. None of them uses the touch function on a regular basis
iPhone hotspot is slow, unreliable and drains the phone's battery quickly
Luckily i'm in a country where a 600GB 5G plan costs the equivalent of 15$ a month, with 3$ per extra eSIM (watch/computer/car/whatever)
is graphene os ready for primetime yet?
Otherwise this seems like a great upgrade, cant wait to get the M7 Pro version of this next year! (My M1 Pro holds up great for now.)
(don't care about the touchscreen)
I was gonna get it for the oled (also don’t care about touch screen) but now it’s also for the glowing logo!
And if so, has Apple changed the policy from developer opt-in to automatic on touchscreen Macs.
This is clearly targeted at creatives, the touchscreen feels more like a nice bonus they give out so people can experiment with touchscreen macOS and polish their apps for it - my guess is that this is preparation for a more convenient touch-based macOS device they're going to launch in a year or so.
IMO, this is a macbook pro but ~200g lighter and with an improved screen that's finally oled. Absolutely NOT worth 2900. An M6 mbp specced to 24GB is $700 cheaper directly on their site. Yeah it's an M6 and not an M5 pro, but I guarantee the performance difference won't matter 99.9% of the time.
$2900 is just ridiculous. So many better options with this budget.
Have you heard a recent 16" MBPro? They sound great. The Spatial Audio works. Maybe most people don't prioritize it, but it's a real quality of life thing. Same with deep black pixels: you don't know what the experience is worth until you have it. I value it highly.
The screens recently have been very good, but this one is better. Same with the sound. I'm glad it exists because it drives everyone to get better.
The parent comment was saying "better sound" as one of the upgrades you get for the $400, which is a comparison to the currently available macbook pros.
Brothers, there is a market beyond your bash shells!
;p
Those greasy finger marks are really going to dazzle like never before.
Like the iPad when it’s docked to its smart keyboard, I don’t like touching it at the point, it’s better to use the trackpad that’s laying flat.
It also wobbles when you do touch it. The macbook may not do the wobble, but it will constantly push further open and this may weaken the hinge mechanism over time.
If there’s one killer feature though, it’s iOS device mirroring and the iOS simulators. I’ve instinctively reached up to touch the iOS simulator so many times.
I wonder how they do the glowing apple logo with no backlight.
So this probably isn’t the matter of macOS finally adding native support. More that they revealed what was already there.
Or it can be a complete rewrite. Either way they would have to explicitly implement support for external touchscreens using a generic driver instead of a specific one for each device.
I had a Dell OLED 4k laptop 4 years ago that depending on screen brightness would absolutely murder the battery.
What gives?
Don't take me wrong, OLED displays on a a MacBook screen is quite a nice feat compared to regular the regular displays we have as of today.
Even though this reveal seems genuinely cool, this stat sounds weird. Why compare it to Intel Macs when the status quo has been Apple Silicon for half a dozen years?
I would probably never touch the screen with my fingers, but I would draw with it. Would also be really useful during calls.
> Draw. Sketch and annotate directly onscreen.
I do like how they are brining back ports. I think they need to add back the Ethernet port.
And look at all those glorious ports
Dynamic island looks nice.
You'd think Apple would understand the form factor.
We saw this with foldables. It was a bad idea, but when Apple did it, it was a great idea all of a sudden.
And if you rewind a while back, you'll see "large phones are bad because one handed use .. blah blah" and then Pro Max.
Or does one still have to go to Dell for that?
the older macbooks used the display's backlight to illuminate the logo, but since these new OLED displays light up individual pixels I wonder how they're lighting it up now...
Huawei made a Fold laptop that seems to be running Linux already if you're into that.
I don't like it, it still will be a popular laptop and within 5 years - one of the best. I am moving away from Apple, thank you for a ride!
They refused for decades to put a touchscreen because they know very well it will eat on their ipad sales.
One less reason to get an ipad pro.
The price is really high too.
It doesn't work.
Steve Jobs said this in October 2010 during Apple's "Back to the Mac" special event, where the company was previewing Mac OS X Lion.
Everything is going down the drain right in front of our eyes.
I can't make sense of any counterargument as anything but copium.
Glowing logo: sure
Touchscreen: nah
What exactly does Apple do different again?
- MacBook Neo
- MacBook Air 13-inch (M5)
- MacBook Air 15-inch (M5)
- MacBook Pro 14-inch (M6)
- MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5)
- MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5 Pro)
- MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5 Max)
- MacBook Pro 16-inch (M5 Pro)
- MacBook Pro 16-inch (M5 Max)
- MacBook Pro 14-inch with PROLED XDR Display (M5 Pro)
- MacBook Pro 14-inch with PROLED XDR Display (M5 Max)
- MacBook Pro 16-inch with PROLED XDR Display (M5 Pro)
- MacBook Pro 16-inch with PROLED XDR Display (M5 Max)
This is so bizarre. I'll never understand Apple fans.
If you want a screen to touch get a fucking tablet.
Why are Apple's new product lines so..self-defeating now? I wanted to get the iPhone Duo but it has worse cameras than my iPhone 17 Pro Max, and now this Mac..
Looks like people who want the best of everything will have to skip this year.
I have had touch screen laptop (Dell Inspiron), and boy, it was such a horrible and useless feature. Screen is always greasier than gas-station hot dog.
Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure their stock is headed for a new ATH.
1. No cellular? This was honestly one of the biggest selling points in my eyes. The iPhone hotspot has been so unreliable lately.
2. Never would use the touchscreen in software engineering. Agree with others that I don't understand a real use case for it, and apparently their website designers can't either.
3. OLED is nice.
4. 24h battery life is nice.
5. No M6 Pro/Max. Just getting one generation up?
6. Not even a cool name? No Macbook Ultra? Macbook Studio? Obviously not important, but even they couldn't justify it as its own separate product from the existing Pros.
On the bright side, the wallet savings are nice. Absolutely not worth a $4,150 hit (using my M4 Pro 48GB/1TB 16" as reference)
Especially if they don't even have stylus support
Dynamic island sounds like it will be huge distraction if animations will play there.
Really... I would expect this naming from an Onion article.
Besides holding my arms up it’s also painful to keep my wrists bent to get a better angle for my fingers to articulate.
It being marked as a highlight makes even less sense to me.
Someone help an old graybeard out?
Take down the store and website for a few minutes, boot it back up, boom. That's it. They couldn't even bother with a keynote or a livestream or something.
For their flagship laptop receiving a substantial update after six years. Okay.
So without that, having touch doesn't make any sense and once again, won't buy this unless the second generation of touch Macbooks are available.
Worked well with the first foldable iPhone Duo didn't it? /s