Touch-screen Macs is kind of a terrible development for anyone who loves the Mac. It's not just a harmless feature that you can ignore if you don't want it, because it's customer-facing and will now generate complaints and bugs from people who do use it. Those people will complain (rightly) that macOS UI widgets are too small to accurately manipulate with your fingers (they are indeed too small) and don't make sense with a touch screen (they don't make sense).
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.
I would argue that once the dust settled post-Windows 8 with Windows 10 a full decade ago, the touch screen has been the opposite of what you’ve described for Windows systems. It absolutely is a harmless feature that you can ignore. There’s no reason not to have one.
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.
I don't think you can say that. Windows 10+ has a tablet mode that is completely detached from desktop mode, and it's a global toggle. Switching on tablet mode brings full-screen, upscaled, simplified explorer and settings, and switches off the classic desktop launcher with paper bin, shortcuts, etc. in favor of a larger "Start"-type menu launcher. What deeper and experimental integration there was in Windows 8 had just been removed as it became clear MS couldn't quite sell into the iPad/Android tablet market or compete in terms of power management. After stripping most of Windows 8 innovations, what remains is a touch keyboard, touch mouse emulation, and a few affordances in explorer to make tablets not outright terrible, with the target audience education and mbas interested in mobile powerpoint and web/mail.
I made this point below, but Windows 10 still doesn't have the display-real-estate efficiency of Windows 7. Windows 10 wastes all kind of screen space on large, flat surfaces that a non-touch-screen user will never use. Windows 7 wasn't as pretty as Windows 10, but it was better at displaying information.
So actually, you are harmed by this decision every day you use a Windows 10/11 laptop. You live with this every day. You just don't know what you're missing.
You make a good point. Windows 10 course corrected fairly heavily from Windows 8. The tablet mode was there but you could ignore it pretty easily.
However, I still feel like Apple is in their Microsoft era where they're making some of the same mistakes Microsoft have made in the past 20 years.
Aero -> Liquid Glass
Ads in the OS -> Ads in core applications
Fullscreen ads for Microsoft services in the OS -> banner ads for Apple services in the OS
Dark patterns for Windows 11 upgrades -> Dark patterns for macOS 26 upgrades
Windows Mixed Reality -> Vision Pro
I could also say Surface Duo -> iPhone Duo but at this time it's too early to tell. I also think that a touchscreen Mac is a mistake. Not because it's something Microsoft already did but because the reason a MacBook does not need a touchscreen is because Apple has best-in-class trackpads.
> It absolutely is a harmless feature that you can ignore. There’s no reason not to have one
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.
I was expecting there to be more like a ‘studio mode’ where you can fold it over to make it a screen interface that has some kind of bigger iPad style Ui. Where you could also use a stylus.
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.
The touch screen mac and iphone duo feel like ideas Apple has rejected for so long because they suck, but consumers keep asking for it. Seems they finally relented and released them, and people can learn it's simply bad.
I liked the idea, and found it useful (but I have smaller fingers). The biggest issue was how buggy it was, especially in earlier laptops. If it doesn't respond (common bug), then you now have no function keys, screen brightness keys, etc.
I have a MBP M1 which has been my main laptop since it came out. I never really understood why so many people complained about the Touch Bar. In fact, I will kind of miss the Touch Bar when I eventually replace the MBP M1 with something else a few more years down the line.
Judging by the Apple marketing page, touch is used for (1) scroll; (2) zoom; (3) draw. I hope that’s all the ways touch can be used. It’s a bad idea to expect touch to be used instead of the cursor to click on buttons.
I think this can easily be seen in the introduction of windows into iPad OS. I hate when the wrong motion creates a window from what I was working with. And this is on the 11" pro.
Introducing features nobody asked for with clever bs gestures, then forcing the user to undo their effect using obscure keyboard sequences or settings one has to lookup on the web is absolutely terrible UI, and something that would've never passed under Jobs' reign. It's not just the iPad windows misfeature, Mac OS' full screen mode has that problem as well. Whoever is responsible for that should seriously consider their career choices. There are PLENTY ergonomic problems to take care of, such as the error-prone keyboard entry on iOS, the Finder not showing full paths in Info details, broken window focus management (clicking a window tops ALL windows of the app), Spotlight, Expose refactored into uselessness (is it even there still?), the list goes on.
You can turn that off, by the way. Settings -> Multitasking and Gestures -> select Full Screen Apps. Just turns all that off. I honestly don't mind it on my Air but on the Mini is just fucking useless as a feature so I know this lol
I don't think it's quite that bad, but I’m already in the habit of swatting the hands of people who point too closely at things on my laptop screen with their greasy fingers. gtfo
100% agree
We should assume that new engineering leadership that came - it was too late.
Let’s pray that MacBook pro team will leave apple sooner or later to build alternative laptop.
This touchscreen seems to be bifurcation point with no return. I hope we also get alternative for M-class cpu, this might be the biggest dealbreaker
I mean, if this is what you've been waiting for forever and it changes your life for the better, then congrats. But I think this will wind up being a huge net-negative for most Mac users as macOS is made to look and feel more and more like iPadOS.
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 agree with the doomerism, and I expect the end goal would be merging MacOS UI with iPadOS. so the Mac will be an iPad with a keyboard. Clumsy , low-resolution controls that depend on clumsy touch experiences instead of lightning fast keyboard shortcuts.
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
It’s funny how disconnected macOS users are from reality when it comes to laptop touch screens.
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.
I disagree. One of the key differentiators is that technology is being introduced in the highest cost, highest capability sku in their product lineup. This laptop costs more than my first car, although I’m old :)
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.
Hahahaha have you even used macOS starting with tahoe? the liquid glass ui was made for touch! it is literally the antithesis of mouse-driven design. the buttons are large and circular, with huge corner radii. huge gaps in between them as well.
Perhaps it is with a heavy dose of copium that I say: I hope the extremely tentative development and release of this product (after having been on the record as fervently against touchscreen laptops), along with the eye-watering price point indicates that this isn't being viewed as the future of the MacOS experience. I hope this remains framed as a true pro-focused experience that unlocks specific apps without greatly impacting the central MacOS design philosophy.
Probably not because at the end of the day the employees and engineers at Apple have to use the Mac and macOS to write software so there's a concrete floor that they can't break through in terms of usability. They may make some mistakes or something but the OS has basically been the same thing for like 20 years. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Everyone's focused on the touchscreen, but I'm seriously impressed how they managed to cut down the weight.
* 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!
I would have loved to get the decrease in weight, but I bought my Macbook Pro 128 GB in March and the equivalent is now 50% more expensive, from 5000 to 7500. The memory price skyrocketing is so bad but I don't know if it will ever get better or if these prices are the best we will ever see again.
It also thermally throttled like hell, was much thinner, and had much reduced IO. What's impressive is keeping the same form factor and IO selection, and still getting that weight reduction.
Fujitsu U939 13" is lighter than 1kg, has a charger port, 2 USB-C, 2 USB-3, RJ45 (folded), HDMI, Smartcart, SD card, SIM Card, Pen, Mouspad with real buttons, keyboard with normal cursor buttons and separate PgUp and PgDown buttons.
Sounds like maybe the Macbook Air could become the original 12 inch Macbook(2015) weight eventually. They might even re-introduce a 12 inch model. Imagine that!
thank god! at work many people intentionally choose the 14" just because of weight. Once you add the charger in, the 16" is very noticeable in a bag and makes you pack a little differently for flights.
Yep. I got a 15" MacBook Air as a replacement because I still wanted portability but reduce the weight. I have 2 M1 Pro MBP (one work, one personal) and the added weight is noticeable at conferences...
They might have changed the internal fan layout. If you look it AR mode, you can look underneath the display , there’s usually two fan exhausts there, this one has only one
But I also only have an m1 16” so it may not be a brand new change
TBH this is one of the things that will be a clear downgrade imo. Weight reductions and thinness are not free. The Pro and Max chip version are already over powered for the cooling system the current macbook pros have. And now they are further cutting into the laptop...
Welcome to 2016. Lightweight OLED displays have been in the market since a decade ago, but now we are praising Apple for catching up 10 years later for a laptop with a "pro" moniker? Damn, the Apple ass-kissing here never disappoints.
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.
> Now we got the foldable iPhone and a touchscreen MacBook.
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.
Tim Cook and his lieutenants were decidedly running on fumes for the last 2-3 years. That's how long these products take to plan and design so that's what we're seeing right now; the last of the Cook era is being released now. Wait for 2-3 years for Ternus and his gang to start doing their work in hardware; on the software side they've already reversed the direction and its hopefully getting better.
Apple nowadays feels like it’s rudderless and grasping at everything for $$$, in turn giving up on their OG design principles.
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 else would they get consoomers to keep buying?
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
Foldables are somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of Samsung flagship sales. It's foolish to underestimate them because Silicon Valley was all using slabs. The rest of the world isn't so prudish and after sleeping around some many settled on foldables and have been using them for many generations. Moving 10-15% of your high-end sales into an ultra-high-end is a huge win.
Does anyone use/like touch on their windows (linux?) laptops? I've never really been drawn to wanting to do that. My mouse is far more accurate and doesn't block my view. But maybe it's just because I don't have it and I would find tons of uses for it. Also, I don't love the idea of putting fingerprints all over my screen. I guess I can understand for testing iOS/iPad apps but past that I just don't see myself wanting to use that.
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.
Not me personally, but my wife does. She will not buy a laptop unless it has touch screen. "So get an iPad" everyone tells her.
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.
I bought a Thinkpad X1 Carbon a couple of years ago for my linux laptop and had been using it for months before I realized when I was wiping a smudge off of the monitor that it was a touch display! It was quite the surprise. I have yet to find it of any value.
In my limited experience providing tech support for family members with touchscreen laptops, it's awful. The touch-targets are mostly designed for mouses, so they're easy to miss. Your screen gets filthy. Moving from keyboard to screen and back is tiring.
I'm sure there are good use-cases, but IMO everyday average-home-user computing is not one of them.
Yes. I have my dock/taskbar on the side and to switch between apps it's like having a small touchbar I actually know the functions of at any time. When I want to scroll too or tap quickly on something on the other side of the screen, it's often more worth to lift my fingers away from the keyboard to touch the screen without even moving the pointer. But if you're not used to it you probably don't see the burden of moving your pointer away to then bring it back to the center of the screen.
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 can’t be the only one who recoils in horror at the thought of TOUCHING THE SCREEN! It’s like going to the toilet and not washing your hands after. I’m sure people do it, but..ew.
As a primary/only mode of use: oh hell no, it's awful. It's too far away from your hands, the ergonomics suck.
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.
I have used Surface laptops for years and touch is a definite nice-to-have. I especially like having it when diagramming and designing. Paired with the Surface Pen is can really unlock a lot of digital whiteboarding experiences.
For a long while, my home laptop was a Chromebook Pixel. It had touch and a retina-quality screen when both those things were novel.
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.
Not a HUGE usecase, but when reading a longer text, webpage or something, I like to put my palm around the edge of the display, fingers from behind, use thumb for scrolling.
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.
To me it’s something that Apple could be providing for almost zero cost with zero downside to people who don’t want to use it and they’ve just refused to do so for almost no reason.
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.
My work laptop has a touchscreen.
I use it so rarely that I keep forgetting it has one and every time I clean the screen with my fingers I get confused for a couple of seconds and then I remember.
I'm not the target for this particular product either and you and I use our MBPs in pretty much identical ways. I will say though, if the laptop's hinge allowed reverse clamshell like the Yoga, then I would consider the premium for a feature I would rarely use. I like the idea of a tablet, but any time I'm seated with one, I'm either doing something I'd do on my phone or doing something that I'd rather be doing on my computer running a desktop OS.
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!
I got a 24" all in one computer with a touch screen because the kids were into drawing on the computer. The kids managed to scratch it up somehow, they had a stylus and I think the tip broke.
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.
I've used a few touch laptops. First one was a chromebook 9-10 years ago, and even then I got great use of the touchscreen just doing web browsing or navigating my files/google drive or scrolling through ebooks.
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.
I don't like them. I had an ELO touchscreen monitor at work before. I used it for a few days, but it caused me severe RSI issues in my shoulders, so I have no interest in a touchscreen laptop.
It’s on my X1 Thinkpad. I find it more convenient to use the mouse as that’s where my hands are naturally and a habit.
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
I'm working on a very niche sports scoring app and designed it to have nice, clickable buttons. But when trying it out in the field one of the officials had a touch-screen laptop, and it was pretty nice for clicking/tapping to enter finishers of a race in order. So much so that I reworked the rest of the UI to allow for touch.
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.
I've been an enthusiast for whiteboarding, diagramming and handwriting, and had several Work HP Tablets and 360s, for several years I found good use taking notes in OneNote (specifically) for in-person meetings, for any other use like video conferences (which every meeting is now), giving presentations on screen-share, using office tools, etc, they just aren't convenient and are more prone to activating the wrong element with inadvertent touch. I write notes on paper and scan them for archive. This Mac Book doesn't fold flat which really should make it a non-starter unless Apple has a use-case I can't think of.
I worked at MS when they were putting out win 8, so I'm maybe biased. I enjoyed the touch interface laptops but I'll fully acknowledge that in my case they were making up for a bad touchpad experience.
I have a Windows laptop with touchscreen and pen support and I like it (HP Omnibook, Lunar Lake). My top use case is probably holding the hinge of the laptop in a way that one thumb can reach the screen, and I scroll with it. Revolutionary I know! Sometimes reaching up and tapping a button (large target) is faster than using the touchpad. Signing documents with the pen. A 360° hinge helps, too, for tent mode and everything in between. Touch is easier on an airplane when space is tight for my arms.
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.
I’ve had a few and liked it- is nice to be able to move my finger straight to a point on the screen and do something - is faster than using a mouse in some contexts
the convertible laptops are great, flip the screen back and use it like a big e-reader/ipad, if the macbook pro worked that way with full pencil compatibility (and being able to run all ipad apps) it'd have been amazing
Every once in a while when I'm not in my right mind I reach out to my MBP screen and almost begin to pinch zoom something until I notice and recoil at the horror of potential fingerprints. This tells me that 1) we're all now smartphone-brained and this is the new default and 2) there's no fucking way I'm going to consciously want this.
Non-touchscreen laptops are an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
It's not a huge thing. My Thinkpad has a touchscreen, a clickable trackpad, and 3 buttons on top of the trackpad. The only thing it doesn't have is a trackpoint in the middle of the keyboard.
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).
I use a stylus to take lecture notes and solve problem sheets on my ThinkPad X13. Xournalpp works ok, Ubuntu 24.04, though there was a mutter bug that I had Sol patch out. Only better than paper because of data storage, honestly carrying a notebook is lighter than the usb c second display I use.
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.
It is more a nice extra than truly useful. Especially if trackpad or keyboard are starting to have issues. On occasion it can be easy to just fat-finger an onscreen button or on a long read just gently scroll. On videos they can be paused by tapping the play window. This is probably a step in their grand scheme to further merge Mac and ios together.
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.
Probably a hot take reading the comments, but the touchscreen is great for scrolling and reading vs doing it in the trackpad. If you have the laptop in your lap, the hand and arm position to scroll in the trackpad is very unnatural. Reading/browsing using your thumbs on the screen borders is a great experience. This is even more noticeable if you try to work on planes.
I had one a decade or so ago and I did use it because it was there, sometimes. But it’s not a feature I would ever go out of my way to get or pay extra for - the only thing I was looking forward to here is the oled so guess I’ll find out if I will use it.
I've had it on a few laptops, I always disable it. My current work laptop is a Thinkpad which doesn't even have an option in the BIOS to disable its touchscreen, I had to write a udev rule to do it.
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.
It's expectation. Think of all the screens in your life that you interact with and when you can't touch them it feels broken (at least to me). So I don't use my laptop as a tablet but when some dialog pops up I want to touch the cancel button. Or I'm helping someone with a task and reaching to move a window directly is natural.
I use it constantly. No one actually holds their hands up to the screen for extended periods of time. But touching the screen to click a button can be more efficient than tabbing or mousing to it. Especially if the laptop is on your lap.
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 dislike it very much. It's never what I want, and in the cases where I have it, it generally only gets used accidentally (e.g. when one of my kids pokes the screen). It's not ergonomic for normal use.
Scrolling is a great reason for touchscreens on laptop, you can just swipe and down on your screen which is much more natural than two finger gesturing or grabbing a scrollbar.
My boss wont have a non touchscreen laptop purely for ease of scrolling up and down reports and around spreadsheets
The only reason I would want touch is if the screen would fold and rotate in order to turn it into a tablet. If Apple made this in a 12-inch format (like their old 12-inch MacBook I'd buy it immediately.
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 found it was something I didn't appreciate much until I had a touchscreen laptop. It doesn't fully replace the mouse or touchpad, but it is convenient enough of the time that I miss not having it. It also is a much bigger benefit when you're using the laptop by itself. But when reading something on the couch, it's helpful to scroll with a touchscreen, and it's handy to quickly interact with modal dialogs.
I actually disable touch screen in bios on my Dell XPS13 because I don't like touching it accidentally but then I'm not the target market for a touchscreen laptop.
I guess for the most part if you like this you'll use it and if you don't you'll just ignore it.
I use a Wacom Cintiq with touch, it is only useful for testing during mobile gamedev because it can simulate touch easily without leaving the editor and having to export a build to my phone or tablet. Quite an expensive trick. I wouldn’t purchase it again if it broke. (I would buy the same model without touch and save some bucks)
I had a surface pro and later a surface book, and i think i can count on 1 hand the number of times i found touch to be useful. Might just be windows fighting me all the way, but i have since moved over to using Macs for work and never missed touch at all.
I use it (for choosing tools) with a drawing program and a stylus (for the actual drawing) and it makes things quick/interactive --- no Apple Pencil support, and no ability to lay the entire device down flat means it doesn't suit my needs.
My wife loves her surface book specifically for the touch. No touch is what held her back from going Mac. She's a teacher and is constantly making assets and stuff in Canvas and those sort of things.
Oh how far we've come. Steve Jobs in 2010 stated [1]:
> 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?
I've had a touch screen Lenovo for 10 years. It was a huge mistake and I never use it. It's uncomfortable and doesn't work with laptop interfaces or form factor.
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.
I bought a laptop for a relative and didn't realise it doesn't have touchscreen. They complained for a day and I often saw them try to touch the screen and then being disappointed it doesn't work. Week later they never mentioned it again and use the laptop just fine.
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.
I got a Surface laptop/tablet hybrid thingy, which was weird at first to get used to, but actually kind of nice. I mostly got it for notetaking, drawing and 3D work, which it worked very well for, until the machine bricked itself during a Windows Update like a month after the warranty, and now it no longers powers up itself.
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.
Every time I hand my wife my laptop to show her something, her first instinct is to touch the screen to make it scroll. I think for a lot of people, having a device that doesn't respond to touch is weird.
(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".)
I hate it. It's beyond me why people would intentionally smudge their laptop display.
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.
I don’t have a dedicated tablet, and use a touchscreen laptop that’s “folded back” in lieu of that. It’s not as good but cheaper than two devices. To me it’s inherently a budget tool. An €3300 touchscreen laptop doesn’t really compute.
I bought an expensive Windows laptop with touch and I go so long without every touching the screen it's always a complete shock when someone touches it -- you know, the screen touchers -- and it registers. And for a brief moment I remember that I bought a touchscreen convertible, and then forget it again.
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.
> Also, I don't love the idea of putting fingerprints all over my screen.
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.
I used to work regularly on a commuter train with a firm-provided touchscreen ThinkPad. The touchscreen was great on the train because it was faster (for many things) than reaching for the trackpad. And when you're in a sort of cramped sitting position, reaching forward feels natural.
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.
I had one for work a while back that could turn around so the screen faced upward while closed, effectively making it a bulky/heavy tablet. It was convenient for walking over to someone desk and discussing a topic. But it wasn't ground breaking enough for me to ever seek something out like it again. I rarely even open my laptop these days unless I'm in a conference room.
I look for touchscreens when looking for a cheap windows laptop for someone because they tend to be better quality screens (IPS, decent brightness, etc.) instead of some awful TN panel that's barely visible in a well-lit room.
I don't really expect anyone to use it as a touchscreen, but if they do, at least that will work too.
Kids expect all screens to be touch ready. Chromebooks they learn on in schools are touchscreen. It will be a competitive requirement before long, I think.
Getting rid of the fixed keyboard helps a lot (my preferred form factor), but even in the classic laptop form factor is makes a ton of sense IMHO.
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.
It seems like there’s an audience among older people and possibly children, but I don’t see a situation in which a professional at least would really or want a touchscreen. Do you really want the oil from your fingers constantly smudging up your screen, particularly a glossy one? Unless it comes with a pair of complimentary Apple windshield wipers, it's gonna get gross fast.
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.
I feel the same but I noticed that the boomers and Gen Z both reach for the screen when I am showing them something and they want to interact with it(i.e. scroll a page or close a window).
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.
Oh in university it's a godsend having something you can just run PDF Annotator on and draw with a pen directly on your laptop. (Lenovo 20KK user here, got it for 200€ at a hamvention used, even came with a 4G modem)
Their demo example for the touch interface is piano keys? That's a 2010 Scott Forstall level of skeuomorphism that doesn't translate well for a laptop screen because it's not convenient.
The hands are also almost in the exact same image Steve Jobs had on a slide during the iPad keynote showing touch on a laptop is not ergonomic. It's poetic, almost.
I agree that a piano demo seems like a bad idea. But damn if I don’t daily long for the iOS 6 days where buttons and tappable areas were well defined and there were some fun and whimsy to the interface. As compared to the flat unintuitive desolate landscape of recent years. I would rather have a big animated cassette deck in my music player than the current overly polished full page advert I get every time I open the app. At least Forstall and his team cared enough.
As a longtime laptop musician, using the QWERTY keyboard to play notes in the absence of a MIDI controller is infinitely preferable to this goofy demo.
Apple better have some better use examples than THAT.
Yeah, piano playing was a bad example. There’s a reason MIDI keyboard manufacturers try so hard to replicate the weighted feel of a real piano. Your fingers need feedback.
What's the point of a touch display if the laptop doesn't have a 360 hinge !? The interaction looks very awkward and unless they stiffen the hinge compared to previous model, the thin screen will keep tilting backwards.
I’m not going to upgrade to get this, however given most devices are touch screen it has become almost expected. Sometimes you just want to move something with your fingers even if it’s not the main input method.
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
My wife sits on the couch, "indian style", with a laptop in her lap angled at about a 45 degree. She holds the edges of it with her arms, and brings the keyboard up to her stomach kinda...
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
"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."
I wish we could get the great new PROLED XDR screen w/o touch (if that saved $$) so we could take advantage of the new brightness/contrast and not worry about gestures on the glass.
Apple is not what it used to be… We see it in the hardware AND the software.
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 ^^
I have a Macbook Pro 14 first gen and I love this machine but watching what Apple is doing lately I think they are starting to loose the plot.
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]
Fwiw, first gen apple products tend to have shorter support windows, and the AI change is legitimately a big technology shift (even if not wonderfully executed) that necessitated more aggressive hardware cutoffs. The first three apple watches and the first SE also had the same 4 year support as the first Ultra. Apple is a remarkably consistent company when it comes to its own habits and behaviors.
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, …
Exactly what i was thinking, with these decision they are making a quick bucks but in the long term apple will just be another washed and forgetful brand like most of the windows brand, and then what reason to get a macbook ?
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.
There's no universe this doesn't negatively affect the UX of the OS for non-touch users. You can't simply support (or rather you can half-arse) new affordances without contorting the rest of the already well worn paths.
It already has, see the massive increase in UI padding in Tahoe and later. Windows and GNOME both sacrificed their UX to support touchscreen laptops years ago, Apple was one of the holdouts before that point.
Windows did this seemingly by not caring that it's also a touch screen, so not everything in the system is touch-friendly. It's still fine for many situations.
I can actually see a possibility where this improves UI/UX a bit. One being the removal of some many hover-over UI elements, e.g., the (x) button on notifications do not display unless a mouse is hovering over the notification badge.
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.
Does that mean you also believe the same to be true for mouse affordances ruining it for keyboard users and vice-versa? Or "touch" is special in this regard?
Touch is probably not going to be useful in most contexts, but there are two things that come to mind:
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.
Not letting the screen bend back all the way neuters every avantage of touch. Touch interfaces are incredibly frustrating when the thing you are touching doesn't have enough resistance.
These are right at the edge of desirable for me right now -- but it's hard to pull the trigger. I'm imagining an M7 Pro with 480 GB/s and therefore an M7 Max 850-900 GB/s. And significantly better GPU speeds as well. If I knew I could get the M7 Max Q2 of next year, especially at 192GB of RAM, I'd wait.
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..
Notably these chips came out back in March of this year. Today's changes are in the display and form factor but maintaining the same CPU, GPU, and memory specs.
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.
Pro tip always get the silver macbooks because they wear out considerably better. On the black ones the paint near the charger ends up looking terrible and any dents/nicks/scratches look bad.
Except there is no "paint". Neither are there any "black ones"; space grey isn't very close to black, and I've seen no wear issues of any kind on any of the Macs I support.
A laptop starting at almost 3 grand with only 24gb ram is a tragedy, the RAMpocalypse is brutal.
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.
For work I have a Windows laptop with a touch screen and these were the only times I have wanted to use it:
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.
"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."
probably the only reason -- and this is mitigated with a mouse.
It's interesting that they've decided to release a new high-end model this year even though they aren't coming out with new high-end M6 chips. Apparently they have decided to not make Pro/Max versions of the M6 in favor of accelerating development of the M7 series, which will have improved support for on-device AI. https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/25/2027-macs-m7-chips/
Historically speaking, the Pro/Max versions of the chips have become available at around the same time the next-generation base chip does. So, M4 Pro/Max shipped when M5 shipped, M5 Pro/Max shipped when M6 shipped, and so forth.
It seems to me like a transition year. Apple occasionally has these where the lineup doesn't make sense until they phase out the old and bring in the new. iPads in 2016, iMacs in 2021, iPads in 2022, Macbooks in 2011, etc.
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.
Coming from the company that simultaneously offered six(!) different models of iPad at once, this is not unsurprising at all. From 2022 to 2024, Apple offered: Two models of iPad, an iPad mini, an iPad Air, and two models of iPad Pro (11 and 13 inch).
For Apple, product & hardware come first, marketing and positioning is secondary.
The touch screen is such a silly idea here. It even looks ridiculous in their own marketing photos. [1] The keyboard and track pad are already a great combo for getting things done.
I don't get why they're doing this other than making another step towards unifying iOS and macOS (and visionOS?).
I don't know why there's all this talk about putting cellular in MacBooks. Tethering between macOS and iPhone is practically seamless and even to Android it's not difficult. Where are people going with their laptop and not their phone?
replacing the notch with a hole punch isn't much of an improvement for me anyway. it still kills the top quarter inch of the display for non-letterboxed movies, games etc. I'm tempted to replace my Air with a Neo just to have a non-punctured screen.
Apple used to delay and deliver their own brand or interpretation of technology with meaningful differences
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
Steve had been an outspoken critic of touchscreen laptops. It seems that none of his original gripes are addressed in this release. Another drop in the bucket of half-assed hardware releases from apple "our competitors have it so we need it too" (vision pro, new homepod thing, iphone duo, etc)
Really glad I'm not currently shopping for a new computer.
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€.
They have had people asking them for touchscreen laptops for years. They legitimately lose sales to people who want a Mac but refuse to buy a laptop without a touch screen.
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.
No, this is a great idea! No more wacom tablet, no more going back and forth between the mac and iPad! I'm looking forward to having a mac where I can just swivel the screen to lie flat and use my apple pen to draw!
Before I bought my first MacBook years ago, I had a Windows laptop with a touchscreen, and the only useful aspect of it for me was pinch-to-zoom, and only because the touchpad pinch-to-zoom gesture felt so bad to use that I'd rather lift my arm up in the air and get fingerprints on my screen.
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'm going to offer a use case for touch screens: Augmented reality (AR) development.
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.
If only we could discuss the OLED display rather than an optional feature. I did not see anything in the marketing materials that indicated I would be punished for refusing to utilize the touchscreen.
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.
Yeah, if you can turn off or ignore the touch part, there's a whopper of a weight savings, a better display panel, and improved thermal performance hiding in this package.
Am I the only one that has never ever felt the need to have a touch screen display on my Mac?
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.
You're going to get a ton of affirmatives but remember this is also the forum that considers removable batteries one of the most important smartphone features. Our opinions about consumer tech are outliers.
Touch screens on laptops are a bit like 4k screens or >60Hz screens. You don't expect to get much out of them, but once you're used to them, going back is annoying.
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.
I would love a tablet running macOS, which I prefer over Windows and desktop Linux. I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 7. It performed fine under Windows 10, though performance suffered when upgrading to Windows 11. The Surface Pro is a nice piece of hardware, but I wish it had macOS instead of Windows. The iPad Pro definitely has enough processing power to run macOS, but it runs iPadOS, which is too restrictive for me as a developer.
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.
I've had a Thinkpad with a touch screen and I loved it. Sometimes touching something on the screen is a lot faster than grabbing the mouse, moving the cursor, and then clicking.
Although it's a lot more useful on laptops that can fold into a tablet, which neither MacBooks nor my Thinkpad can do.
Their marketing web page shows someone poking with their fingers at the virtual keyboard and it's so cringe. Who is going to use their laptop that way? For pro workflows? Pros have midi keyboards with pads and those are even not that expensive.
You're not alone. Though, I wonder if this means better coating, the coating on the existing MacBooks (but not the M1's) get damaged far too easily when in a bag.
1) Youth expect all screens to be touch. They are learning how to use computers in school on touchscreen Chromebooks. Apple knows they must adapt to user expectation.
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.
when i'm in a supine position like in bed with my knees up... i will unfold my framework pro to 180º and use my thumb to scroll docs etc. only downside is smudge marks on the screen which rly irritate me.
I'm honestly kinda baffled by the negativity, like almost everybody I let use my mac who doesn't have a mac tries to touch the screen, it's just a UI paradigm people are used to and naturally wanna do, any downsides... will go away over time?
For those wondering about the use case for touch screen, anytime you are showing info to someone and need to scroll the screen it’s much easier with a touch screen. I’ve encountered it most at doctors offices. Also scrolling through pictures with a client, or going through excel sheets with payroll is just easier using touch while sharing.
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.
> “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.
Be careful with quotes like this. Steve Jobs was a salesperson. He has had a good history of selling compromises as intent.
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).
It's got a very interesting pixel layout, different even from previous tandem OLEDs. Hard to describe quickly in words, but shown in Figure 2 here: https://www.apple.com/ca/macbook-pro/proled-xdr-display/pdf/... I imagine some of the C-shaped empty space is probably to accommodate the per-pixel emitter transistor.
Too bad they didn't go for the fifth generation panels with RGB layout. I have one of those monitors and it's so good, text is extremely crisp and of course zero fringing.
On retina it won't be as annoying as on a normal monitor obviously.
No cellular which is literally the only thing missing from the macbook pro :(
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
What’s your use case for cellular on a laptop? At least here in Canada data plans are expensive enough that I could blow through my monthly limit in 30min with a laptop. I would be quite annoyed if my wifi dropped and I had discovered only later that I’d exhausted my data unknowingly
Similar to the "hole drilled through the kitchen table" problem of the HomeView ad, seeing the hands/arms floating in to touch the screen immediately makes me imagine the impossible ergonomics of reaching across a keyboard to touch a screen.
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.
I have never wanted to touch my laptop screen or felt any sort of desire to do so. In fact I try really hard not to touch it so that I don't get smudges on it.
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.
> The laptop touch screen always felt like an awkward use case to me because the ideal UX for touch and KBM are so different
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.
For those HDR video editing / color grading specialists, how do these compare to Samsung + LG OLED TVs, Sony HDR Reference Monitors, or else?
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.
Is there any information about the touchscreen digitizer technology? My understanding is that there are a few different ways touchscreens are integrated into OLED panels (on-cell, in-cell, external grid). I have a Dell 16" laptop with a 4K OLED which happened to come with a touchscreen; I'm not mad about the touch features themselves (although I rarely if ever use them), except, the "on-cell" touchscreen digitizer is slightly visible under some conditions and because the display is otherwise so flawless and amazing, it's pretty annoying.
I wasn't sure how I would feel about my newish MBP M5 Max when they released this, but given the price increase, and the fact that I have zero interest in a better screen since I dock most of the time, I am happy I paid $2K less for the same horsepower earlier this year.
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.
I’m surprised because Apple has famously (and publicly) argued in the past that touchscreens on laptops were a bad idea. Things can change, of course, but I don’t see anything here that even attempts to invalidates any of the arguments they made against touchscreen laptops at the time, which I still think were pretty compelling.
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.
> In my experience, people who buy touchscreen-enabled laptops quickly loose the habit of using the touchscreen for exactly that reason.
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.
Admittedly, Apple has “refused” to do many things over the years (pen support on iPad comes to mind) and yet ends up doing them. Apple refuses to do something until they want to sell it.
FWIW, I don’t understand the appeal of this device at all, but I don’t expect much consistency from Apple.
I am going to jump on the touch hate bandwagon but more specifically I think it’s odd in the format they designed. I think the MSFT surface is brilliant because you can fold it down into an iPad like device which can be great for travel and other non-desk uses.
Touch while still being a normal laptop does feel odd. I would be curious who wants touch in this form factor.
When I saw rumours of it being touch I thought it would be a continuation of the iPhone Duo* idea but swapping between MacOS and iPadOS with a detachable keyboard, so if you are detached you have a screen, ipadOS and touch, if you plugin the keyboard it has additional hardware and macOS "swaps in" like some companies have attempted in the past
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.
My god they finally did it. After all the fears of canibalizing iPad sales and gorilla arms. An Apple touchscreen MacBook.
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.
CPU + battery in the top-cover kills the balance of the laptop and makes the whole thing heavier. It's a really awkward design compared to a clamshell laptop with a very thin display-only lid.
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.
Between open-weight models largely not worth their salt, and me setting up a VPS to do all my development now because I kept running into CPU limits with my M1 Pro, I think I'm just going to replace the battery on my M1 Pro and wait until a MacBook Pro with cellular arrives.
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)
My iPad Pro has a plenty big screen, a touch screen, and a processor that's faster than my M1 Air...by a lot. I would be ecstatic if they would put MacOS on the iPad. Instead, they put the damn screen for the iPad on the MacBook.
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.
Everybody worried about the usefulness of touch (which I do find occasionally useful), meanwhile they've literally set base pricing at $2900. For a 14 inch mbp, with 24GB. Hilarious.
It might not be the right machine for you and that's ok.
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 $4 / day which is within reach. Add in the fact that Mac's have decent resale value and the daily expense could be quite a bit less.
If i wanted a touch screen mb air, id get an ipad. i will actively avoid these. apple has been dropping the ball big time lately. ive noticed siri has a 5 second delay on my phone now, making reminder setting not so easy.
It looks cool but I just don't think it's something I'd buy. If I wanted touchscreen, I'd just get a windows laptop. What's everyone else's thoughts on touch and display on Apple?
My god they’re really running out ideas in Cupertino. What I need is a screen that gives an electrical shock to anybody that dares to touch it with their filthy fingers.
I love how their marketing is increasingly trying to convince M1 mac owners why they should upgrade. The m1 is still way overpowered for what most people need, including developers. I'm keeping my m1 and m1 max until they stop supporting it.
I am on board for touchscreen (and pencil support) for macOS due to my dream of only carrying an iPad Pro for all development; however, I think they’re making the same mistake as the touch bar - touch is only available on the most expensive Mac’s which will ensure they’re niche. Niche options for user input ensure very few apps get updated to use the new user input (foldable phones, I’m speaking about you).
I almost can't imagine a laptop that is less for me. But for the people it is for (like my wife) it's hard to imagine one that's for them more. Really fascinating feeling—kinda glad this exists, even if not for my benefit!
Seems like this is essentially a 400$ upgrade for the M6 Pro MacBook Pro. Those 400$ get you better sound, a better display and touch.
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.
Better sound is not really a selling point to anyone in the real world.
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.
Cue the folks who have used nothing but Apple laptops for the past 20 years coming here and wondering who would possibly want a laptop with a touch screen.
I think the confusion is lot of Apple enthusiasts drank the kool-aid the company served them saying touch screen is "yuck". And now they have a touch screen, it takes a while to re-orient themselves.
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.
Other than the “you can now make software samplers and soundboards” I don’t know why you would want a touch screen on a laptop.
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.
I really hope the screen no longer has the slow response and ghosting anymore. I'm surprised by the responsive difference every time I use my outdated 2013 MacBook Air's trackpad and immediately feel the difference over my 2021 MacBook Pro M1 daily driver.
Not a fan of touchscreen on inclined surfaces, personally. I think the ergonomics of this will be bad for shoulders/elbows.
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.
I always thought if Apple did touch on the macbook it would come with a redesign to merge macOS with touch elements from the iPad. As it stands this feels like more of an afterthought.
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.
I thought that they would basically replace macbooks with ipad pros. Sort of like microsoft surface, a tablet-laptop combo. Not sure what their plan is now.
Same, my latency in the home (which is where I spend 99% of my time), even over WiFi, is generally <5ms, which is plenty low enough to stream the desktop to the laptop via Sunshine+Moonlight and even control fast-paced FPS games.
Does this mean that macOS will natively support touch screens so I don't need to look anymore for after-market solutions[0] for mine? That would be cool.
I’m not sure. macOS has had some degree of support for touch screens internally for a very long time (2010) but required hardware specific drivers.
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.
A macbook with apple pencil support that can be held like a tablet (turn the screen 180 degrees?) would be incredible for digital drawing. Hope to see it in my lifetime.
Years ago like 2010, 11 Microsoft had demo touchscreen computers running an art application in the Kids Room at the MOMA museum in NYC. It was responsive to actual brushes and was quite an interesting interface. As far as I knew it was a beta.
I see. The iPad and Macbook are converging. Interesting. I can’t say I get the use case but perhaps it will fold in some interesting way that makes it usable. I have no problem using a touchscreen occasionally but in the standard configuration the screen will wobble if you touch it.
Apple's been trying (in vain?) to sell iPad users a Magic Keyboard for six years and add a windowing system to iPadOS to pretend it's a real operating system, so I suppose they're trying to bridge the gap from the opposite (Macbook) side.
Ipads have been oled for years now. The samsung galaxy s has literally had an oled for 16 years now. If these screens aged badly, don't you think Apple/Samsung either would've switched away or built more burn-in resistant oleds?
Also brightness degradation on especially a tandem oled is unlikely within its reasonable lifespan. Tandem oleds are the literal peak of display technology for this size of panel. Image quality wise, there's no downside.
OLED displays now are tandem OLED displays which stack multiple layers. This means you don't need to exponentially crank up the voltage to provide more brightness which also increases lengivity of the panel (and increases battery life).
I have a, what, 2019 LG CX OLED TV. 55". Used in anger as computer monitor since new. With complete disregard for burnout. It's… perfectly fine? I can't see any dimming or patterns or faults at all.
Back in the day this would have been a “One more thing…” announcement. Apple must be upset with the hardware prices to bury this a late October press release.
2000 nits peak screen brightness with nano texture is going to look incredible outdoors. Not sure I'm feeling the need to upgrade yet but glad the brightness+coating combo will continue to be a thing
Hoping for a follow-up convertible touchscreen pen-capable MacBook Air. iPad Pro is just too limiting with iPadOS and it's thicker and heavier than a MacBook Air or any of my convertible Chromebooks.
> Up to 13 more hours than Intel-based MacBook Pro
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?
Some of my students use touchscreen Windows laptops. They seem to be OK with them but I never found them usable particularly for coding. A touchscreen laptop has ergonomically bad design. Or it could just be a generational thing.
The full spec is significantly more expensive in my local currency (Denmark, DKK) than in USD. Something like $7500 even after sales tax of 25% is added.
Aside: Does anyone else find the new AI texture explosions Apple's using on their marketing pages now a little unsettling and un-Apple? I guess I'm desperate for at least one tech brand to feel / remain human.
Curious to see if oled actually helps battery life. My experience with OLEDs are they absolutely drain power on white scenes. My oled monitor pulls ~90w on a white screen, you can feel it get hot like an old CRT.
I had a Dell OLED 4k laptop 4 years ago that depending on screen brightness would absolutely murder the battery.
Doesn't look like it folds back or does tent mode. Those are some good use cases for touchscreen PCs, being able to walk around in tablet mode in something like a warehouse, for example.
Funny how half the press release tries to hide the notch/island/whatever its called. I almost thought they gave up on that, then I finally saw it like 7 or 8 images in.
Got the m5 pro like last month. Actually no FOMO this time. I wonder how the AMOLED looks irl, I bet it's sweet but the current pro motion is already top notch.
"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 demos. 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's ergonomically terrible."
—Jobs
The fancy OLED display would actually be a potential reason to finally upgrade from my M1 Pro but even if I could afford it, I find prices like that hard to swallow (and I couldn't care less about touch in a laptop fwiw). Guess I'll buy one used in a year or three, maybe.
looks like they brought back the glowing apple logo on the lid for the first time in a decade!
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...
I literally cannot imagine touching my macbook's screen on purpose. Dual screen phone. Touchscreen macbook. Fairy princess UI. Apple used to lead the way in design language and functionality. They're absolutely rizzless nowadays.
Touch screen on a laptop is objectively disgusting. I have a Lenovo yoga X1 or something with a touch screen (and it folds backwards into a tablet) hence the name. It is stupid and useless. I can imagine Steve Jobs turning in his grave right now.
If you want a screen to touch get a fucking tablet.
Please tell me the rounded corners at the bottom of the screen are just for the effect and they aren't actually physically like that. This would be worse than the current notch, you can even see them clipping the text in the LM Studio picture.
Why do videos of screens look amazing even when viewed on an inferior monitor? This is not a new observation of mine - even as a child, I'd see fuzzy, snowy commercials for big screen TVs on my 13 inch color TV, and they always looked so much better than the TV I was watching them on.
Aww dammit I was waiting for a body refresh with M6, but this is still M5…
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've noticed this with a lot of products lately. It seems rare for a new release to strictly supersede or maintain performance on all attributes on a successor.
I am pretty sure Steve is rolling in his grave. It's pretty saddening to see Apple losing its vision, what is making MacBook Pro different than other laptops in the market? Apple silicon? Not anymore.
MacOS? Probably, but it's getting worse too.
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.
This is disappointing, I was hoping they were going to do something interesting with the display hinge to make it make sense as a touch interface. Can’t see it being useful as is.
So unbelievably disappointing, right after the disappointment of the Duo. I was in the market for both, the early reviews of the Duo stopped me from upgrading, and the landing page of this new Mac has stopped me from upgrading that.
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)
Apple said its skipping M6 for Macbook Pro -- there is no m6 pro/max -- so the next chip MBP will get is m7 in 2027. So I would hold off on buying one until next year. This is essentially a 2025 product refresh.
Touch screens are dead, no one ever said good things about them. Also, I think the best setup now (regardless macos or linux) is having your heavy lifting compute at home and you use something like macbook air and ssh into it, that way you get the best portability and also you are secure if your laptop is lost.
If the screen were detachable and you get a giant 16'' ipad, I would consider it. I do not want touch interface on a laptop and will never buy this. I do want non-touch OLED screen though.
Dynamic island sounds like it will be huge distraction if animations will play there.
The product itself is fine, I have no strong opinions on it. But what a hell of a disappointing unveiling.
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.
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.
So actually, you are harmed by this decision every day you use a Windows 10/11 laptop. You live with this every day. You just don't know what you're missing.
However, I still feel like Apple is in their Microsoft era where they're making some of the same mistakes Microsoft have made in the past 20 years.
Aero -> Liquid Glass
Ads in the OS -> Ads in core applications
Fullscreen ads for Microsoft services in the OS -> banner ads for Apple services in the OS
Dark patterns for Windows 11 upgrades -> Dark patterns for macOS 26 upgrades
Windows Mixed Reality -> Vision Pro
I could also say Surface Duo -> iPhone Duo but at this time it's too early to tell. I also think that a touchscreen Mac is a mistake. Not because it's something Microsoft already did but because the reason a MacBook does not need a touchscreen is because Apple has best-in-class trackpads.
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.
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
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.
ive never seen someone use a laptop touch screen effectively
just get an ipad
The marketing material shows a person playing a virtual piano with their fingers..
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.
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.
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.
I mean the entry level price for this is $2,899, "only" $400 more than the comparable non-touch MBP.
* 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:
Ye Olde:IF memory prices drop, apple product prices will likely drop. And it will stay lighter.
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)
https://support.apple.com/en-us/111883
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.
[0]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/m0zq6aEnGWs/sddefault.jpg
But I also only have an m1 16” so it may not be a brand new change
Edit: I was incorrect, I thought I had clicked the 16" spec page but had not. The 16" MacBook is still at 100 Wh.
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.
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.
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
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?
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
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.
I'm sure there are good use-cases, but IMO everyday average-home-user computing is not one of them.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
Non-touchscreen laptops are an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.
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...
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.
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.
I mostly use MBPs now and resort to using my iPad as a mirrored screen to draw on slides. It is hacky.
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.
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.
My boss wont have a non touchscreen laptop purely for ease of scrolling up and down reports and around spreadsheets
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.
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 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...
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.
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.
(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".)
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.
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.
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.
Apple better have some better use examples than THAT.
Repliers: stop pretending you make music. You don’t and it shows. Producers are going to love this.
- Steve Jobs
Apple: check our new vertical touchscreen!
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
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
"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."
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 ^^
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.
[1]: https://daringfireball.net/2015/04/the_apple_watch
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?
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'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.
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.
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.
(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).
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.
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
I don't get why they're doing this other than making another step towards unifying iOS and macOS (and visionOS?).
[1] https://mastodon.social/@allenu/117519656286195439
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZI5uUSdEo
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.
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.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/apples-15-inch-imac-g3-had-a-3d-t...
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
Meanwhile they just added a touchscreen. No new hinge. No new UI. Not even a Pen support.
WTF are they doing?
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€.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> “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.
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
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.
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.
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 guess if users don’t touch it, then you just have to keep trying with something bigger to touch.
Touch while still being a normal laptop does feel odd. I would be curious who wants touch in this form factor.
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.
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.
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
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.
is graphene os ready for primetime yet?
(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!
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
And if so, has Apple changed the policy from developer opt-in to automatic on touchscreen Macs.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
Brothers, there is a market beyond your bash shells!
;p
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.
Those greasy finger marks are really going to dazzle like never before.
[0]: https://www.touch-base.com/
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.
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.
Also brightness degradation on especially a tandem oled is unlikely within its reasonable lifespan. Tandem oleds are the literal peak of display technology for this size of panel. Image quality wise, there's no downside.
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?
What gives?
> Draw. Sketch and annotate directly onscreen.
I would probably never touch the screen with my fingers, but I would draw with it. Would also be really useful during calls.
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
I had a Dell OLED 4k laptop 4 years ago that depending on screen brightness would absolutely murder the battery.
Dynamic island looks nice.
You'd think Apple would understand the form factor.
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!
The price is really high too.
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.
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
This is so bizarre. I'll never understand Apple fans.
What exactly does Apple do different again?
If you want a screen to touch get a fucking tablet.
- 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)
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.
Besides holding my arms up it’s also painful to keep my wrists bent to get a better angle for my fingers to articulate.
Really... I would expect this naming from an Onion article.
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