Apple exudes confidence in every decision it makes, providing valid reasons and holding the line right up until a new product changes everything.
A touchscreen MacBook will never be made by Apple, right up until the moment that one is made. Apple exudes confidence in every decision it makes and stands behind each choice, providing very logical reasons to back up the current direction. An iPad originally did not use a stylus and Steve Jobs expressed that it was a sign of bad design if one was included with a tablet. Of course, the Apple Pencil is just another name for a pressure-sensitive stylus and it works beautifully with an iPad.
Touchscreens were being researched back in the earliest days of computing. It makes sense to use direct input from a hand or finger to manipulate items, even if they exist only on a computer display. However, there is the issue of blocking the view with the finger and hand while trying to interact with a tiny object on the screen. There are ways around this problem and Apple's design guidelines for the iPad suggest a certain size and spacing of buttons to make this easier. When selecting text, a bubble pops up above the finger showing the portion of the screen that is obscured. A better way to handle a densely packed screen is with a mouse, touchpad, and keyboard which is why those are still the dominant forms of interacting with a computer.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple's SVP of Hardware Engineering was asked about a touchscreens for the MacBook. The response was the same one that Apple gives every time this question is raised. Apple makes the best touchscreen interface for its iPad and the best indirect input computer for its Mac and there is no reason to change that. As mentioned above, Apple does change these strong and long-held positions on occasion and a touchscreen MacBook or Mac desktop might appear someday.
Pros & Cons Of A Touchscreen Mac
Currently, Apple doesn't offer an option for touchscreen input on a Mac. Even when connecting an iPad by using the Sidecar feature, the touchscreen doesn't accept input. An Apple Pencil works and provides the degree of accuracy that helps tap the smaller controls of a Mac's user interface. Microsoft faced similar issues with Windows on touchscreens, where the interface didn't lend itself to using that option even though it was there. On the other hand, it's nice to have a choice, and directly tapping a button or placing the cursor should be the fastest and easiest way to interact. It just needs work and that is what happened with Windows 11. The operating system evolved to work better with touch input.
Apple has a very good touch interface designed, tested, and in use with iPadOS and it could easily borrow from its experience and research to facilitate a touch-friendly macOS. That might not lead to welcome changes, however, and splitting focus can weaken both input options if not planned very carefully. Scrolling with a finger on the display is quite comfortable, yet jumbo-sized buttons use up precious screen space. There isn't an easy and clear value to adding a touchscreen to a Mac and there is something to be said for a smudge-free screen. Apple doesn't seem to be developing a touchscreen MacBook currently, but that possibility is most likely being researched and updated periodically as the company weighs the pros and cons.
Apple Explains Why It hasn’t added a touchscreen or Face ID to the Mac
While the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro updates have been broadly well-received by reviewers and consumers alike, there are still questions about missing features like a touchscreen and Face ID. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Apple executives justified the company’s resistance to adding these features to the Mac.
While Chromebook and Windows PC manufacturers have broadly adopted touchscreens in laptops, Apple has not. Instead, the company is focusing on “indirect input” on the Mac and saving touchscreen technology for the iPad. John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, said in the interview:
“We make the world’s best touch computer on an iPad. It’s totally optimized for that. And the Mac is totally optimized for indirect input. We haven’t really felt a reason to change that.”
What about Face ID? With the MacBook Pro now sporting a notch in the display, it seems like Face ID could come sooner rather than later – but Apple seems to think that Touch ID is better suited for the laptop form factor. Tom Boger, Apple’s VP of Mac and iPad product marketing, said in the interview that “Touch ID is more convenient on a laptop since your hands are already on the keyboard.”
Other tidbits from Joanna Stern’s excellent reviews for the WSJ include Apple’s continued “work” in collaborating with independent repair shops:
As I found a few months ago, if you spill water all over MacBooks and don’t have AppleCare, you could save hundreds of dollars by going to an independent repair shop—but only if the shop has the right parts and information to fix them. They often don’t. Mr. Boger said the company continues to “do work in that space.”
There are no plans for a water-resistant MacBook:
Both of them stared at me blankly on Zoom when I asked about a water-resistant laptop. “That hasn’t been on many people’s lists,” Mr. Boger said.
On the lack of upgradability in the new MacBook Pros:
You can’t, for example, upgrade the RAM after buying. Both Mr. Boger and Mr. Ternus said the “unified memory architecture” is part of the reason for the improved performance.
Apple Isn't Planning To Make A Touchscreen MacBook Pro
Detail of a 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer (with M1 chip), taken on January 20, 2021.
Apple can be seen on the back of a new MacBook Air.
Apple fans have been requesting that the company make a touchscreen MacBook Pro. However, they still don't seem to relent.
14 October 2021, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rottweil: The logo of the US company Apple can be seen on the back of a new MacBook Air.
This is despite Apple constantly claiming that the new MacBook Pro was created with a lot of customer input, writes AppleInsider.
Apple said that they designed the new device by focusing on what a lot of users need, further claiming that the company listens a lot to its customers. But on the subject of touchscreens, the Big Tech giant still refuses to add it for one reason: optimization.
John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, states that the reason they haven't added a touchscreen to the MacBook Pro is because of the existence of the iPad.
The company says that they've already created the world's "best touch computer" in the iPad, further adding that they never really "felt the need" to change the MacBook Pro's design to add a touchscreen.
They say that the MacBook Pro is optimized for indirect input, and that's that.
Why Does Apple Keep Refusing To Make A Touchscreen MacBook?
This has been the question on a lot of industry analysts' minds for a while now, given that touchscreen laptop technology is becoming more mainstream.
According to Digital Trends, making a touchscreen MacBook will allegedly be an "ergonomic nightmare." They say that it has the potential to break user workflow because of the constant need to switch between a keyboard, mouse, and a screen.
Detail of a 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer (with M1 chip), taken on January 20, 2021.
In the end, Digital Trends claims, the addition of a touchscreen to a MacBook Pro could prove uncomfortable for users in the long run.
Apple, in fact, has also been saying this for years--even way back during the days of the late Steve Jobs.
Business Insider reported ten years ago that Jobs believes a touchscreen laptop simply doesn't work. They say that after extensive user testing, they found out that touch surfaces don't really work well vertically and could cause fatigue in the long run.
Jobs even adds, "it's ergonomically terrible."
A Different Tradeoff
So, Apple won't be making a touchscreen MacBook Pro anytime soon. What are they giving users in return, aside from hardware upgrades per new generation?
This is where third-party repairs come in. Apple might not be exactly the kind of company that endorses user right-to-repair, but now, they have. Their efforts, however, still seem to be lacking, and some members of the top management are aware of that.
That's because even if Apple does allow users to have their devices repaired by third-party providers, the company employs a few tricks to allegedly "discourage" it.
For one, anyone who takes their iPhone 13 to a non-Apple-accredited repair store for a screen replacement, the device's FaceID will be disabled, reports ComputerWorld. Some people initially thought this was merely a glitch, but extensive testing showed that it wasn't--it was deliberately put there.
Apple’s Curious Resistance To Creating A Touch Screen Mac
A few weeks back I took my first road trip since March 3, 2020. I traveled to New Orleans to speak at a college event and then to Littleton, Colorado for my nephew's wedding. Before this trip, I traveled between 50-100K miles a year for my job and was what one might call a seasoned traveler. Getting back on the road after a 15-month hiatus was a shock to my system and quickly reminded me of why I hate airports.
However, traveling these many miles every year, and still needing technology for my work, made me what some called a tech road warrior. Over the years I have worked on many portable computing and mobile-related projects for almost all of the major PC and CE companies, starting in 1985 when I had the privilege of consulting on IBM's first laptop computer.
On this first trip back I wanted to travel light so I only took with me the iPad Pro with Apple's new M1 processor on board. iPads have been part of my travel since they were introduced in 2010. While I have used iPad's as a laptop substitute on short trips, I normally always carry a more powerful ultra-lite Mac or Windows laptop to handle more of my advanced computing needs on the road.
On this trip, the iPad Pro with the M1 chip more than handled all of my computing needs. It makes me more convinced that at some point, the MacBook and iPad are on track to merge into some kind of super portable computing platform where apps from both operating systems work seamlessly across either device.
If you use the iPhone or iPad, you know that Apple fundamentally introduced the touch screen interfaces to the masses.
There were many earlier pen-driven touch screen computing devices starting with the GridPad in 1989 and made more popular with the Palm Pilot in the early 1990s. But it took Apple with the touch UI on the iPhone and iPad to make finger touch screen interfaces the most popular way to interact with a mobile device.
Apple's touch UI has to be considered a game-changer for how people interact with mobile computers, yet Apple has consciously decided not to deliver a touch UI on the Mac. After using the iPad Pro for a week on the road, when I came back home and started writing on my Macbook Air, I found myself often reaching up to the screen to touch it to open an app or even try and cut-and-paste something I wanted to put in an email. I have the iPad Pro with the Magic keyboard that has a trackpad on it, but I hardly ever use it and instead opt for using the touchscreen to interact with the iPad Pro.
Apple did add touch capabilities to the Mac via the TouchBar in 2016, which integrated a touch UI into the keyboard but not the screen. At the time of the touch bar introduction, I had a discussion with a couple of high-level Apple executives who, at that time, argued that people did not want to lift their hands from the keyboard to use the screen for interacting with a program. They were adamant that the TouchBar would give people that feature without having to touch the screen. While some did use the touch bar, it never did take off with MacBook users, and Apple took it out of future designs in 2020.
Since the intro of Apple's touch UI, touch screen laptops have become popular in the Windows laptop world. Starting with two-in-ones and now on all types of laptop designs, the optional touch screen UI's are standard fare on about 35% of all laptops produced.
Still, Apple remains a hold-out on adding a touch screen to any MacBooks. They continue to be holding to their philosophy that people don't want to take their hands off the keyboard, and the trackpad or mouse is the more efficient way to interact with all of their clamshell MacBooks. Scanning the most recent rumors on future MacBooks I find no references at all to adding a touch screen to any new Apple laptop.
I do know that Apple has had customers clamoring for touch screen MacBooks who have become indoctrinated into touch UI's via iPads. However, curiously Apple shows no signs that a touch screen MacBook is on the horizon and is sticking to their viewpoint that their users just don't need it.
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