What was once an abomination in the Apple house, is now being considered by the tech giant. According to a report from Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, Apple is working on adding touch screens to its Mac computers.
This was something that co-founder Steve Jobs once called “ergonomically terrible” even though other Windows-based OEMs have embraced and released their touchscreen devices.
The report claims that a new MacBook Pro with an OLED display could be the first touchscreen Mac in 2025. The report further states that “Apple engineers are actively engaged in the project, indicating that the company is seriously considering producing touch-screen Macs for the first time, according to people familiar with the efforts.
The first Touchscreen Mac would retain a traditional laptop design with a trackpad and a keyboard, but the display would most likely use the same touch input technology like the iPhone or iPad.
Over the years, Apple has continually dismissed the idea of a touchscreen Mac. Steve Jobs said in 2010, that “touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical” due to arm fatigue associated with holding up a finger to the screen. Apple chief design officer John Ive reiterated this in 2016 in an interview with CNET.
According to John Ive, when Apple started playing around with the idea of putting touchscreens on a Mac, it tried to find a proper use case scenario for it. However, it realized that touchscreens on Mac were not “particularly useful or a proper application of multi-touch.”
And in 2021, Apple’s hardware engineering chief John Ternus said the Mac was “totally optimized for indirect input” and said the company did not feel there was a good reason to change that at the time.
If Apple progresses with this, it would be a major reversal in philosophy for the company. Well we would have to wait for Apple to confirm this. You never know, plans can change.
