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Apple could finally offer a MacBook with a touchscreen, after years of avoiding the subject. This trend is very popular on Windows laptops.
Bloomberg reports that Apple engineers are working on the touchscreen MacBook Pro project and could introduce it as part of the switch from LCD to OLED in the brand’s laptops.
Ever since the iPad arrived in 2010, Apple fans have been wondering if the brand will build a touchscreen MacBook. But for 12 years nothing has come.
“Touch surfaces cannot be used vertically”, said Steve Jobs
And for good reason. When introducing the MacBook Air in 2010, Steve Jobs felt that “touch surfaces could not be used vertically”, due to the fatigue this would cause users to stretch their arms over the keyboard. He had even described the idea as “terrible from an ergonomic point of view”.
Still, some Apple product enthusiasts want a touchscreen MacBook. Especially since other suppliers, like Microsoft with its Surface Laptop Studio, offer a folding mechanism that allows the screen to be changed from a laptop configuration to a tablet configuration.
Apple could therefore launch a touchscreen Mac in 2025, according to information from Bloomberg. This model would retain the traditional trackpad and keyboard. Meanwhile, the move to OLED would bring MacBooks into line with the iPhone and Apple Watch, while the iPad Pro could feature OLED in the first half of 2024.
Times are changing, even for Apple
Apple would also intend to use home screens for the Apple Watch from 2024, and later for the iPhone. But for now, there is no question for the brand to build its own screens for MacBooks and Macs.
For the past decade, Apple executives have maintained Steve Jobs’ argument that the touchscreen isn’t suitable for the Mac. And this, even if the OEMs that use Windows have progressed with laptops that can be converted into touchscreen tablets. In 2012, Apple boss Tim Cook called Microsoft’s early efforts to equip Windows 8 laptops with touchscreens a “compromise”.
Two years later, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, echoed the same argument, saying that the “Mac is kind of a sitting experience” versus the desktop experience. iPad or iPhone, which can be used on the go.
But times have changed. macOS Control Center now looks and behaves more like iOS. And Apple has adopted its own M1 and M2 chips for its Macs, which are in some cases the same as the new iPads. Additionally, iOS apps for the iPhone and iPad already work on Macs with Apple chips, although users must follow Apple’s alternatives to interact with iOS apps. Then there are the quirks of Apple’s lineup. The iPad Pro with a Magic Keyboard, for example, weighs more than the 2022 MacBook Air.
Microsoft, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung and Acer make awesome touchscreen laptops
As Bloomberg notes, Apple may be forced to reassess its former position on touchscreen MacBooks for two main reasons: Apple’s Mac business has grown to be a bigger revenue stream than the iPad, although that this crossover happened in 2015. But also because 10 years after the arrival of the first Windows 8 convertibles, very bad at the time, Apple’s competitors – Microsoft, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung and Acer notably – make awesome touchscreen laptops.
Adding touchscreens could also boost MacBook sales, in an otherwise declining industry after the pandemic-related sales surge of 2020. Over the past year, Macs have been the only brand in the PC category whose shipments increased. The rest of the industry has seen PC shipments steadily decline.
Source: ZDNet.com
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