According to Bloomberg, Apple appears to have changed its mind after years of opposition and is currently developing a new MacBook Pro with a touch panel.
The MacBook Pro is scheduled for release in 2025, and “if all goes according to plan,” the company will likely add touch screens to other Macs, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman(Opens in a new window). As Gurman points out, the majority of major computer manufacturers, including Microsoft, Google, Asus, and Dell, have offered touch-screen laptops for many years.
The decision makes both logical and strategic sense given that Apple’s present objectives are to synchronise the software and services across all of its devices and increase its market dominance for personal computers. Apple customers must currently purchase a Magic Keyboard, attach it to an iPad, and use a trackpad or mouse that the iPad has supported since 2020 in order to come as close to utilising a laptop with a touch screen as possible.
Years ago, Apple openly mocked the idea of putting touch screens on computers, even as its rivals were introducing touch screens on their laptops and desktop PCs. The business justified its decision to forego touch screens by claiming that doing so would be “ergonomically horrible” and that the macOS wouldn’t provide a satisfactory touch experience in any case.
Apple has experimented with touch screen functionality on Macs in a limited way with the Touch Bar, but has refrained from implementing it fully. The 2016 release of the new MacBook Pro models had a thin OLED strip that fit over the keyboard and let users access tools and programmes and change volume by touching them. In 2021, it was abandoned as a feature, and as of now, all MacBook Pro models have physical buttons.
Additionally, Gurman claims that Apple is getting set to introduce its first microLED displays, which have “brighter and better colour reproduction and can be seen from more angles.” According to Bloomberg, the displays are expected to debut in an Apple Watch Ultra update at the end of the year before perhaps being introduced to the iPhone “a few years following.”
