MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch

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.

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.

But there is an intermediate point somewhere between “no touch” and “all touch” that I think could make sense for a modern laptop that is created for a generation of people who are brought up with iPhones and iPads. I can’t imagine this feature being useful for me, but I would appreciate the better OLED screen on my regular MacBook Pro. And a lighter machine to boot. And if I can turn off the touch features, then I’d be pretty happy with the hardware — if not the price.

But for example, as iOS Developer, this is something I could use to test apps in different simulators.

So, it seems Apple is not promoting the touch screen as the main control, but just as something additional to the trackpad and keyboard. Like 'This will be useful in specific scenarios'.

ive never seen someone use a laptop touch screen effectively

just get an ipad

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

Agreed. There has been a long history of the clarity and usability of teams having a single focus. I mean we’re still feeling the negative downstream effects of the “3D touch” last seen on the XS.

For those who are too young to know what I’m talking about: you missed out on a level of elegance and refinement that probably won’t be replicated

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.

Oled:

    Height: 1.50 cm (0.59 inch)
    Width: 31.08 cm (12.24 inches)
    Depth: 21.63 cm (8.52 inches)
    Weight (M5 Pro): 1.38 kg (3.0 pounds)
    Weight (M5 Max): 1.40 kg (3.1 pounds)

    Height: 1.55 cm (0.61 inch)
    Width: 31.26 cm (12.31 inches)
    Depth: 22.12 cm (8.71 inches)
    Weight (M6): 1.55 kg (3.4 pounds)
    Weight (M5 Pro): 1.60 kg (3.5 pounds)
    Weight (M5 Max): 1.62 kg (3.6 pounds)

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)

  PROLED: 0.59" x 12.24" x 8.5"
  2019:   0.59" x 11.97" x 8.36"

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.

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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'm sure there are good use-cases, but IMO everyday average-home-user computing is not one of them.

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.

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.

My retired parents. When they borrow my laptop, I see them trying to touch my regular non-touch screen.

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.

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.

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.

Non-touchscreen laptops are an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

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 did find it was handy to scroll with the touch screen occasionally. More an artifact of being a regular iPad user than anything else.

But if I need to do anything else I immediately go to the trackpad or 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).

A bit of a shame there is no M6 Pro and M6 Max...

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.

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.

I mostly use MBPs now and resort to using my iPad as a mirrored screen to draw on slides. It is hacky.

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.

So it is just table stakes at this point.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Seems like it would be useful for app development being able to do touchscreen for the iOS and iPadOS simulators.

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.

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.

- 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."

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.

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?

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

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.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZI5uUSdEo

probably the only reason -- and this is mitigated with a mouse.

For Apple, product & hardware come first, marketing and positioning is secondary.

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.

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

Meanwhile they just added a touchscreen. No new hinge. No new UI. Not even a Pen support.

WTF are they doing?

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

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€.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/apples-15-inch-imac-g3-had-a-3d-t...

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.

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).

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 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.