Poll: Would you be willing to buy a touchscreen Mac?

For years, Apple has been against the idea of having a Mac with touchscreen support. Instead, the company has always argued that the iPad and Mac should be separate devices – even though the iPad now basically functions like a Mac when attached to a keyboard and mouse. But according to recent rumors, Apple is finally considering bringing touchscreen to the Mac, and we want to know what you think of that.

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A touchscreen MacBook could be on the way

Back in 2010, after the iPad was announced, Steve Jobs said that the company wouldn’t launch a touchscreen Mac because touching a vertical surface for long periods of time would make users feel tired. “It’s ergonomically terrible,” Jobs said during a keynote. Apple’s CEO then said that the trackpad gestures introduced with OS X Lion would be a better way to bring the Mac closer to the iPad experience.

As noted by 9to5Mac’s Chance Miller, Apple marketing executive Tom Boger explained in 2021 that the iPad is the world’s “best touch computer” and the Mac is “totally optimized for direct input.” And for years, Apple has insisted that iPad and Mac offer different experiences. But every year, both devices become closer, and there’s a group of users who want to have macOS running on iPad.

Earlier today, Bloomberg reported that Apple has engineers working on touchscreen Macs. The first computer with touchscreen support would be a new MacBook Pro with an OLED display expected to be introduced in 2025. More details are unclear at this point, but the report mentions that Apple still has no plans to merge the iPad and the Mac.

9to5Mac’s Take

Despite what Apple says, the iPad came to show how touchscreen is extremely intuitive for some interactions. For example, after using the iPad for long periods of time, I constantly try to zoom in using the pinch gesture on my Mac’s screen. Scrolling through a video editor timeline is also more interesting with a touch screen.

But Apple can take this experience even further, similar to what Microsoft has done with Surface Studio. Imagine a touchscreen iMac that can recline and has Apple Pencil support. That would be killer for professional designers.

Of course, from a sales standpoint, Apple is right to keep the iPad and Mac as separate devices. This way, most professionals end up buying both devices – but not because each is better for a particular task, but because Apple limits what users can do with each device. Even so, there’s still room to bring touchscreen to at least some of the Macs.

Would you buy a touchscreen Mac?

With all this in mind, would you buy a touchscreen Mac? What do you think about this idea? Let us know in the poll and also in the comments section below.

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