Apple explains why it hasn’t released a touchscreen Mac (yet?)

The first iPad Pro reviews are here, and as we rounded up earlier today, they focus a lot on the new OLED displays, the M4 chip, and the limitations of iPadOS as a platform. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple marketing executive Tom Boger explained how the iPad compares to the Mac, and touched on whether Apple might ever release a touchscreen Mac.

Boger, who serves as Apple’s vice president of Mac and iPad product marketing, explained to Joanna Stern that Apple doesn’t see the two devices as competitors. Instead, the idea is that the Mac and iPad are complementary. The iPad serves as a “touch-first device” while the Mac is for “indirect manipulation.”

“We don’t see them as competing devices. We see them as complementary devices,” Tom Boger, Apple’s vice president of iPad and Mac product marketing, told me in an interview. The iPad, he said, “has always been a touch-first device” while the Mac is for “indirect manipulation”—aka using a keyboard, mouse and/or trackpad.

This naturally brings up the question: will Apple ever release a touchscreen Mac? Joanna tried to get an answer – even a hint – from Boger multiple times:

He remained firm: iPads are for touch, Macs are not. “MacOS is for a very different paradigm of computing,” he said. He explained that many customers have both types of devices and think of the iPad as a way to “extend” work from a Mac. Apple’s Continuity easily allows you to work across devices, he said.

I did ask Boger if Apple would ever change its mind on the touch-screen situation.

“Oh, I can’t say we never change our mind,” he said.

You can read Joanna’s full review over at The Wall Street Journal.

Touchscreen Mac: What do the rumors say?

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has reported that Apple is actively developing touchscreen Macs. The company is reportedly targeting a release date for a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen in 2025.

The MacBook Pro revamp being tested inside Apple retains a “traditional laptop design” that includes a standard trackpad and keyboard. The difference, of course, is that the screen would “support touch input and gestures – just like an iPhone and iPad,” Gurman has reported.

Should Apple release a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen? Let us know what you think down in the comments.