After years of swatting down the idea, ostensibly because it would compete too acutely with its iPad Pro (when paired with a keyboard), Apple’s reportedly developed a touchscreen for the MacBook Pro M6.
I say reportedly because it’s only an unconfirmed, unofficial rumor right now. But it’s a credible rumor.
the Macbook rumor mill
While it’s only a rumor, it’s a rumor courtesy of Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Gurman’s track record when it comes to acting as an oracle regarding the future of yet-to-be-unveiled Apple productsis uncanny, and so I tend to pay more attention to Gurman’s murmurs than many others’.
Apple, true to Apple form, has said bupkis about its plans for next year’s MacBook Pro M6. Widely anticipated but unannounced, it’s all but a certainty, given that Apple has been counting upward from MacBook Pro M1, M2, M3… each successive year that it wedges another new generation of Apple-designed chip into their flagship laptop.
When it comes to touchscreens on computers, I’m out of step with many folks who see them as the killer, must-have feature of any laptop they’d consider.
Don’t your arms get tired from holding them outstretched to use the laptop’s screen as a touchscreen? Those where you can fold the screen entirely back 180 degrees and use the whole computer as a tablet in your lap, sure; in that I can easily see the use.
But using the touchscreen on a laptop otherwise is more tiring than just resting my wrists on my base below the keypad. It’s more tiring, too, than using a tablet that sits on my lap, which doesn’t require holding my arms out.
Gurman says the touchscreen MacBook could debut in late 2026 or early 2027. Given that MacBook Pros tend to debut in the fall of the year, I’d put my money on the former, if anything.
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