According to a Bloomberg report, Apple could introduce a MacBook Pro laptop with a touchscreen as early as 2025.
Teams within Apple are working on the project, and the first iteration would reportedly have a touchscreen, trackpad, and keyboard.
If implemented, the change would represent a dramatic U-turn for Apple, which has long said that touchscreen computers are less ergonomically sound, despite the fact that Windows laptops from rival manufacturers now come standard with touchscreens.
“We really feel that the ergonomics of using a Mac are that your hands are rested on a surface, and that lifting your arm up to poke a screen is a pretty fatiguing thing to do,” Apple’s head of software Craig Federighi said in 2018, adding that he’s “not into touchscreens” on PCs.
More recently, he was asked at a conference whether Apple would release a touchscreen laptop, and he said, “who’s to say?”
However, Apple’s Mac business doesn’t require a boost. When Apple switched from using Intel CPUs in the majority of its machines to its own silicon, Mac sales increased. The modification decreased overheating and increased battery life. In fiscal year 2022, Apple’s Mac division brought in $40.1 billion, an increase of 14% over fiscal year 2021.
To support finger taps instead of mouse clicks, which require larger buttons, Mac would need to make considerable software adjustments. Apple’s iPads and iPhones run an operating system created for touchscreens, whereas macOS can only be used with a mouse and keyboard at the moment.