Apple may finally be ready to abandon its long-standing traditional laptop designs by bringing touchscreens to MacBooks.
According to Bloomberg, the tech giant may launch MacBooks with touchscreens by 2025 as a part of a new MacBook Pro lineup. This revamp could reportedly see the company switching from LCD to OLED displays for 14-inch and 16-inch Pro models.
This news comes just days after a Bloomberg report indicated that Apple wants to produce proprietary displays for Apple Watches and iPhones. There was no mention of the company planning new displays for its Mac lineup at the time.
Anti-touchscreen sentiment
Apple executives have long maintained that MacBooks don’t need a touchscreen. Instead, the tech giant encouraged customers in demand for touchscreen devices to try iPads.
The closest Apple ever got to bringing a touchscreen to a Mac was the TouchBar on the keyboard, which is slowly being phased out on MacBook Pros.
However, technology has evolved, and Apple introduced devices like the Apple Pencil, the type of product that co-founder Steve Jobs once hated. More recently, Apple senior VP Craig Federighi referred to touchscreen PCs as “experiments”, adding he’s “not into touchscreens”.
In for a change
Now, with competitors such as Microsoft building long lines of touchscreen laptops, it looks like Apple may have to shift its approach. One pro is that iOS apps could work better on MacBooks if Apple decides to go ahead with the rumoured plan. The company introduced Project Catalyst in 2020 to bring iOS apps to laptop systems.
In doing so, the iPhone maker walks a fine line. On the one hand, it has made iPads more potent in recent years, giving them laptop-class processors, decent add-on keyboards and several laptop software features. On the other hand, Apple must differentiate between iPads and MacBooks in order to maintain both brands.
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