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points by mattrighetti 1 day ago | 0 comments

Am I the only one that has never ever felt the need to have a touch screen display on my Mac?

EDIT: I already can’t stand when people touch my display just to point at something, I definitely don’t want my own oily fingerprints smeared all over a screen I spend all day looking at.

[–] dcss_gardener 1 day ago

You're going to get a ton of affirmatives but remember this is also the forum that considers removable batteries one of the most important smartphone features. Our opinions about consumer tech are outliers.

[–] jeroenhd 1 day ago

Touch screens on laptops are a bit like 4k screens or >60Hz screens. You don't expect to get much out of them, but once you're used to them, going back is annoying.

Everything from my watch to my printer has a touch screen, it's kind of strange how long Apple has held out, especially with the ultra expensive market they target with their laptops.

[–] akamaka 1 day ago

Whenever I had to use a laptop with a touch screen for work, I immediately turned it off. I have no idea what my use case would be as a coder, and it doesn’t seem like Apple has come up with anything new to give me a reason to try it again.

[–] gizajob 1 day ago

I’ve felt for years that they were holding out until they could make a dual touchscreen MacBook work and be a peak experience. I was expecting an iPhone duo type MacBook. That hasn’t happened.

Who plays a musical keyboard on a vertical surface? Nobody.

[–] jeroenhd 1 day ago

Some of their examples are absolutely ridiculous, for sure. The lack of a fold-back design, like the surface, with pencil support is also a surprise to me. I suppose they'd still rather sell you an iPad with an operating system they don't let you control rather than bringing their laptop segment up to par with the competition.

But having had to emulate pinch-zoom in an Android emulator has made me wish I had my touch screen laptop back. Emulated touch events also don't work like real touch events, so web dev can also be a bit annoying sometimes.

[–] lucasoshiro 1 day ago

My company once gave me a touchscreen laptop and I did know that until I touched the screen by accident. It was fun to play but I never found it useful. I heard many people saying the same, some of them even preferred to disable. I find it uncomfortable to touch a laptop screen... The only thing seems to benefit from that for me is photo editing apps or 3D modelling.

So, I'm curious about how you use it. Do you have a specific use case where touchscreen made you life easier?

[–] jeroenhd 1 day ago

It's just small things. I don't have a touch screen laptop anymore, but being able to physically tap things or reaching over to touch things just felt natural.

I have a phone with a QWERTY keyboard that also acts as a trackpad, yet I rarely use mouse mode on it. Seeing kids interact with laptops for the first time and touching the screen expecting them to work like every other device they use is also probably a sign of the times.

I understand why not everyone likes them, though. Some people prefer to disable their trackpads too, or prefer ball mice, or prefer mouse gestures over keyboard gestures. To each their own. I welcome the diversity.

[–] linguae 1 day ago

I would love a tablet running macOS, which I prefer over Windows and desktop Linux. I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 7. It performed fine under Windows 10, though performance suffered when upgrading to Windows 11. The Surface Pro is a nice piece of hardware, but I wish it had macOS instead of Windows. The iPad Pro definitely has enough processing power to run macOS, but it runs iPadOS, which is too restrictive for me as a developer.

If Apple went through the effort making macOS touchscreen-ready for this new MacBook Pro, then perhaps we’ll see a tablet with macOS one day. I’d buy an iPad Pro with macOS in a heartbeat.

[–] xutopia 1 day ago

I remember Steve Jobs saying something about how silly it would be.

[–] nomilk 1 day ago

He said the same of the stylus during the iPhone launch, but it eventually came to life (just in a much more specific setting/use case)

[–] asdff 1 day ago

The pencil is bad enough but how it charges itself is even worse. Lets turn my ipad into a brittle stingray. It's up there with the mouse having to charge upside down for apples top own goals.

[–] K7PJP 1 day ago

He said if the device required a stylus, they failed. The pencil is useful for certain applications, but not required.

[–] jgrahamc 1 day ago

I use Mac mostly, but I also use a Panasonic Toughbook (https://blog.jgc.org/2025/07/ode-to-anti-mac-panasonic-tough...) and it has a touch screen display and I find it's a useful addition to how I interact with it.

[–] mcv 1 day ago

I've had a Thinkpad with a touch screen and I loved it. Sometimes touching something on the screen is a lot faster than grabbing the mouse, moving the cursor, and then clicking.

Although it's a lot more useful on laptops that can fold into a tablet, which neither MacBooks nor my Thinkpad can do.

[–] dsego 1 day ago

Their marketing web page shows someone poking with their fingers at the virtual keyboard and it's so cringe. Who is going to use their laptop that way? For pro workflows? Pros have midi keyboards with pads and those are even not that expensive.

[–] TuxSH 1 day ago

You're not alone. Though, I wonder if this means better coating, the coating on the existing MacBooks (but not the M1's) get damaged far too easily when in a bag.

[–] mattrighetti 1 day ago

> the coating on the existing MacBooks (but not the M1's) get damaged far too easily when in a bag

How so? I have an M2, carry it in a bag daily but my screen is still pristine

[–] TuxSH 1 day ago

Not sure when it started (at least the M4 is affected by this) but all the macbooks I had (personal+work) since the M4 have display dimples after being put in a stuffed backpack.

Meanwhile the M1 Air I had for more than 3 years never saw the issue.

[–] karpovv-boris 1 day ago

especially with the same lid angle. Look at the pictures, they didn't even know how people use touchscreen on the laptops, it's funny

[–] randerson 1 day ago

If you've ever watched a kid try to use a MacBook, they instinctively touch the screen because they were raised on iPads.

[–] 1e1a 1 day ago

I need a screen which zaps me whenever I touch it, to discouraged me from accidentally leaving fingerprints at the edge.

[–] SirMaster 1 day ago

Even when developing a mobile app and using the simulator, you never wished you could touchscreen the simulator?

[–] sroussey 1 day ago

Yes, I agree, but I caught myself touching the screen twice this week forgetting it was a Mac...

[–] causal 1 day ago

1) Youth expect all screens to be touch. They are learning how to use computers in school on touchscreen Chromebooks. Apple knows they must adapt to user expectation.

2) AI is forcing UI evolution that is hard to anticipate, but I suspect will be served well by having more kinds of inputs available in advance.

[–] whalesalad 1 day ago

when i'm in a supine position like in bed with my knees up... i will unfold my framework pro to 180º and use my thumb to scroll docs etc. only downside is smudge marks on the screen which rly irritate me.

[–] egypturnash 1 day ago

Nope. Never had any desire for one.