Why Macs Don’t Have Touchscreens

Apple first introduced touchscreens for their devices in 2007 with the iPhone and iPod Touch. Since then, they’ve added the iPad and Apple Watch as touchscreen devices. But one Apple product has never integrated a touchscreen – the Mac. And by the looks of it, they may never. 

Rival computers like the Microsoft Surface Pro and HP Spectre have made laptops with touchscreens somewhat of a normal thing, but Apple doesn’t seem to feel pressure to follow suit. Why not? It’s a deliberate choice based on the company’s history, users, and product lineup.

Steve Jobs shot down the idea of a Mac with a touchscreen.

In 2010, Jobs addressed this question head-on. “We’ve done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn’t work. Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives great demo, but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue, and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off. It doesn’t work, it’s ergonomically terrible,” Jobs said.

More recently, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi also denounced the idea. Federighi said ​​”we had designed and evolved the look for macOS in a way that felt most comfortable and natural to us, not remotely considering something about touch.”

Keeping ergonomic concerns in mind, Apple actually did attempt to integrate a form of touchscreen tech into Macbooks. The Touch Bar was added to the Macbook Pro in 2016. Replacing the function keys, this OLED strip above the laptop keys is meant to allow for greater diversity and efficiency of functions across different apps. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t. User feedback has been mostly negative since the Touch Bar’s rollout, and Apple has been slowly walking back from the idea, with rumors suggesting they’ll completely do away with it before long. Perhaps this serves as greater proof that touchscreens and laptops just don’t jive for Apple.

Do Apple users even want touchscreens on their Macs?

For iOS and iPadOS, software is built from the ground up with touch in mind. So the functionality of iPhones and iPads is mostly smooth and intuitive. Although most PC laptops offer touchscreens now, the touch feature can feel more like an afterthought than an intentional design choice.

You can make great arguments for and against touch screen notebooks. There’s the ease of app-switching and note-taking, versus the constant struggle with a smudgy screen. Many PC owners who have laptops with touch admit to rarely using their touchscreens, while others find the feature indispensable. 

In any case, it seems that if a loud enough majority of Apple users wanted a Mac with touch, Apple would listen. And since it hasn’t happened yet, Apple appears justified in their claim that Apple users simply don’t want to lift their arm to touch a screen when they can use a trackpad.

While the iPad is more productivity-driven than ever, Apple still draws a hard line between Macs and iPads.

With the M1 chip, Apple is pushing the new iPad Pro as the most powerful tablet to date. Typically, computing power and performance is a key distinction between a tablet and a notebook. But if your iPad is strong enough to handle your work apps, why not work on it?

Loads more features enhance the latest iPad’s productivity. From a thunderbolt port that supports external hardware/storage, to the Magic Keyboard and Apple Pencil. But it’s still been marketed as a high-functioning tablet, not a replacement for a Macbook. There’s still one key difference between the two – a touchscreen.

If Macs had touchscreens, why would you need an iPad? For Apple’s business model, it’s apparent that these products need to stay in their own lanes. While the line of distinction between tablet and notebook continues to blur in the PC world, Apple remains committed to keeping the two separate. At least for the foreseeable future.