Apple Announces Its First Touchscreen MacBook Pro (9to5mac.com) 60
Apple has unveiled its first touchscreen MacBook Pro, reversing a position the company held for more than 15 years that touchscreens were poorly suited for laptops. 9to5Mac reports: The new machine features a light-up Apple logo, tandem OLED, and touch input on the display. It runs on the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, like the existing MacBook Pro models without OLED touch displays. John Ternus, who is rocking a new profile picture with the new Mac, shared the first look at the new machine on X. Pricing for the new laptop starts at $2899 for the 14-inch model. The 16-inch version starts at $3399.
Pre-orders are available starting today with deliveries starting November 6.
features a light-up Apple logo (Score:2)
I suppose - Apple can't copy that feature from everyone else....
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My vintage MacBook Pro is now running Linux, so the illuminated apple logo seems to be some kind of false advertising. After all these years it's still my sexiest box. Too bad I don't buy computers for sex? (I would have been willing to go for a dual boot, but Apple made that too difficult, so...)
Funny part is that I regard it as my most secure box and I only use it about once a month for a bit of Internet banking. Rather too bad my banks don't seem to understand much about computer security. Lots of top ne
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The light-up Apple logo has been around for decades.Back when Jobs was around the Apple logo lit up as well because the white plastic Apple logo would let the LCD backlight spill out causing it to light up.
Of course, with OLED this isn't possible anymore so they actually would need to have LEDs behind it to light it up.
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No thanks on the light-up Apple logo for me. I think it started with the Powerbook G3 (I had one, it was a great computer) and it was sort of obnoxious even then. I'm not paid to be a light-up billboard everywhere I go.
No thanks on the laptop touchscreen, either. I understand it on something like a Surface tablet -- almost -- but most of the time I used my Surface with a keyboard, like a regular laptop, and never touched the screen. I think ramming touchscreens down everybody's throats was just a gimmick Mi
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They probably saw no point, but since the laptop is basically just an iPad with more memory and a fixed keyboard now, I guess the writing is on the wall that people might actually want to use it as convertible to iPad mode.
Pre-Greased (Score:3)
The spectacular PROLED XDR display features an industry-leading tandem OLED panel that provides up to 2000 nits peak HDR and SDR brightness, a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, and a wider color gamut covering both P3 and Adobe RGB.
It would be a shame to get your avocado-greased fingerprints all over such a display!
Re:Pre-Greased (Score:4, Interesting)
It probably works with a simple touch pen?
I bought one for 50 cents in Thailand.
Rarely use it on my phone, but might be useful on such a touch screen.
Apple Pencil (Score:4, Funny)
It probably works with a simple touch pen?
But the cool kids will have a $79 Apple Pencil, or better yet a $129 Apple Pencil Pro. ;-)
Apple logo'd microfiber cloth only US$9 (Score:2)
It would be a shame to get your avocado-greased fingerprints all over such a display!
Apple logo'd microfiber cloths have come with some of their products in the past.
:-)
Only US$9 on the Apple Store.
https://www.apple.com/shop/pro... [apple.com]
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It looks like a square of toilet paper.
It has rounded corners (Score:2)
It looks like a square of toilet paper.
Not at all, it has rounded corners. ;-)
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Here's is a comparison of it vs some other microfiber cloths. If you have a nano-texture display it's pretty much a necessity. If not, then any microfiber will work fine. https://imgur.com/hy6Yu [imgur.com]
"reversing a position" (Score:2)
I've only been paying attention since 1990 but every single time a feature they don't offer "is stupid" until they offer it.
Even when I liked the company this Cluster B behavior always bothered me.
If there's an example of "that's a really nice feature our competitor has but we don't offer it yet" I haven't seen it.
The closest I can think of was offering WebObjects for Solaris. Not sure if that ever shipped or we just had a beta. I bailed from that Healthcare IT team when the CIO pulled funding for two-pha
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Makes me think of the "bad faith" trope we see with some frequency from certain folks.
Recently some blowhard Reddit mod(s) went ham on AI in open source, and essentially outlawed discussion of any open source projects that are not purely organic from their little Reddit sandbox. When it was pointed out that this is pretty unworkable since significant open source projects, including Linux, Mesa and others are allowing AI generated code, they backed up. And that's all fine I suppose, except they character
Intel CPUs was my favorite (Score:2)
I've only been paying attention since 1990 but every single time a feature they don't offer "is stupid" until they offer it.
They sometimes are still stupid, but the market wants it to a sufficient degree they have to pay attention.
And sometimes things just go in an unexpected direction. When Apple abandoned the PowerPC based computer specification that would dual boot PowerPC MacOS or PowerPC WIndows NT I mentioned to fellow Mac developers that I guess Apple will have to switch to Intel to get that functionality, to remove the Mac or PC question that limited Mac sales. They were horrified at the idea, until Apple switched to
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"And I liked PowerPC, I was just shocked Intel could keep up. "
LOL PowerPC was explicitly created to only match Intel performance, but do so at lower cost with smaller dies. Intel keeping up was ensured from the start and PowerPC was never really developed beyond IBM's reference designs.
Thinking that PowerPC was somehow better than Intel is pure Apple brainwashing. It was Steve Jobs that lied about PowerPC, not IBM.
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So you're saying PowerPC was lower cost and consumed less power than Intel for the same performance...but it wasn't better?
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"And I liked PowerPC, I was just shocked Intel could keep up. "
LOL PowerPC was explicitly created to only match Intel performance, but do so at lower cost with smaller dies.
No, there was also the notion that the old x86 CISC architecture was strugglng to improve, the the new PowerPC RISC architecture would continue to improve as Intel hit a plateau. Again, Intel amazed everyone by continuing to improve as they have done.
Thinking that PowerPC was somehow better than Intel is pure Apple brainwashing.
No, it was experience from many years of 16-bit and 32-bit (and now 64-bit) x86 assembly language programming.
PowerPC made the slow steady progress that was promised. It was about 20% faster than Intel at the same clock rate. Unfortunately for PowerPC Intel
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It's still stupid. And I'm typing this on a touchscreen notebook, running Linux.
I literally never use the touchscreen unless I have the keyboard folded all the way over, so it's a 14" media player. It's ergonomically terrible.
Wait, is it not even a convertable?? (Score:2)
I must be missing something
Hand cramps (Score:2)
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"You can play a musical instrument like a keyboard on the screen with your fingers, but it’s a little awkward, since the laptop does not convert into a tablet mode"
I'm absolutely perplexed. Then again, I'm not the target audience (meaning my bank account isn't 'mac-sized')
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Because I'm not seeing that part. So you can touch the screen like a $700 ideapad, without the ability to fold the keyboard back? So they're charging $2000 to take features away?
I must be missing something
If you could fold the keyboard all the way back so you could use the touch feature better and more easily, that would turn it into a completely different device. Like............. a Pad. /s
Are there really people touching laptop sceens? (Score:3)
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(Replying from my touch-screen Windows laptop...)
A touchpad on a laptop is *not* a better input device than a touch screen. With a touch screen, I can directly touch the "Reply to this" link in this thread, to "click" it. With a touchpad, I have to "drive" the mouse to that location and then tap. A touchpad is only intuitive because we're used to them, not because they're better than a touch screen.
Also, to scroll, I can simply swipe my figure up or down, dragging the content with it. With a touchpad, I hav
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So you can touch the reply button, and then what do you do?
You have to move your hands back to the keyboard, right next to the pointing device you could have been using.
I'd rather move my index finger two inches from the touchpad to the home row, than 6+ inches to the middle of my screen, with my wrist at a stupid angle, and smearing fingerprints all over the screen, but you do you.
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Everybody has their own preferences, and that's why there are so many form factors of Windows computers. Manufacturers are all competing to produce what people want, and experiment in all kinds of ways. Not all the ideas work, but some of them do. The eraser head mouse is a bust IMO, I hate it. But the 2-in-1 convertible laptop is a winner for me. With Apple, you get what *they* want to give you.
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Does everyone forget that Windows 7 tried to compete with Android? About
As expected (Score:2)
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I see devices on the windows side all the time... in fact I sell them. And you know what? I NEVER see anyone using them in that way; while I do see tons of people using iPads and Android Tablets.
It's almost as if people try it a few times and then determine that the device is too heavy.
SDLeary
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You are correct - it's shit as a tablet.
The one place it's awesome: in an airplane. I can turn my laptop into a 14" media player with a 4k screen, adjustable-angle stand built in, with touch controls, and a thunderbolt connection for attaching a big fat SSD full of media.
Other than that, it's shit.
Does anyone like touch screens on a notebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure there are good uses for them, I just can't think of one. There was an idiotic notebook that had two screens, and one was a touch screen, so you could use a virtual keyboard, that thing SUCKED! One of my old bosses loved it, and bought a bunch of them, but you had to plug a keyboard in to have any chance of using it.
I'm not talking about tablets, or phones, or other IoT style devices where a touch screen is very sensible.
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I can't think of a single time I have ever wanted a touch screen on a notebook, or desktop computer.
I find it's usually when I'm standing over the computer, like using it in passing. It's handy when cooking. Otherwise it's not very useful as you say. Though sometimes I would rather just touch the screen than use the trackpad, which I'm not used to. My work laptop has touch and I use it now and then.
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Because the screen is two feet away? The touchpad allows scrolling without large hand movements, something you'd know if you were a computer user.
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I can't think of a single time I have ever wanted a touch screen on a notebook, or desktop computer.
Congrats. On the other hand I do it all the time. Not just is it quick for navigation where diverse UI elements appear in different areas of the screen, most devices contain in-built digitisers to work with a pen, as you said drawing is a use case.
so you could use a virtual keyboard, that thing SUCKED!
Agreed. Whenever you take one input form and shoehorn it into another not designed for it sucks. Don't touch your screen to type. Touch your screen to draw, drag or provide singular location based inputs.
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"...most devices contain in-built digitisers to work with a pen..."
Most as in very few. If you limit yourself to devices designed to do that, then sure, but desktops aren't, notebooks are evolutions of desktops not tablets.
It's funny how so many people have forgotten how computers are actually used. "Diverse UI elements appear in different areas of the screen". LOL. Were we born yesterday?
"Touch your screen to draw, drag or provide singular location based inputs."
Or use the techniques that have been used
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Yes, I like a touch screen on a notebook, enough that I won't buy one without the feature. And judging by the marketplace, there are lots of others like me.
The touchpad works OK, but usually requires more intricate gestures. For example, to scroll with a touch pad, you have to use two fingers and keep them spaced equally as you move them. On a touch screen, just swipe. Or if you want to click on something, with a touchpad you have to "drive" the mouse to the coordinates where you want to click, then tap. On
Do Not Want (Score:3)
My current 14" M5 Pro MacBook Pro is great just like it is. I don't miss the OLED screen. I'm definitely glad I saw what was coming and bought the machine before the price hikes. $4,600 for the same basic machine I paid $3,100 for six months ago is insane.
Nice laptop but .... (Score:2)
IMO, people are making too big a deal out of the touchscreen functionality. It's not really a big reason someone would buy this new Macbook Pro. It's simply something Apple said they were finally able to add to a good OLED display without adding weight or thickness to the machine.
I had a Lenovo ThinkBook 14" laptop my workplace issued me that had a touchscreen display, and I basically just forgot it existed on it. That said? It was finally useful in one situation where I had it on a docking station with du
I have a touchscreen laptop. (Score:1)
I never, ever use the touchscreen.
A rare example of Apple getting a UI decision right the first time.
Apple has been going backwards since Jobs left. (Score:2)
The old UI design wizards generally seem to agree things are degrading. Consistency has been doing out the window too.
Apple had a ton of UI decisions right and they were the 1st deciding them too!
If you want a touchscreen with a keyboard get an iPad. Need more? get a iPad Pro. Want to draw? get a tablet screen or use the iPad pen with the mac.
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Apple had a ton of UI decisions right and they were the 1st deciding them too!
Apple was right that suckers would pay for a laptop and then pay again for a tablet with the same kernel but a different UI.
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They were right. Worse yet, no one even wants a tablet. Apple sells them, Android doesn't. Tablets are a function of Apple shoving it down their fans' throats. Never forget, Jobs didn't even want to do a phone because he didn't use one, tablets are purely a Jobs thing and they HAD to be different than Macs. But Apple's touch UIs have been better and their desktop UIs not polluted by a do-everything mentality, at least until now.
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I can see benefits to all form factors, and letting users choose, but that means I also think they should be able to choose which UI they want to use. I can see the argument for locking the phone into a phone UI, at least while making calls, but otherwise I find the whole idea gross.
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But now everything looks so modern and polished, though. Rounded corners! Pleasing and low-contrast so it won't cause injuries.
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No, Jobs was a moron who didn't even use a cell phone. Apple's devices improved greatly when Jobs was gone. Their software, though, has gotten worse and worse and there's no innovation. They make nice processors so far and they take image quality seriously. Apple has improved technically since Jobs left.
Touch Screens. (Score:2)
It's funny, I have an HP AIO and I rarely use the touch screen on it. I think it's just a case of what we're used to and many of us just aren't comfortable using touch screens on computers, even though we use them on phones and tablets all the time.
Recently, I had a customer bring in a Microsoft Surface (probably 5 years old) that suddenly no longer had built-in keyboard/mouse functionality. That functionality worked outside the OS in the BIOS, but even in safe mode would not work. If you plugged in a ke
But no Apple Pencil support (Score:2)
You know what guys? (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect this is not for people like us (most of us anyway). This is for younger people - people who grew up with iPads and smart phones. I've never wanted a touchscreen laptop, but I have seen lots of young people who don't use computers much try to touch the screen on a computer. It isn't particularly efficient, but it is what a lot of young people expect... not having it introduces a point of friction.
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I'm 60, and I love my touch screen laptop. I'm sprawled on a couch right now, not sitting properly at my desk. The touch screen is easier to navigate and click when you're not wanting to be at your desk.
Wow. (Score:2)
I'm mildly indifferent.
I would like that feature (Score:2)