The whole draw of the Mac is that it can do whatever you want it to do
Wesley Hilliard has a new post out which is a bit of a retort to my opinion on touch Macs and iPads: Apple could enter its toaster-fridge era with touchscreen MacBooks
It's not that I think it's a bad idea, it's just an odd one. macOS was not originally designed for touch, and MacBooks have notably thin lids that could be compromised by touch technology.
If Apple can deliver a touch panel without negative effects to the MacBook design, then sure, go for it.
And:
That said, this isn't iPadOS either. These MacBook displays are not touch-first and never will be. They also won't have Apple Pencil support and likely never will.
As I feel like I've said over and over again on this blog, we continually hear about what features one platform or another is or isn't supposed to have. Then Apple adds that feature, everybody likes it, and we pretend like we didn't argue against that existing before. I've had literally these exact same debates with people who thought that the iPad should not get a mouse cursor because that was a Mac thing.
I also think it's worth noting that while people love to bust out the "NO" slide or the "toaster and a refrigerator" Tim Cook quote or the ergonomics concern, I will point out this still from the iPad introduction:
16 years later, that exact use case is literally given full screen marketing on Apple's website.
Not only are people using their iPad in a laptop form factor, Apple has several accessories that turn your iPad into a laptop and they had to move the camera to work in landscape because so many people were doing it.
I genuinely believe that if Apple pundits think that combining direct and indirect input methods on the Mac is such a bad idea, they should direct an equal amount of disdain towards Apple for doing this in the iPad. The iPad is already the nightmare combination they fear, and they're not mad about it because actually it's a really great experience.
Hilliard also mentions that adding a capacitive layer to the MacBook Pro screen could compromise its thinness. I'm not sure that's a big issue, but even if it is, I should say again that a clamshell Mac with a touch screen is not the dream Mac I've been waiting for all these years. What I want is the iPad Pro hardware running macOS, complete with the freedom to attach a keyboard when I need it.
Also, if I can be pedantic, the Mac is fundamentally a toaster, a refrigerator, a coffee maker, a mixer, and salad spinner…it's flexible…it's everything you want it to be. It's literally the reason people like me are so in love with it.
And no, Matt Birchler, Apple is not going to kill iPadOS.
I'm glad to know we read each other ❤️. I'll have a follow up post on this topic soon enough, don't worry!
Anyway, I can't wait for Apple to release Macs with touch, for it to make some people happy and no one unhappy, and for us all to pretend that we didn't dogmatically believe that touch on the Mac would be terrible. Just like we pretend we didn't say the same thing about "the iPad wasn’t supposed to have a file manager until it got one, the iPad wasn’t supposed to be used with a mouse and keyboard until it did, the iPad wasn’t supposed to have overlapping windows until it did."