Apple unveils its first touchscreen Mac: the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display

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Aurelius

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Apple's super-busy fall now includes its first touchscreen Mac ever, the (awkwardly named) MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZI5uUSdEo

The gist: it's a slimmer, lighter MacBook Pro with an extremely color-accurate OLED screen, a Dynamic Island (the notch is gone!), and of course touch. My initial take on touch is mixed. It's not the major UI overhaul you might have expected, but there are clever tweaks like expanding menu items and controls (such as dials and sliders). It's better than Windows, just not a "why didn't anyone do this before" revelation.

The M5 Pro and M5 Max aren't new, but they'll do until the M7 Pro/Max roll around (Apple is skipping the M6 Pro/Max to get M7 out sooner).

The catch is the price. You're looking at $2,899 for a 14-inch model, and $3,399 for the 16-inch version. That's about a $400 hike (the 'old' models are still available). This is mainly for media editors who either need a reference-grade display or can use touch, such as audio editors who want to push multiple faders at once. That and, of course, the same must-have-the-best baller customers who bought the iPhone Duo last weekend.
 
I do like that they built the touch into the display and it's not an overlay on top of the screen. But, no way I'm paying a $400 premium on top of previous price hikes... in addition to being the first run... just too much for me.
 
Tweak155 said:
I do like that they built the touch into the display and it's not an overlay on top of the screen. But, no way I'm paying a $400 premium on top of previous price hikes... in addition to being the first run... just too much for me.
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My theory is that Apple will expand this to other models, just without the wild color accuracy and brightness levels. Apple said in an interview that many users already own touchscreen mobile devices, and that's certainly true of other lineups — the MacBook Neo in particular could use touch as it's appealing to a generation that never knew phones without touch.
 
while first run, Apple has quite the very long experience in oled touchscreen here.... MacOS could have some legacy issue here of course, but the updates version will be available to this device if they ever figure it out.
 
zehoo said:

View: https://youtu.be/1qEPZT1FQs0?si=wWoFFXNmhAhUq0Zh
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Jobs had a point, but he also didn’t consider that people would be happy with partial interactions — scroll or pinch for a moment and return to the trackpad. That and touch became so pervasive that many people virtually expect it.

I also appreciate that Apple waited until it could fix some longstanding issues with touchscreens, such as wobbly displays and extra screen layers.
 
So the creator of the smart phone and the ever prevalent ipad never had a toch screen laptop?

That, honestly, surprises me. I guess I never followed mac much. I'm interested to see how they make it "better than everyone else's"
 
SticKx911 said:
So the creator of the smart phone and the ever prevalent ipad never had a toch screen laptop?

That, honestly, surprises me. I guess I never followed mac much. I'm interested to see how they make it "better than everyone else's"
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Apple\Jobs didn't create the smartphone.
 
SticKx911 said:
So the creator of the smart phone and the ever prevalent ipad never had a toch screen laptop?

That, honestly, surprises me. I guess I never followed mac much. I'm interested to see how they make it "better than everyone else's"
Click to expand...
Touch on a desktop UI is polarizing. It’s not the same as a portable device. Everyone feels natural touching a portable device. The ever presence of the mouse and keyboard complicates opinions.

Touch screen on a desktop environment has no appeal to me. Finger prints and even keyboard prints on a screen drive me crazy.
 
westrock2000 said:
The ever presence of the mouse and keyboard complicates opinions.
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Reaching up to touch a desktop monitor is entirely different from using a phone or tablet...and a laptop, I would say, is probably a bit closer to desktop than tablet touch experience. YMMV tho.
 
As long as the software integration is tight I don’t see a problem with having a touch screen on a laptop. Maybe soon they’ll let us dual boot on iPads pros.
 
Aurelius said:
Jobs had a point, but he also didn’t consider that people would be happy with partial interactions — scroll or pinch for a moment and return to the trackpad. That and touch became so pervasive that many people virtually expect it.

I also appreciate that Apple waited until it could fix some longstanding issues with touchscreens, such as wobbly displays and extra screen layers.
Click to expand...
The reason for avoiding touchscreens on laptops was because it would eat into the tablet market for Apple. It's more useful for artists and people who need to digitally sign but don't want to deal with scanning and photos from a phone. Considering the Neo and now touchscreens, it seems that Apple is admitting that people don't want tablets.
 
westrock2000 said:
Touch on a desktop UI is polarizing. It’s not the same as a portable device. Everyone feels natural touching a portable device. The ever presence of the mouse and keyboard complicates opinions.

Touch screen on a desktop environment has no appeal to me. Finger prints and even keyboard prints on a screen drive me crazy.
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Optionally treating the touch input like a mouse action would be fine but I can't imagine why someone would favor it. I'd opt for buttons/mouse/etc rather than fingers tapping a touch screen for nearly anything if given the choice.
 
DukenukemX said:
The reason for avoiding touchscreens on laptops was because it would eat into the tablet market for Apple. It's more useful for artists and people who need to digitally sign but don't want to deal with scanning and photos from a phone. Considering the Neo and now touchscreens, it seems that Apple is admitting that people don't want tablets.
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I love my iPad Pro. And when the updates stop coming I’ll get a new one.

*edit

All the M6 MacBooks seem to come with a minimum of 1TB of storage. An improvement on that front at least.
 
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DukenukemX said:
The reason for avoiding touchscreens on laptops was because it would eat into the tablet market for Apple. It's more useful for artists and people who need to digitally sign but don't want to deal with scanning and photos from a phone. Considering the Neo and now touchscreens, it seems that Apple is admitting that people don't want tablets.
Click to expand...
Jobs made his statement on touchscreen laptops in 2008, two years before the iPad even launched. That and Apple is legendary for wilingly cannibalizing its own sales (iPhone buyers skipped iPods, some iPad buyers skipped Macs, that sort of thing).

Apple still believes people want tablets; it wouldn't introduce touchscreens on a $2,899+ pro laptop line wtihout a 360-degree hinge if it was hoping to scoop up the people who'd otherwise buy an iPad. With that and the Neo, it's more about reaching into markets the company previously refused to consider.

Now, if Apple puts out a touchscreen Neo with a Lenovo Yoga-style hinge, then you might have more of a point.
 
DukenukemX said:
it seems that Apple is admitting that people don't want tablets.
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who bought the 162 millions tablets sold in 2025 in the world if not people ? and what would that mean about people wanting PS5 that sold less units since launch....

It is an hard segment, because of what people do with them usually mean they do not need to udpate them for performance reason, there is no like cellphone 2-3 years plan people use and so on.

If i look at the people around, they were updating them often at first, then stopped completetly until an app-OS update force them, a 10 years old good quality 2016 tablet is just fast enough for regular use (and it is a device that run mostly for very basic task, playing netflix-scrolling facebook by the elderly).

Aurelius said:
it's more about reaching into markets the company previously refused to consider.
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A lot because of fear of cannabilisation, Ipad is only 6-7% of Apple revenues versus 20% at its peak, that diminish the fear of cannabilizing it a lot.

They are legendary to wait until they must do the cannabilisation before competition do it for them, iPad Mini took a while to launch by fear of loosing better regular ipad sales, same for very large screen phone, cheap Laptop, macOS on the iPAD option lacking is purely for this. Or an very obvious one, no cheap air pods, entry level airpods would sales well, make obvious sense, the only reason not to do them is hurting sales of the expensive one.

It is easy to cannabilise the iPod with the much more revenues driving machine (and subsidize by carier) phone, that more an massive upsell than a canabilization, the real one that risk to cost them a lot they hesitate very much (of course like every one having the option would).
 
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Aurelius said:
Jobs made his statement on touchscreen laptops in 2008, two years before the iPad even launched. That and Apple is legendary for wilingly cannibalizing its own sales (iPhone buyers skipped iPods, some iPad buyers skipped Macs, that sort of thing).
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That NikTek video was from 2010 and Jobs said "Hence Pads". Besides, Jobs died a long time ago and it took many years before we saw a Macbook with a touchscreen. Apple loves to avoid cannibalizing their other products.
Apple still believes people want tablets; it wouldn't introduce touchscreens on a $2,899+ pro laptop line wtihout a 360-degree hinge if it was hoping to scoop up the people who'd otherwise buy an iPad. With that and the Neo, it's more about reaching into markets the company previously refused to consider.
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There's obviously a tablet market but it didn't pan out the way Apple had hoped. Even Microsoft was hoping for a tablet future which is why Windows 8 was created. When the rest of the industry includes touchscreen while Apple doesn't then Apple is losing out on potential sales.
Now, if Apple puts out a touchscreen Neo with a Lenovo Yoga-style hinge, then you might have more of a point.
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Give it time.
LukeTbk said:
who bought the 162 millions tablets sold in 2025 in the world if not people ? and what would that mean about people wanting PS5 that sold less units since launch....
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I'm not saying zero people want a tablet, but the demand is no where near what Microsoft and Apple had hoped for. iPad sales dropped 8% in Q2 and globally there's a huge decline in tablet sales.

Remember eight years ago when Apple had an ad that asked, "what's a computer"? They were betting hard into tablets because it made sense for Apple who sold more than double than anyone else on the planet.

View: https://youtu.be/3S5BLs51yDQ?si=DcqDAWubihA7pc_7
It is an hard segment, because of what people do with them usually mean they do not need to udpate them for performance reason, there is no like cellphone 2-3 years plan people use and so on.

If i look at the people around, they were updating them often at first, then stopped completetly until an app-OS update force them, a 10 years old good quality 2016 tablet is just fast enough for regular use (and it is a device that run mostly for very basic task, playing netflix-scrolling facebook by the elderly).
Click to expand...
There's a lot of people still using Core2Duo laptops. It's not really all that different.
 
Sick, didn't think Apple would ever do this. Now if only it had Apple Pencil support. Smh they had to leave it out.

I do really like having a touchscreen on my laptops. It can be really convenient for certain tasks/UI. Idk what is with everyone complaining about fingerprint smudging; I've never really had that issue. I was the same before, I thought it would be awful to touch my laptop screen, but once I got a touchscreen laptop it wasn't really an issue at all. Maybe people are basing their experience on ancient screens and haven't tried anything modern? Maybe people don't wash their hands? (honestly this wouldn't surprise me, where I'm at anyway only a fraction of men actually wash their hands)
 
DukenukemX said:
That NikTek video was from 2010 and Jobs said "Hence Pads". Besides, Jobs died a long time ago and it took many years before we saw a Macbook with a touchscreen. Apple loves to avoid cannibalizing their other products.
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You're right about the date, sorry about that. With that said, there's a long history of Apple launching products that 'undermine' other parts of its lineup.


DukenukemX said:
There's obviously a tablet market but it didn't pan out the way Apple had hoped. Even Microsoft was hoping for a tablet future which is why Windows 8 was created. When the rest of the industry includes touchscreen while Apple doesn't then Apple is losing out on potential sales.
Click to expand...
On Apple's plans I agree in a sense. I don't think Apple expected the next iPhone, as it already positioned the iPad as a middle-ground device between the iPhone and Mac. However, I do suspect Apple wanted it to be more popular than it was. Tablets for most people are there for consumption, like video and books; they've become more useful as productivity tools, but most people don't set out to buy an iPad Air as a laptop replacement.

My theory is that Apple is adding touch as it can do so relatively inexpensively as part of a larger display upgrade. It's a nice-to-have that gives MBP buyers another reason to go for the higher tier. You'll only see touch move down the range when Apple can do so without a significant relative premium.
 
Aurelius said:
. With that said, there's a long history of Apple launching products that 'undermine' other parts of its lineup.
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ALmost always either upsell or forced by the competition, they have a long history of protecting parts of their line up, from no FM radio for the itunes segment, flash storage for the memory upsell, from waiting years for the iPad Mini, years for the large Phone, for the yet to be released entry airpods.

Every company launch product that undermine parts of the lineup (even ferrari as lower entry model in some ways), in the tech world Apple is the one that do it pretty much the least, because they are the one with pricing power and higher demand that can afford to do it like that.

Take the intel to apple silicon that was a giant cannabilization in a sense, but like the iPod->iPhone it was an upsell, they are an hold the line as possible or upsell type.
 
I'm about to clean and polish my iPhone and watch, there's no way in hell that I’m putting fingerprints on a MacBook Pro screen.
 
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