Mac: Apple finally releases a touchscreen MacBook Pro, what is it really for?

In 2010, Steve Jobs settled the question in one sentence: a touchscreen placed vertically is “ergonomically disastrous.” After a while, he said, your arm wants to fall off. Sixteen years later, on Wednesday, October 28, Apple unveiled its first Mac with a touchscreen. A MacBook Pro, in 14 and 16 inches, in stores on November 6.

So, was Apple wrong for sixteen years, or did it crack? A bit of both.

The gesture Macs didn't know: putting your finger on the screen

The toaster and the fridge

A little trip back in time, because the story is tasty. In 2012, Tim Cook, then head of Apple, made fun of computers that wanted to be tablets too. You can merge a toaster and a refrigerator, he explained in essence, but it probably won't please anyone. Meanwhile, at Microsoft, Windows 8 put touch everywhere, and touchscreen laptops became commonplace.

Apple held firm. It only tried a touch strip above the keyboard in 2016, the Touch Bar, which almost nobody missed when it disappeared. And here is the fridge with its built-in toaster, delivered fourteen years after the quip.

Tim Cook's comparison in 2012, taken literally

What you can do with your finger

Good news: Apple hasn't turned the Mac into a giant tablet. The keyboard and trackpad remain the heart of the machine, and the finger comes on top. Concretely, according to what Apple showed:

• scroll through a web page or document by sliding your finger;
• pinch to zoom in on a photo;
• grab an item and move it directly on the screen;
• tap a window twice to enlarge it.

And your current software has nothing to do: macOS turns your tap into a mouse click. Those who want to go further have new tools. Logic Pro, Apple's music software, displays a piano keyboard and drum pads that you tap with your fingers, for example, and Final Cut Pro lets you move video clips by hand.

Where I see a real plus is in the little moments of everyday life. You show vacation photos to someone sitting across from you: you scroll with your finger, without looking for the trackpad. You follow a recipe, your hands covered in flour: a nudge with your knuckle to scroll down, and it's done. It seems silly. It's exactly the kind of thing we already do, mechanically, on a PC screen that doesn't react.

The “gorilla arm” Steve Jobs feared, after an hour of vertical touchscreen use

And the arm falling off? Apple clearly listened to Steve Jobs: nobody is asking you to work an entire day with your finger. Touch is for a quick gesture, not for typing a report. The hinge has also been reinforced so the screen doesn't tilt when you press on it, and a system even stabilizes the camera image if you touch the screen in the middle of a video call. They thought of everything, except maybe chocolate.

The screen, and the rest

The touchscreen is an OLED, that technology where each point in the image lights up on its own, which produces truly black blacks. Apple calls it “ProLED XDR”, it reaches 2,000 nits of brightness (basically, readable on a patio in full sunlight) and refreshes the image up to 120 times per second. The notch at the top of the screen disappears in favor of the iPhone's “Dynamic Island”, a small black pill that displays the music currently playing, an AirDrop transfer to accept or Siri.

Weight-wise, it's a nice surprise, according to Apple's specifications relayed by MacGeneration: 1.38 kg for the 14-inch model instead of 1.55 kg, and 1.82 kg for the 16-inch model instead of 2.14 kg. A third of a kilo less in the backpack, for the larger model. Apple claims up to 24 hours of battery life, a manufacturer's figure that will have to be checked in testing.

The real test of a touchscreen is the children's snack

For maintenance, Apple's rule is more valid than ever: a barely damp microfiber cloth, and never window cleaner or paper towels, which scratch or damage the screen coating.

The price, and the chip trap

Now, the cold shower. In France, according to the prices recorded by MacGeneration on the day of the announcement, the 14-inch touchscreen model starts at 3,299 euros and the 16-inch model at 3,899 euros. With the same configuration, that's 400 euros more than the 14-inch MacBook Pro with a regular screen, and 500 euros more for the 16-inch model. And if you check all the options, the 16-inch model climbs to 16,099 euros. The price of a small used car, with fewer wheels.

My advice, this one is free: go paw at it in an Apple Store starting November 6. Ten minutes of demo are enough to know whether your arm agrees with your wallet.

And here's the detail that made me smile. This touchscreen MacBook Pro runs with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips. The day before, Tuesday, October 27, Apple released a 14-inch MacBook Pro without a touchscreen but with the new M6 chip, starting at $1,999 in the United States. So the most expensive model in the range doesn't have the most recent chip. The M5 Pro and M5 Max are still power monsters, don't make me say what I didn't say, but you need to know it before you sign.

The screen is also Apple's riskiest gamble this year: two days ago, I told you that screens on the iPhone Duo are cracking at the fold. Here, there's no fold, but a first generation remains a first generation. Waiting for the first independent tests before taking out your bank card isn't timidity, it's common sense.

So, do I want one?

For my job, development, honestly, no. I spend my days at the keyboard, and my finger will never replace a keyboard shortcut for jumping from one line of code to another. But if you do photography, video or music, or if you've always found it frustrating that a Mac doesn't respond to your finger while your iPhone does, it's a real evolution, not a gimmick.

Sources

• MacGeneration, October 28, 2026: Apple officially unveils the first OLED touchscreen MacBook Pro
• TechCrunch, October 28, 2026: Apple launches its touchscreen MacBook Pro
• The Mac Observer: US prices and release date
• Tom's Guide: the M6 MacBook Pro and M6 iMac announced on October 27

Article written with the help of Claude Code, proofread and corrected by me.