“To date, Apple has resisted putting touch screens on anything but its iOS devices, and from what I can tell, it has little interest in deviating from this approach,” Tim Bajarin writes for PC Magazine. “I would urge Apple to reconsider.”
“Most MacBook users like its small size and portability and do not use a mouse. The TouchPad works fine, but I would prefer the ease of use I get with the iPad touch screen, not to mention a seamless transition between laptop and tablet,” Bajarin writes. “I have discussed this with Apple officials, and they believe wholeheartedly that the Touch Bar is the best way to add touch to Mac.”
Apple’s way make sense: Touch onscreen only when there is no other primary input available.
Apple just posted record quarterly Mac sales. No touchscreens required.
What you really have to see is anyone under the age of 12, largely untainted by previous computing paradigms, using an iPad. That is the future, not trying to turn Macs into iPads.
That said, as we’ve asked many times over the past few years: Who’s in the market for a 12.9-inch device that’s an OS X-powered MacBook when docked with its keyboard base and an iOS-powered iPad Pro when undocked? That sure would save space in the backpack!
As we wrote back in January: Here’s an idea: Apple could sell iPad Pros as they do now, and for those wanting a “Mac,” Apple could sell them the macOS-powered display-less keyboard/trackpad/cpu/RAM/SSD/battery base unit. Attach your iPad for the display and off you go, you Mac-headed truck driver! Plus, you get to use the iPad’s battery, too, extending battery life to provide a truly all-day battery for portable Mac users. Detach the display and you get your iOS-powered iPad back, same as always.
Too outside the box? We’d love to be able to take our 12-inch iPad Pro, mate it with this theoretical Mac base unit, and turn it into a portable Mac. Right now, we carry 12-inch iPad Pros and MacBooks in our backpacks. Guess what’s redundant? Right, the displays. We don’t need to carry two screens on the road. The iPad Pro’s screen would do just fine, thanks.
Buy the Mac base on its own (for those who already have 12.9-inch iPad Pros) or buy it as part of a package (get a new 12.9-inch iPad Pro at a nice discount when you buy it with the Mac base). Imagine if Apple had unveiled this headless MacBook that you use with your iPad at their iPad event last fall. How many more 12-inch iPad Pro sales would such a product have generated? Enough to return iPad to unit sales growth, we bet. And, how many more Macs would have been sold, too?
Illustration from Apple’s hybrid Mac-iPad patent application
