For more than a decade, Apple insisted a touchscreen Mac would never happen—citing ergonomic issues, software mismatches, and a desire to keep the Mac distinct from the iPad. In Steven Levy’s exclusive WIRED story, Apple executives (including John Ternus and Johny Srouji) explain why that long-standing resistance finally ended with the 2026 MacBook Pro, which pairs a new PROLED XDR tandem OLED display and M5 chips with carefully integrated touch without adding weight, thickness, or compromising the trackpad-and-keyboard experience.
This turnaround [from “no touch on Mac displays” to the new MacBook Pro] is a big deal to Apple fans. Ternus shrugs off the drama. “The Mac is first and foremost an indirect input device, built around the trackpad and keyboard. But I think there’s times when it’s comfortable and handy to have touch.”
Ternus and Apple want to make sure that the Mac faithful don’t panic that the 42-year-old franchise is losing its identity to Apple’s gangbusters mobile products. “We needed to get to a point where adding touch didn’t make the product lesser in any way. It didn’t make it heavier. It didn’t make it thicker. That came together with the OLED screen, the best display we’ve ever put into a Mac,” Ternus told me. “All of these things, and, oh yeah, it has touch as well.”
Apple has a long history of refusing to implement certain desirable features, only to pivot when it feels the time is right. Steve Jobs once proclaimed iPods would never do video, until they did. He also once said “no one’s going to buy” a jumbo-size phone — and then Apple released a supersized iPhone 6. Then there was that time Jobs declared styluses inappropriate for tablets. Now the Apple Pencil works with iPads and the brand-new Duo.
The 2026 MacBook Pro instantly qualifies as the canonical example of this switcheroo…
I see what they mean about the display. It’s noticeably dense and bright, and the obsidian blacks are the deepest I’ve seen on a computer screen. In part because the OLED screen doesn’t require backlighting, this MacBook weighs less than its predecessor.
As a pair of Apple managers take the MacBook through its paces, I see how Apple has addressed some of [Phil] Schiller’s decade-old concerns, like having to redesign the menu bar for fingers. While it looks the same, when you move a finger over a menu item, it expands to allow you to select your choice with precision. Some of the objects on the screen, like the traffic-light buttons that close or hide windows, also get bigger when you touch them.
But what about greasy fingers messing up the screen? I was told that the new display has an anti-reflective outer coating that will require no more cleaning than your normal non-interactive screen.
MacDailyNews Take: We shall see, but, we expect we won’t be touching our displays much, if at all.
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I have had used touchscreen Ubuntu Linux laptop since 2016, I haven’t touched the screen then, I don’t touch the screen now, and if I ever get a MacBook like this in the future I still intend on keeping my fingers of the screen.
This gives new life to Apple’s scorned Polishing Cloth…now priced 50%+ less ($10) than release date.
gimmick.
In the past Steve would speak intelligently about products, and it looks like that era is over. Federghihi is a brilliant mind in software, and Ternus knows a great deal about hardware engineering, but from a DESIGN standpoint, it ain’t him.
Apple has a great Industrial design and UX design leaders but let’s get one thing clear, Ternus didn’t study product design, he studied mechanical engineering and mechanics, not design.
“While it looks the same, when you move a finger over a menu item, it expands to allow you to select your choice with precision.”
Cool cool cool.. This kind of thing could be demonstrated where? There is almost no video of this thing being used. It sounds clunky, and with no video/event we’re getting nothing from this announcement, other than OLED.
Why does this exist? They tried to answer but these reasons are fluff.
It seems to me that these people would rather hear themselves talk instead of give out pertinent information on why this is useful. We have a saying in the Esperantujo that goes: “Kiel en poŝta kesto, nur vortoj” which essentially means that they are like a mailbox, they only have words. If you can’t use those words to describe why people want this, then what’s the point?
With the touchscreen, apple is training their macos users to get ready for the blending of macos with ios, which will eventually become one os.
My thoughts exactly
Steve Jobs is rolling over in his grave. Apple is OVER.
A bit dramatic, don’t you think?