Today was the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display release “event.” A very strange event, because it was like the old-school live blogs, but only 10 minutes long. By the time I remembered that it was happening, the event was already over and reviewers had their hands on the laptops. And I guess it’s as large an event as you would expect for what is effectively a laptop with a better screen.
MKBHD started his review with an old Steve Jobs clip about why not to put a touchscreen on a laptop. And honestly, none of the points have drastically changed. I have iPads, I have laptops, and I also have touchscreen laptops. And there is only one way in which I have ever found a touchscreen laptop genuinely useful: when you can fold it back 360 degrees and also use a stylus.
I have the Framework 13 Pro, which has a touchscreen. I do like it. It is nice. But 99% of my actual, everyday touchscreen usage is leaning slightly forward and flicking up with my thumb when scrolling on a web page to read. Don’t get me wrong. I really, really like being able to do that. It’s nicer than scrolling with a mouse, but it only works when you are reading one long document or page. The second you have to go back to your mouse or keyboard, it’s not as useful.
Everyone agrees that touchscreens on a laptop are kind of silly and not terribly useful. It’s very obvious from every reviewer who was there and saw the demos that they were not terribly persuasive as anything other than “cool demo things,” like an art installation. So why did Apple bother?
Because why not?
What is the cost of putting in a quality touchscreen at this point in time? I don’t know for certain. But some basic research shows $50 per machine is on the very high end. For Apple, it’s probably less than $25. Remember, Apple is really, really good at reusing technology across its product lineup.
Their iPhone processor is used in the Apple TV and the MacBook Neo. Their Watch chip is used in multiple devices, including the HomePods. I would wager that a lot of the technology from the ProLED XDR screen is stuff that has already been seen on an iPad (tandem OLED)… which already does touch.
If you are Apple, one of the things that people have been grumbling about for decades is the lack of a touchscreen. One of the few things that PC manufacturers can hold over your head is a touchscreen. What do you do? You were already planning to introduce a new screen technology that everyone wants (OLED). And while you’re at it, you toss in touchscreens because you’ve got the technology. And realistically, it adds maybe $20 to the cost of a $3,000 laptop… and closes a gap.
I feel like the iPhone Duo is a little bit in the same camp. It’s a very high-end niche device for the person who wants a phone that can turn into an iPad mini, doesn’t already have an iPad mini, and can afford this extremely expensive phone.
It’s a technology that, yes, Apple has obviously refined a great deal more than a lot of other implementations. But it’s yet another thing that other manufacturers had that they could hold over Apple. Oh, yes, Apple might sell lots of phones, but they don’t have a FOLDING phone.
To be clear, I’m not saying any of this as a bad thing. It’s perfectly okay for this to be Apple’s “why not” era and to close the gaps that people have been asking about for a decade or more.
So why not?