Apple is set to introduce a new MacBook Pro with a touchscreen “on or around” October 27th, Bloomberg reports, two weeks after the October 13th event Apple has announced for smart home products. The same report says the new laptops will be lighter than the current ones, with OLED displays and an iPhone-style Dynamic Island. What does it mean that Apple’s first touchscreen Mac is reportedly arriving beside a second MacBook Pro that keeps the current design?
Bloomberg says Apple also plans MacBook Pros that retain the current design but carry the M6 chip introduced with the new Mac Mini. So the company is reportedly shipping two answers at once: a redesigned machine built around touch, and the familiar machine with a faster processor. A company certain that touch belonged on the Mac would most likely replace the old design outright. Selling both suggests Apple wants to see which one customers choose before it commits.
That hedge matters because a touchscreen changes what a laptop’s screen is for. On a laptop with only a keyboard and a trackpad, the screen is something to look at, and the hands stay below it. Touch asks the hands to reach up and cross the gap. The Dynamic Island adds a region of the display that responds to software instead of sitting still. The screen stops being a window and becomes a surface to operate.
Whether people will reach for the glass is something no rumor can answer. Anyone who owns a phone or a tablet already does it by reflex, and the same event is reported to bring an updated iPad Mini, with its front-facing camera moved to the landscape side and a revamped speaker system. Apple keeps tuning its touch devices for how they are held and used. A laptop that joins them inherits the habit, and it also has to earn it.
The October 27th event will not settle the question. Sales of the two designs, a few quarters later, will. Until then, the second MacBook Pro in the lineup is how Apple keeps the answer open.
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