“Touchpads don’t want to be vertical. It does not work. Ergonomically it sucks.” These are the famous words of Steve Jobs at the MacBook Pro launch event in October 2010. A lot has changed since then, but Apple has yet to release a laptop with a touchscreen. A new report from Bloomberg News suggests that Cupertino is actually considering the idea with sources close to Apple, and the company is currently testing touchscreen MacBooks that could arrive in 2025.
The touchscreen MacBook project is currently in the early stages of development, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is rumored to expect the OLED MacBook to be one of the first Macs with touchscreen capabilities. The laptop will house the same basic MacBook design, but with additional touchscreen capabilities.
Apple has conducted internal experiments with touchscreen laptop prototypes in the past. According to an interview with Craig Federighi in 2016, these prototypes were considered a “compromise” because the touchscreen didn’t make sense in a laptop form factor that already had a precision multi-touch trackpad and keyboard inputs.