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A MacBook Pro touchscreen? About damn time

It's somewhat ironic that Apple, the company that popularized the use of capacitive touchscreens with the iPhone and iPad, has been staunchly opposed to bringing our fingers anywhere near MacBook screens. Meanwhile, Microsoft and PC makers jumped at the opportunity to build touchscreen laptops years ago. The tablet-focused Windows 8 was a failure, sure, but touchscreens led to excellent convertible notebooks and hybrid tablets like the Surface lineup. Now, according to a new rumor from longtime Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple might finally be ready to bring touchscreens to the MacBook Pro.In a tweet posted this morning, Kuo wrote, "MacBook models will feature a touch panel for the first time, further blurring the line with the iPad. This shift appears to reflect Apple’s long-term observation of iPad user behavior, indicating that in certain scenarios, touch controls can enhance both productivity and the overall user experience."MacBook models will feature a touch panel for the first time, further blurring the line with the iPad. This shift appears to reflect Apple’s long-term observation of iPad user behavior, indicating that in certain scenarios, touch controls can enhance both productivity and the…— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) September 17, 2025 Specifically, Kuo says that touchscreen MacBook Pro models are "expected to enter mass production by late 2026," and that they'll use on-cell touch technology. Cheaper MacBooks (likely the Air) coming in late 2025 likely won't have touchscreens, but that could change with a 2027 refresh.It’s worth pointing out that Kuo’s predictions, which typically come from sources within Apple’s supply chain, aren’t always accurate. But given the timing of this particular note, and the ubiquity of touchscreen laptops these days, it’s the idea of a touchscreen MacBook isn’t too farfetched.Apple is a stubborn company, no doubt — especially when it comes to adopting features from others. When referring to iPad competitors in 2010, Steve Jobs famously said, "If you see a stylus, they blew it." While he was referring to using a stylus for general operation of a device, and not a highly specific use-case, it was still funny to see the Apple Pencil arrive five years later on the iPad Pro. There's a certain nobility to sticking with your design convictions, but it would have been stupid for Apple to completely ignore the benefits of tablet stylii, something Microsoft was leaning into hard with its Surface devices. So it goes with the touchscreen MacBook Pros. It's hard to deny the convenience of lazily swiping the screen when scrolling through long articles, instead of tapping repeatedly on your keyboard or swiping a touchpad. Apple's desire to keep touchscreens away from Macs is understandable. MacOS doesn't have large touch-points like iPadOS, and it's been honed for decades to work best with keyboards, mice and touchpads. But adding in basic touchscreen support doesn't really require a complete macOS redesign, especially when the platform has already had support for multitouch gestures on trackpads since the first MacBook Air arrived in 2008.It's funny that the touchscreen MacBook Pro could also be arriving just as Apple is finally starting to make the iPad more Mac-like. iPadOS 26 adds the ability to resize app windows, easily organize them on your screen and it even brings over the menu bar from MacOS. It's as if Apple is trying to appease all of its fans: The iPad owners who want more multitasking and productivity options, as well as the Mac owners who want a bit of iPad-like convenience.Both of my kids were able to nimbly swipe around my phones and tablets at the age of two — that's the power of a truly intuitive input mechanism. And to a certain degree, I also think it helped them get used to the idea of computing in general. If it's easy enough for kids to grasp, why not make touchscreens a core feature of as many products as possible? Simply put, Apple has run out of excuses. The time for touchscreen Macbooks is now.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/a-macbook-pro-touchscreen-about-damn-time-180000315.html?src=rss