Whenever there’s talk of a touchscreen Mac, people get excited. Apple, meanwhile, has been clear that it won’t be making a touchscreen Mac. They say the Mac and the touchscreen iPad are two different products, and we should have both.
“We really feel that the ergonomics of using a Mac is that your hands are resting on a surface, and raising your arm to touch the screen is quite tiring,” Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering, said in 2018.
But in 2021, Apple filed a patent for a Mac product with a touchscreen. And then in 2023, the company filed a second patent.
Patents typically need to be detailed enough to provide legal protection, but also broad enough to cover a wide variety of applications.
So it's possible that Apple is researching different types of touchscreens for use across multiple devices, or even one specific device if they have plans.
In its patent, Apple focuses on the technical details to make any touchscreen work effectively.
In addition to the illustration showing a MacBook Pro with a touchscreen, the text repeatedly refers to "an example of a personal computer with an integrated touchpad and touchscreen."
Apple has noted that touchscreens are popular for their ease of use, versatility, and falling prices, suggesting that price is not the main reason Apple hasn’t added a touchscreen to the MacBook Pro.
