Apple has long resisted bringing touch support to the Mac, but it's finally made the jump with the new MacBook Pro. It's all because Apple felt it was the right time to make the change.
The MacBook line has been one of the most desired products to gain touch support for years. After countless rumors about it, Apple added the functionality to the PROLED versions.
However, making the change wasn't something that was done on a whim. According to a report from Wired, it needed the metaphorical planets to align first.
"The Mac is first and foremost an indirect input device, built around the trackpad and keyboard," insists CEO John Ternus, commenting on the years of insistence by Apple that it wasn't going to make a touch-enabled MacBook.
Even so, Ternus admits "I think there's times when it's comfortable and handy to have touch" on a notebook.
When it comes to actually making the change, Ternus claims Apple needed to "get to a point where adding touch didn't make the product lesser in any way." Apple didn't want a heavier or thicker device as a trade-off for touch support.
"That came together with the OLED screen, the best display we've ever put into a Mac," he continued. "All of these things, and, oh yeah, it has touch as well."
This is the first-ever touch-screen Mac - image credit: Apple.
To Greg Joswiak, touch was an overdue feature for some of its users, especially those in creative and engineering careers. They really wanted to work with the screen more directly.
"Most pros own an iPad, and almost every pro owns an iPhone," Joswiak said, meaning they're already naturally used to touch. "There's a generation of young creators and young people using our MacBook Pros that expect to touch."
Fixing wobble
Johny Srouji, chief of hardware, believes the quality of Apple's touchscreen is exceptional versus the rest of the market, because it does the hard work.
"If you're working on something easy, you're wasting your time," said Srouji. He wants the easy work outsourced, but for Apple to keep working on the harder tasks, like the display, touch support, and custom silicon.
That ethos has resulted in changes like a new thermal system to reduce the temperature of the display ready for a user's fingertips.
Srouji is also in the belief that the typical touchscreen notebook has a "wobble" when fingers touch the screen. A new hinge system was made to keep the display stable when it's touched by users.
When it comes to whether Apple is making a statement with its fall launch roster, the hardware lead insists it's business as usual for Apple. The company is still building the best products, and will ship them when it believes it's ready and complete.
