The new PROLED MacBook Pro isn't the only hardware that benefits from macOS Golden Gate's touch-centric changes. Third-party displays and Sidecar benefit from them too.
Apple's decision to bring touchscreen support to the new OLED-equipped MacBook Pro meant it had to also change macOS to work with it. However, the alterations won't be limited to just Apple's latest notebook launch at all.
Anyone using a touch-enabled external display will also be able to benefit from the new interface in macOS 27. That includes anyone that uses Sidecar with an iPad.
As for Sidecar on iPad, we've found that macOS touch enhancements work in the iOS 27.3 and macOS 27.3 developer betas.
We've tried it on two third-party touchscreen displays. It works on one out of the box, and not on the other at the moment. We've confirmed it's about drivers, and not about the display hardware, though.
Touching changes
While macOS Golden Gate looks normal in everyday use with a keyboard and trackpad or mouse, there are multiple small changes that apply when you use a touchscreen.
This includes the traffic light interface element in the top left of windows growing larger when touched, so they can be more easily touched by a finger. This is similar to the experience in iPadOS, with a single tap enlarging the tiny dots so your next tap can hit the right button with precision.
The top menu bars can also be dynamically enlarged to help with touch controls in the same way.
Long presses of a Dock icon or some other UI elements also brings up more touch-friendly menus and animations.
While the focus is on macOS itself, some of these changes will also apply to macOS apps immediately. Apple has said that gesture APIs can be used by developers to extend the touch support in their apps, beyond simple simulated mouse clicks.
Expansion was always expected
While you would expect Apple would want to keep new features to just the device it introduced them on at first, it is not the case here. Indeed, this isn't even Apple's first experience with making macOS more touch-friendly.
Sidecar has always allowed users to extend their Mac workspace to the iPad display. It even allowed users to control the screen with an Apple Pencil, but it didn't include an intuitive finger-based touch experience.
Yes, it worked, for things like multi-touch gestures, treating the iPad like a Magic Trackpad, but you didn't have any real interaction with the macOS interface itself.
As discovered during the initial developer betas of macOS 27 in June, Apple experimented with including better touch support in Sidecar. Anywhere you touched on the iPad display acted as a click of a mouse in the same region, with dragging also working too.
However, in the final implementation in macOS, Apple's tweaks to the interface makes it a lot easier to navigate macOS and its apps by touch alone.
