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This.

An iPad running macOS (optimized for touchscreen, obviously) with the option to add a quality keyboard / touchpad. I would love the flexibility to carry a single, separable device.

Even if we leave out the disadvantages (greasy fingermarks on the screen, unusable UI), where’s the incentive for Apple to do this? They’d much rather you buy a laptop and an iPad.
 
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“Some Apple fans have long wanted Apple to combine the functionality of the iPad with the Mac, and it appears that it's finally going to happen“. No, it’s not. Even if they implement touchscreens on Macs (which I really doubt), iPads are much more than than: iPadOS, different form factor, cameras…
 
This is the last nail to Apple's coffin.

Totally incapable in terms of design, sw development, marketing, now they need to exhume projects dead decades ago.
We have been using touch screen Macs for 30 years: they are useless, so much so that anyone who has produced and modified them (and not a few companies have done it) has failed miserably.
Apple's management is scraping the bottom of the barrel, no idea, just tripling the earnings. Musk, the king of the incompetent, as a prospect.
 
I do not even use trackpads and on some notebooks I have even physically unplugged the trackpad. Coming from a mouse I never got used to trackpads.

Lifting my arm to use the touch screen is quite an exercise. The result might be that one of your arms will be much more muscular than the other over time. Not sure if that is desired. People might think that comes from m********ing.
 
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Well now! It took over 10 years, but Apple has finally decided the world is ready for the combination refrigerator-toaster! I can hardly wait!
 
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This isn't groundbreaking or innovative. I had a combo touchscreen on a Dell laptop in 2015. Turned it off in the BIOS and never used it.

Thanks. I've got a work-supplied Dell XPS 15 and find that all the touchscreen does is unwanted tapping when I'm trying to brush off dust, hairs etc. I'd not spotted that option but have now found it and turned off the screen to put a stop to this nuisance.

BTW, this is running Fedora - very nice indeed, though I wish it had the Mac's 3-finger drag gesture.
 
I work in IT. Everyone I know who uses a touchscreen PC/laptop, don’t use the touchscreen. Touch input is less precise and more tiring. Fingerprints on the screen are nasty. Most software isn’t optimised to take advantage of it.

Over time, I’ve figured out how to use my iPad and my Mac together - I use my iPad for content consumption, where input is minimal, and my Macs for content creation and work, where input is high. It just works better that way.
 
I work in IT. Everyone I know who uses a touchscreen PC/laptop, don’t use the touchscreen. Touch input is less precise and more tiring. Fingerprints on the screen are nasty. Most software isn’t optimised to take advantage of it.

Over time, I’ve figured out how to use my iPad and my Mac together - I use my iPad for content consumption, where input is minimal, and my Macs for content creation and work, where input is high. It just works better that way.
Exactly.
Touch screen was "popular" because people couldn't scroll reliably on their trackpads. Thus scrolling on the screen was the second best alternative. But now, Windows laptops trackpads are very good already, with multi-touch no longer being wonky and unusable. People can scroll just fine without having to touch their screen and they stop touching their screen.

This is my conclusion since the only thing I observed in the past on people using the touchscreen on their laptops was simply to scroll. Nothing else. Nobody do any fancy stuff. They just want reliable scrolling like what they have on their smartphones. And in the past, PC laptop trackpads were just awful.
 
Oh great...so all the people ragging on Apple (mostly this forum which is one of the biggest anti-Apple sites out there) will go from "Apple doesn't even have touch screens on their Macs" to "Apple is now copying everyone else and making their Macs tough-screen. 10 years too late!"

So go ahead, start migrating your oft-parroted phrases now so you can beat the rush with your "hot takes".
 
As long as it is an option (read: not mandatory) across the product line, and in no way impacts development of the non-touch screens or changes to the interface, then great! More power to the weirdos that want this.
However, it seems to have proven largely true that when development is spent on one side of the equation, it must balance with the other. Just like all movies aren't produced in 3D, I don't want all laptops to be touchscreen if it negatively impacts the company's ability to provide real value elsewhere. We learned this dichotomy with Windows 8.0, remember?

So, please, don't tell me "if you don't like it, don't buy it and shut up!" It's naive to pretend that there isn't a very real risk this does not negatively impact the rest of the product and software lines. Could it not? Sure. But the risk is there, and it is perfectly logical to not like that.

The main application for a "touch" (that I see), for a MacBook, is on the go scetches and artwork. And then you don't really really really need a touchscreen. You need a very fancy pen, and possibly something that helps the pen with screen XY location (that doesn't need to be touch).
 
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So far apple has been very cautious in how both hardware and software of their products are designed, so that you have to buy an iPad and a mac if you want everything.

This rumored device will cover everything, I don’t see apple doing that unless they charge as much as both devices combined. Maybe 3.000 bucks for the privilege, while running the absolute lowest end combination (8 gigs of ram, 256 gigs of ssd and the base Mx processor)?

Well, we’ll see. I’m genuinely intrigued.
 
Steve Jobs would literally be rolling in his grave if this really happened.

Unless the touch screen part is only on the keyboard side, ie replacing the keyboard with basically an iPad.
You are aware that Steve Jobs was shameless and unapologetic about changing his opinion?

According to Tim Cook:

“Steve would flip on something so fast that you would forget that he was the one taking the 180 degree polar opposite position the day before.”

Steve has addressed this himself, saying something to the tune of "I know more today than I did yesterday, so why would I be beholden to my yesterday's opinions?"
 
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It's funny how so many old? people don't get it.........

And when I say Old I mean pretty just being an adult.

There are now tens/hundreds of millions of young children all over the word why are being given their very first tablets and even phones to play with at a very young age.
Perhaps even 2 or 3 years old for a tablet to play with.

As far as this whole generation of young children are concerned screens are tactile items to be touched.
Yes, when you learn to write things you can use the keyboard for letters/words, but you are use the screen to swipe pictures, scroll around, zoom in/out.

It's a whole package, not one or the other.

These children will easily have the first 10 ish years of their lives, from the moment they remember being able to physically interact with a screen.

So, at the age of what..... 11 or 12, you going to say to them, ok, enough of that, here's a real computer, and no you can't do anything with the screen on a real computer.

No, or course not, as it's simply going to be a part of their life as it always has been.
 
If the keyboard can be folded back, it would be good. But Apple would make it so expensive and hobbled that it wouldn't be a replacement for an iPad plus macbook. It will all about market and pricing structure.
 
Would it be more palatable if Apple released a laptop that supported pen (Apple Pencil) input? Then you wouldn't have to physically touch the screen, and fingerprints wouldn't be an issue.
And the UI wouldn’t need to change. But the form factor would. I’m a fan of the Surface Laptop Studio’s.
 
It's funny how so many old? people don't get it.........

And when I say Old I mean pretty just being an adult.

There are now tens/hundreds of millions of young children all over the word why are being given their very first tablets and even phones to play with at a very young age.
Perhaps even 2 or 3 years old for a tablet to play with.

As far as this whole generation of young children are concerned screens are tactile items to be touched.
Yes, when you learn to write things you can use the keyboard for letters/words, but you are use the screen to swipe pictures, scroll around, zoom in/out.

It's a whole package, not one or the other.

These children will easily have the first 10 ish years of their lives, from the moment they remember being able to physically interact with a screen.

So, at the age of what..... 11 or 12, you going to say to them, ok, enough of that, here's a real computer, and no you can't do anything with the screen on a real computer.

No, or course not, as it's simply going to be a part of their life as it always has been.
You're completely off track: Touch screen Macs have been around for decades, rather than inventing nonsense try to ask yourself the reasons why they weren't a success.Moreover, you are wrong target: I am of the opinion that the new generations must bury physical keyboards and mice forever, but on new devices, not on old devices adapted to the new because companies have no ideas but to steal money.
Give yourself a good rule, because you are really out of the way with an idiot youthful conviction, which is not useful for young people first.
 
It's funny how so many old? people don't get it.........

And when I say Old I mean pretty just being an adult.

There are now tens/hundreds of millions of young children all over the word why are being given their very first tablets and even phones to play with at a very young age.
Perhaps even 2 or 3 years old for a tablet to play with.

As far as this whole generation of young children are concerned screens are tactile items to be touched.
Yes, when you learn to write things you can use the keyboard for letters/words, but you are use the screen to swipe pictures, scroll around, zoom in/out.

It's a whole package, not one or the other.

These children will easily have the first 10 ish years of their lives, from the moment they remember being able to physically interact with a screen.

So, at the age of what..... 11 or 12, you going to say to them, ok, enough of that, here's a real computer, and no you can't do anything with the screen on a real computer.

No, or course not, as it's simply going to be a part of their life as it always has been.
Yes. Most of the kids learn to drive bikes before they learn to drive cars later, are we making cars to look and function more like bikes? Nope. People adapt. People learn. Why is this so hard to understand?

You look like the one who just “don’t get it”
 
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