Steve Jobs had a problem with touch screen laptops long before Apple put one on the table. At the 2010 Back to the Mac event, he argued that holding your arm up to a vertical screen gets tiring in no time. “Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical,” he said. Apple stuck to that thinking for years.
That changed on October 28. Apple unveiled the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and added direct touch input. Starting with a high-end professional laptop rather than an entry-level model tells me plenty about the intended audience. Apple wants touch to prove itself in demanding workflows, not serve as a novelty.
Nobody should mistake my take for a hands-on review. I haven’t used one, so everything below is a reaction to what Apple put on the table, and the question is whether Apple found an answer to the arm problem or… waited long enough for you to stop asking.
The detail that caught my eye was the touch sensor sitting inside the display panel. Apple says that makes the screen feel more immediate under your fingers. I can’t judge that from a press release, though. Someone needs to drag a thumb across a Final Cut Pro timeline and tell me whether it feels different from using another touch screen laptop.
Apple redesigned the hinge to limit screen movement when you touch the display. If you’ve ever tried tapping a wobbly laptop screen, you know why that matters. The panel shouldn’t fight your finger.
The panel reaches 2,000 nits, whether you’re working in SDR or HDR, according to Apple. PROLED XDR is the company’s name for the tandem OLED behind that figure. Adobe RGB support caught my attention, too. Apple seems keen to make the built-in screen more appealing to photographers and colorists who prefer to keep another display nearby.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro is down to 3 pounds, and the 16-inch weighs 4. That’s half a pound off the smaller model. Given that Apple just added touch to the display, I would’ve expected the opposite.
The touch-equipped 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,899 with M5 Pro, a $400 jump over the non-touch model. Want the 16-inch with M5 Max? That starts at $4,799. I’d have a hard time paying that much extra just to poke the display.
The chip lineup is harder to swallow. Apple put the M6 in a 14-inch MacBook Pro just a day earlier, but the new flagship sticks with M5 Pro and M5 Max. Spend thousands here, and you’re buying last generation’s silicon.
Apple has left some questions unanswered, including whether the laptop supports Apple Pencil. Spotlight in the Dynamic Island also depends on Siri AI, which remains in beta and comes with daily server-side limits. I’m skeptical of the 24-hour battery claim, too. Apple says so, of course, and I trust the Cupertino company more than most, but that’s a long time to go without a charger.
I’d start with musicians. Logic Pro’s multi-touch polyphonic keyboard, chord pads, and drum pads give them a reason to reach for the screen instead of the trackpad. iOS developers have a practical reason to care, too, since they could test touch interactions on their Mac.
Colorists get pulled in by the panel more than the touch. Speaking as a MacBook Air owner, I’m not the target. You aren’t either if your day is email and browser tabs.
“A monumental step forward for the Mac” was Johny Srouji’s verdict. I’m not ready to go that far, but the new hinge and in-panel sensor suggest Apple has looked into the practical challenges. Musicians and people grading footage away from a studio could get plenty from the touch screen. For my writing workload, I’d want an hour with the laptop before paying a premium to reach up to the display.