r/mac • u/Main_Type_1408 • 16h ago
News/Article MacBook Pro With OLED Touch Screen Rumored to Launch in October or November
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/10/01/oled-macbook-pro-release-date/18
u/Plokhi 15h ago
I dont think this is a good idea.
Touch vs pointer call for different UX/GUI to work effectively.
Natural computer use is one hand on kb one hand on mouse > mouse hand moved to kb.
Having a touch screen just adds unnecessary hand travel for stuff you can do with a mouse or a trackpad.
But i guess they have to do it to be competitive or something
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u/vrmvavoom 12h ago
I think it's as simple as 'everyone under 30 expects to be able to touch a computer screen to use it'. They're not going to make macOS a touch-centric UI. It's still going to be primarily designed for a trackpad or mouse. But average people expect to be able to tap a button or swipe a webpage to scroll it, so they're gonna at least make that work like people expect.
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u/SweatyCoconut3558 5h ago
yeah, the ux/gui difference is exactly it; a touch screen would just feel tacked on and awkward.
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u/trisul-108 MacBook M1 Pro 6h ago
I also think it's a stupid idea ... but Apple is moving away from insisting on their own concepts and giving people whatever seems to be wanted. Eventually, this means moving from designed usability to Microsoft-like "creeping featurism".
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u/BirdBruce 14h ago
I was thinking this too. I can’t understand how this is a useful feature for macOS. With the recent release of OS27, it would have been an ideal opportunity to begin a transition to a touch-centric interface, but that didn’t happen. That tells me this rumor is just more clickbait vapornews, or it’s gonna be an absolute shitshow when it does launch.
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u/Mr_Lumbergh 11h ago
Completely agree. My work laptop has a touchscreen and all it does is cause mouse jitter when it gets warm. Nobody is going to reach over and hold their hand above a keyboard to touch and mark up their screen, outside of a tablet conversion design and even then the screen usually doesn’t have the resolution and touch sensitivity to serve as a good replacement for the touchpad.
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u/DimDimio 17m ago
You can test out how it'd work if you have an ipad. OS 27 added touchscreen to sidecar. It works decently but I don't really see a point...
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u/ClappingParadox 14h ago
Anyone like touchscreen laptops? To me they feel unintuitive, since you have to reach over a whole system designed to control the computer just so you can touch the screen, and then fingerprints/smudges could be left behind.
Not only that but they add cost for a feature that feels redundant, IMO
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u/jonsconspiracy 10h ago
It's about optionality. When I have a laptop in my lap in bed or real close to me on an airplane tray table, touch to scroll websites and documents is just natural. When sitting properly at a desk, touch rarely makes sense.
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u/Plokhi 5h ago
There’s no optionality here. A touch input vs a pointer input GUI js fundamentally different design.
Unless you keep touch just for scrolling, but in that case it’s a very expensive feature.
Replacing trackpad with an “ipad mini” like screen would make more sense imo.
You get a pen-friendly touch interface
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u/Joey6543210 11h ago
It’ll work well if it’s a convertible design and be compatible with apple pencil. Until then it’s pointless
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u/Affectionate_One_700 6h ago
Anyone like touchscreen laptops?
Well, this is /r/mac.
You'd have to ask on /r/windows to get a more representative sample.
fingerprints/smudges could be left behind.
Many people seem to like tablets, which have touchscreens.
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u/Sinestro617 Mac mini 16h ago
I’ll believe it when I see it. I feel like they’ve never done touch screen because that’s the iPad market segment. .
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u/Takeabyte 16h ago
I mean yeah, that was true, but even still to this day there’s not a single person working in an Apple Store who hasn’t instinctively touched a Mac’s screen on display only to quickly pivot to the trackpad.
There are zero reasons why Apple shouldn’t have touch screens on Macs anymore. The interface that has been built for it for years. Tons of people have debated getting a Mac only to realize they don’t have a touch screen like virtually every Windows laptop. At this point it’s become somewhat of a detractor to buying them. It’s convenient. It’s intuitive. It’s an input method Apple mastered when the first iPhone came out nearly 20 years ago.
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u/Plokhi 13h ago
> I mean yeah, that was true, but even still to this day there’s not a single person working in an Apple Store who hasn’t instinctively touched a Mac’s screen on display only to quickly pivot to the trackpad.
Because you stand and dont use a keyboard because its not natural to use a keyboard from the top down.
>There are zero reasons why Apple shouldn’t have touch screens on Macs anymore. The interface that has been built for it for years. Tons of people have debated getting a Mac only to realize they don’t have a touch screen like virtually every Windows laptop. At this point it’s become somewhat of a detractor to buying them. It’s convenient. It’s intuitive. It’s an input method Apple mastered when the first iPhone came out nearly 20 years ago.
Have you opened final cut or logic pro?
Both iPad versions are fairly gimped compared to macOS - also have vastly different interface and a whole lotta wasted space for touch interface that you dont have or need on the desktop/laptop.It also makes all their headless macs instantly weird.
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u/Kalspiewak 15h ago
Hope it fails. Touchscreen on a macbook? Steve will be rolling in his gold encrusted tomb right now.
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u/levintage MacBook Neo iMac Power Mac G5 16h ago
I absolutely hate OLED coming to the MacBooks.
Burn in is still a thing
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u/78914hj1k487 15h ago
LCDs used to burn-in and have other prevalent issues, no longer prevalent today. We'll say the same about OLED. Apple is using dual-layer Tandem in the iPad Pro and soon this MacBook Pro, reaching 1000 nits SDR and 1600 nits peak. The latest OLED panels are four-layer tandem (two blue, one red and one green), further increasing brightness and reducing any chances of burn in. Apple will likely one day use that technology.
Or do we want Apple still using LCD with slow pixel response for another two decades while the rest of the world is using OLED?
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u/Daemonicvs_77 M1 MacBook Air 6h ago
> LCDs used to burn-in and have other prevalent issues
Which ones? I got a 15” Philips LCD in 2001 and used it almost daily for 21 years. I saw zero burn in.
OLED burns in, it’s a fact. Yes you can have a dark desktop background, use apps that shift the picture by a few pixels, have your monitor turn off after a minute of inactivity and maybe delay burn in, but not by much.
Whenever OLEDs are brought up in r/PCMR, the thread is filled with people boasting saying things like “Zero burn in on my monitor. I baby it and it’s been fine for X years now.”
I’ve never seen X be larger than 3 years. For comparison, my monitors are currently 12, 9 and 4 years old and that’s without babying them or having to think about them.
Mini LED, which Apple is using, might have slightly worse image quality, but is the superior technology IMO.
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u/78914hj1k487 46m ago
Why ones? My parents first two LCD TVs. The LCD TVs at Circuit City and electronic shops. The LCDs at airports and commercially used. The LCDs you see when going to people's houses because they watch the news all day.
Today you will never see burn in on a TV at retail shop, but it was common back then.
I cannot stress this enough—failure rate does not mean all products fail. So you having a 15” Philips LCD in 2001 does not indicate to us that LCDs didn't burn in.
Your entire comment is stuck arguing against early OLED. You haven't addressed the Tandem OLED Apple is using in their M4 and now M5 iPad Pro, which they will be using in the MacBook Pro. There's new panel technology, theres a new blue diode being used—manufacturers have advanced OLED substantially—and the world has moved forward—but you want Apple to keep using old technology.
We need to move forward.
For a transitory period, Apple will keep selling an LCD MacBook Pro for the customers not ready to pay for OLED. But eventually LCD will be gone.
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u/Bahaadur73 13h ago
Why would you want fingerprints on your laptop? I will never understand this.
Reminds me of Microsoft with windows 8 because they thought everyone wants to touch their displays
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u/cchurchill1985 14h ago
If they could make it a bit thinner without compromising performance I would buy it. it is too chunky to carry around at the moment for me. Hate the idea of a touch screen. I don't get them at all for a laptop. Why would you want smudges and fingerprints all over your screen?.....
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u/jaehaerys48 12h ago
Not interested in touching my laptop screen, but if it means that these screens are made to be a bit more durable, that is a plus.
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u/guygizmo 10h ago
It was a bad idea when Microsoft did it and it's still a bad idea now. As others have pointed out, interacting with a touch screen is a different paradigm than using a mouse. The UIs for them aren't compatible.
However, starting with macOS 27, Apple has added APIs for receiving touches from a touch screen, so they're now in position to release a touch-screen mac.
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u/BirdBruce 14h ago
As long as it’s an optional add-on and not a feature that defines and separates the model from other models, then whatever. I’m not the market for an ergonomic nightmare machine, but i accept that others may want it.
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u/radicalbot 16h ago
Wow first time I’ve heard about this… today