Apple launches their first touch-screen MacBook. What took them so long?
Apple has revealed its first touch screen Macbook. It is targeted at graphic designers, photographers, musicians and other creative types.
More than a decade after touch-screen Windows laptops first hit the market, Apple has taken the wraps off its first touch-screen Macbook Pro.
The Cupertino-based company announced the new laptop on Wednesday during its “Pro and Tell” in Los Angeles, a special event to launch the new product.
It marks a turning point for the company, which for years said it would not develop a touch-screen laptop. Apple users interested in a touch-first device should buy an iPad instead, the company has long argued.
In fact, Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs once famously said that touch-screen laptops were “ergonomically terrible” during a keynote in 2010 promoting the Macbook Air, the company’s light and ultraportable laptop.
Alex DePaoli, a marketing professor in the D’Amore-McKim School of Business said the company likely has pivoted on its stance against making a totally touch-friendly Mac out of the desire to entice the higher end market and creative professionals.
“Apple has made itself the go-to brand for people who do drawing and drafting as part of their work,” he said.
That is how the company is marketing it. In a press release announcing the laptop, the company touted its new features, specifically to that crowd.
Graphic designers no longer have to rely on the computer’s trackpad to move and orient their 3D models or sketches, musicians can use their hands to play keys on a virtual piano, and photographers can easily pinch and zoom on images using their fingers, it highlighted.
And it is certainly high end. The computer, which comes in 14-inch and 16-inch variants, starts at $2,899. Customers can pre-order the device now. It launches on Nov. 6.
DePaoli said Apple is following its signature playbook with the touch-screen Macbook, as the company has a habit of entering established consumer electronic categories with its own premium line of products.
It waits for others to work out the kinks with the underlying technology and then introduces its own more “polished” device, he said.
A great example is the iPhone Duo, the company’s first folding phone that hit store shelves last week, he said.
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Apple wasn’t the first to enter the folding phone market, but early reception of the device has been positive. Analysts at Counterpoint Research, a marketing research firm, estimated that by the end of the year the company is expected to sell more than six million units.
It hasn’t been completely rosey, however. Some users have reported that their phone’s inner folding displays are already breaking under normal use. Apple issued a statement acknowledging the defect was “impacting a small number of iPhone units” and that anyone who is experiencing the issue should contact the company for a replacement.
The launch of the Macbook Pro is likely to bring less fanfare than Duo as many users likely assumed Apple already offered a touch-screen Macbook, DePaoli said.
“This is a technology that is not going to surprise or delight people,” he said. “It’s going to confuse people that Apple didn’t already offer this.”
The company has flirted with adding touch inputs on its laptops before. In 2016, it introduced the Touch Bar to the Macbook Pro, a touch-screen display that replaced the laptop’s function key row.
But it was phased out a few years later. Apple never acknowledged why it removed the Touch Bar, but the feature had poor software support from outside developers, and many Mac users prefer traditional function row keys, according to tech industry experts.
Mark Miller, a computer science professor in Northeastern’s Silicon Valley campus and a former Apple employee, believes the company is adding a touch screen to the Macbook as a way to stand out in a sea of touch-screen Windows laptops.
“No doubt Apple feels some pressure to ‘check the box’ since the competition touts it as a Windows-only feature,” he said.
But will Apple entering this long established market have a big impact and make touch-screen laptops cool?
Maybe for diehard Apple enthusiasts. But for other consumers, DePaoli is skeptical.
“I don’t think you are going to move a lot of units by saying, ‘Hey, that thing you’ve been trying to do for ten years, you can actually do it now,” he said.
