Apple is poised to reveal a touchscreen MacBook at its “Pro and Tell” gathering scheduled for tomorrow, a move that would finally bring the company into a market it has long avoided. While touchscreen laptops have existed for many years, Apple has consistently resisted the idea. In 2012, CEO Tim Cook likened the concept to “putting a refrigerator together with a toaster,” suggesting it was an odd combination of appliances. Earlier, in 2010, co‑founder Steve Jobs dismissed the notion outright, calling touchscreen laptops “ergonomically terrible” and insisting that “touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical.”
The closest Apple has come to a touch‑enabled notebook is the MacBook Pro Touch Bar, introduced in 2016, which added a narrow, touch‑sensitive strip above the keyboard rather than a full‑screen display. Photo credit: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge.