Touch … Now? (Premium)

Last week, we received word that Apple will likely ship its first MacBook Pro with a multitouch display in 2025 and then add the technology to more Mac models.

I have questions. But I think there’s also a more nuanced view of this shift than the kneejerk reactions we’ve seen, especially from the Windows community.

Yes, Apple CEO Tim Cook infamously mocked Microsoft for combining the PC with a multitouch tablet several times over the years, noting that the resulting Surface Pro was like combining “a refrigerator and a toaster.” He also once described Surface Book, yet another Microsoft take on the PC/tablet hybrid, as “deluded.” Microsoft, he said, was coming from a “defensive position,” which is a roundabout way of saying that they were not innovating but rather protecting a legacy business, the PC.

And that’s fair. As we’ve discussed many times, most recently on the day that Windows 8.1 exited support, Microsoft’s strategy of that era one decade ago, such as it was, was all about Apple envy and a fear that the firm’s multitouch products—especially the iPhone but also the iPad—would overrun Windows and the PC for good. This fear was understandable, but Microsoft’s overreaction compromised Windows, doomed Windows Phone, and resulted in a lackluster new line of tablet PCs. Tim Cook was right.

But how do we rationalize Apple’s sudden plans for multitouch Macs after 15 years of claiming it would never do such a thing?

We can’t. Apple, as always, is inscrutable. It really does think different(ly).

I have argued in the past that touch-based Macs were inevitable, noting that adding this capability could be justified by a single fact: Apple requires developers who target its touch-based platforms like iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS to use a Mac, and since the Mac has never offered multitouch, even via an add-on peripheral of some kind, that developer experience has always been compromised because it was impossible for developers to afford the many, many different devices models they would need for adequate testing. Instead, they would have to mostly rely on software emulators. Say what you will about Windows, but if you’re developing an app and want to use touch interfaces, you can do so on a touch-capable PC or tablet and experiment with your app naturally in any of its postures.

But Mark Gurman, who is now so trusted and reliable that we simply take his word on anything Apple related, says that the consumer electronics giant has other reasons to make the shift now. And he claims that this is about making the experience of running iPhone and iPad apps on the Mac—which Apple customers can do thanks to a technology called Catalyst—more natural. Apparently, developers haven’t made too many of those apps available on the Mac because the work to convert them with a mouse and keyboard is too difficult or time-consuming. Multitouch support would be more natural.

But Apple isn’t going to combine the platform used by Macs and iPads: Macs will still run macOS and iPads will still run iPadOS, and these things will still be separate, though there will be some functional overlap, as we saw recently with a feature called Stage Manager. And Apple being Apple, this will be a several-year-long transition that could be halted mid-stride, as was the case with the MacBook Pro’s unpopular Touch Bar. But even given Apple’s history of obstinately denying it would do something only to later do that exact thing, this stands out as a curious anomaly.

The thing is, I don’t think that most Mac users wouldn’t benefit from, or want, a touchscreen, especially on a traditional laptop. Using my right tool for the job mantra as a general guide and my more recent understanding that having a multitouch display on a traditional form factor laptop isn’t just non-optimal but is in fact not ideal, I would prefer that Apple not introduce multitouch displays on its Macs. Or, at the very least, make them optional. I would never buy a multitouch-equipped PC laptop if a non-touch option were available. Of course, Apple isn’t famous for giving its user choice, so that is unlikely.

I also have concerns about how this will further confuse Apple’s already confusing product lineup. Apple fans have been debating whether to use an iPad Pro (especially) or a MacBook for years, and each of these product lines has expanded so much in recent years that they’re getting confusing. Macs with multitouch displays would only exacerbate the confusion.

That said, let’s give Mr. Cook some credit: when he complained about Microsoft Surface, what he was really saying was that convergence was the problem: Microsoft wasn’t offering a PC and a tablet, it was offering a PC that was a tablet. With the Mac, Apple is simply adding a feature, and that feature will make an existing feature—the ability to run iPhone and iPad apps—better.

Those mobile platforms, especially the iPhone, are of course at the center of Apple’s entire ecosystem and so making that product more valuable, as this change will, makes sense on at least some level. And that will be as good for customers as it is for Apple, potentially. This, I think, helps explain the move.

But it’s also a defensive position, as Cook once pointed out when the shoe was on the other foot.

And that says as much about how much personal computing has changed in the past decade as anything else I can think of: adding multitouch to the Mac isn’t at all innovative, not all these years later. But it will help protect—and maybe even expand—Apple’s legacy businesses. Mr. Cook is, after all, a businessman, not a technologist, just like Steve Ballmer, who approved of Windows 8, Surface, and Steven Sinofsky’s other nonsense. I’m sure it made sense at the time. And I’m sure this makes sense to Cook now. Even though it never did before.