Apple’s touchscreen MacBook Pro hasn’t convinced me at all, and I think Steve Jobs would hate the uninspired thinking that got us here.
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Earlier this week, Apple did what we all knew it would do for months and finally unveiled its touchscreen MacBook Pro. Clumsily dubbed the “PROLED XDR Display,” Apple says the touchscreen panel offers pro users “a whole new way to interact with their content.”
However, to say I’m not convinced would be an understatement. While I’m excited about the benefits of OLED, I’ve long been skeptical about the benefits of touchscreen laptops, finding their gestural interactions unnecessary and uncomfortable to use for long periods of time. And if something is so unnecessary that you don’t use it or so uncomfortable that it hurts your arms, it probably shouldn’t be in a product.
But hey, what do I know? Virtually every Windows laptop manufacturer offers at least one touchscreen version, and now Apple has gotten in on the action. I’m sure Apple will do what it usually does and blow everyone else’s mind with a refined feature that redefines what a touchscreen should be… right?
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Actually, scratch that, I’m still not entirely convinced. Because not only has Apple completely sidestepped the arm fatigue issue, it seems like the company can’t even convincingly explain why anyone should buy a touchscreen MacBook in the first place (and let’s not even talk about the $2,899 starting price or the $14,549 top-end configuration). No, I think I’ll stay out of this. Here’s why you might want to do it too.
Simply the best?
If we want to understand why this touchscreen MacBook Pro exists, and perhaps why you should buy one, we should look at how Apple frames it. The company says that “graphic designers can now use the entire screen as a canvas, no longer limited by the trackpad area when drawing” and that “musicians can play software instruments directly on the screen.”
But does Apple really think doing any of those things will be remotely comfortable for more than 10 seconds? After all, there’s a reason people play the keyboard horizontally: because playing an entire concerto with your arms stiff and outstretched is a fast track to sore extremities. Why would it be different on a laptop?
Surely Apple doesn’t envision long-term use like that, so I guess it expects you to do a few quick taps on the screen and then return to a normal, sensible way of using your laptop. But if you only interact with the touchscreen for a few seconds at a time, is it really worth it? Is that kind of limited interaction a good value when you’re paying a $400 premium for the regular MacBook Pro?
Maybe, maybe not, but the fact that Apple’s big, expensive flagship feature is something many people will just shrug their shoulders at suggests a lack of inspiration on Apple’s part.
Yes, you also get a beautiful OLED panel for your $400, and I think that’s easily justified. But each The feature of a product you buy should be able to justify its existence, especially in an Apple product and especially in these expensive times. However, the touchscreen panel feels like it’s come along for the ride.
After all, Apple is the company that has reinvented category after category, from portable music players to smartphones, tablets, and more. And now the best you can do is a feature that’s not comfortable to use for long periods and is best employed in short bursts with long periods of inactivity in between.
If Apple, of all companies, can’t surprise you with a feature that resets expectations for how the category should work, why do you bother? Apple’s mantra has long been not to be the first, but to be the best. Does this touchscreen really look like the best in the industry or just another addition to the stack?
An uninspired feature
In hands-on demonstrations across the country, many people have said that using the touchscreen MacBook Pro feels great—or “completely and wonderfully natural,” in the words of my colleague Lance Ulanoff—and I don’t doubt that’s the case.
But that doesn’t at all negate Steve Jobs’ criticism of the idea of touchscreen laptops. In his famous critique, Jobs said that “after a short period of time you start to get fatigued and after a long period of time your arm wants to fall off.”
I’m sure Apple has designed its touch screen in such a way that it really feels amazing when you start using it. A few taps and swipes and you’re probably ready to part with your money.
The problem is, unless I’m missing something, our arms haven’t evolved in the 16 years since Jobs made that oft-quoted pronouncement. Keep using a touchscreen laptop, whether made by Apple or anyone else, and you’ll eventually start to feel fatigue and soreness.
Since the laws of biology haven’t changed, I was hoping Apple would at least have some kind of cool feature up its sleeve for the touchscreen. Unfortunately, I have come away disappointed.
Even John Ternus, Apple’s new CEO, can’t seem to sell it well. When asked by Wired why Apple decided to release a touchscreen MacBook, Ternus had this to say:
“We needed to get to a point where adding touch didn’t make the product smaller in any way. It didn’t make it heavier. It didn’t make it thicker. That came along with the OLED display, the best display we’ve ever put in a Mac. All of these things, and, oh yeah, it has touch too.”
“Oh yeah, he’s tactful too.”
That seems to sum up the inclusion of the touchscreen almost too well. Why did Apple include it in the MacBook Pro? “Yeah, I guess we can do that too.” That’s how it sounds to me.
Is that the attitude of a company you lead? One that prides itself on inspiration and innovation? Or just one who sees everyone else making touchscreen laptops and thinks they should probably tag along?
Look again at what Ternus said. The time was right to include a touchscreen because Apple could do it without making the MacBook Pro worse. The time was not right because including a touchscreen would elevate the MacBook Pro to new and exciting heights. Just, “hey, what’s the worst that could happen?”
Apple’s playbook has often been to let others go first and wait until you have the ability to surprise everyone else, not to let others go first and then add your own because “I guess the time is right.” It just screams of passive, unimaginative thinking. Where is the drive, the passion? The desire to do something “incredibly cool”?
Are we really expected to believe that Steve Jobs made the first iPhone a touchscreen product because he wanted the company’s customers to say “oh yeah, it has multi-touch too”? That designing an Apple device was a check-box exercise in adding whatever you could, as long as it didn’t make the experience shit? Jobs was famous for his attacks, and you can bet everything you have that he would have one if his teams thought that way.
And yet here we are, with Apple’s own CEO making the headline feature of his latest MacBook Pro seem like an afterthought that half of the company’s users may not even notice. It boggles the mind.
Before the launch of the MacBook Pro PROLED, my colleague Lance Ulanoff noted that Steve Jobs often changed his mind and argued that Jobs would have loved the idea of a touchscreen MacBook Pro. Maybe so, but I would have hated the timid way Apple has approached it.
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