Apple Explains Why It Finally Added Touch to the MacBook Pro

Apple waited to add touch to the MacBook Pro until it could do so without making the laptop heavier or thicker, CEO John Ternus said in an interview with WIRED.

Asked about Apple's reversal, Ternus joked, "Who knew?" He stressed that the keyboard and trackpad remain the main controls, with touch available when it is convenient.

The requirement was that adding touch "didn't make the product lesser in any way," he said. Moving to OLED allowed Apple to add the feature without a bulkier design.

Marketing chief Greg Joswiak pointed to professionals already used to iPhones and iPads. Younger creators, he said, "expect to touch." Engineers, developers, and media creators had been asking for direct screen interaction.

For hardware chief Johny Srouji, advances in displays, chips, and software had finally "met our bar." He said engineers should be "gated by physics, not imagination or timelines."

The hardware changes address two practical problems with touching a laptop screen: movement and heat. The hinge is designed to hold the display steady under a tap, and the cooling system redirects warm air away from it. Despite those changes, the 14-inch notebook is half a pound lighter at 3 pounds, and the 16-inch model drops 0.7 pounds to 4 pounds.

Apple also told WIRED the antireflective coating should need no more cleaning than a conventional display.

Existing apps can respond because macOS translates touches into clicks, while developers can add dedicated gestures. The Apple Creator Studio updates due in November will make that more tangible: playing a keyboard or drum pads in Logic Pro, painting on the canvas in Pixelmator Pro, and placing clips or selecting ranges in Final Cut Pro.

The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models use M5 Pro or M5 Max chips and start at $2,899 and $3,399 in the U.S. Preorders are open on Amazon, with deliveries beginning November 6. Ternus declined to discuss whether touch will come to the MacBook Air or iMac.