Jonathan Ive on Why There Isn't a Touchscreen MacBook Pro

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Posted October 31, 2016 at 2:01pm by iClarified

In a recent interview, Jonathan Ive talks about the new MacBook Pro and why it doesn't have a touchscreen.

Ive reveals that Apple decided it didn't want to add multitouch to the Mac "many, many years ago". Instead the company has introduced a multitouch strip that replaces the function keys at the top of your keyboard. The strip is customizable and displays contextual controls to help you get things done faster.

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You say different would be easy and fast. Is that why we’re not seeing a touchscreen-based MacBook Pro? That would have been an easy choice. Or was it something other PC makers have done and you wanted to go in a different direction?
When we were exploring multitouch many, many years ago, we were trying to understand the appropriate application and opportunities for [it]. We just didn’t feel that [the Mac] was the right place for that…. It wasn’t particularly useful or an appropriate application of multitouch.

Because?
For a bunch of practical reasons. It’s difficult to talk [laughs] without going into a lot of details that puts me starting to talk about things that we are working on. I don’t really want to talk much more about it.
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Ive also revealed that "There’s a number of designs that we explored that conceptually make sense. But then when we lived on them for a while, sort of pragmatically and day to day, [they] are sometimes less compelling. This is something [we] lived on for quite a while before we did any of the prototypes. You really notice or become aware [of] something’s value when you switch back to a more traditional keyboard."

You can read the full interview at the link below...

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Jonathan Ive on Why There Isn't a Touchscreen MacBook Pro

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Ken - November 2, 2016 at 10:16pm

Gosh, I can't believe the language used here. For god's sake people, here's an incredibly creative, talented, one of kind designer talking from his heart about his amazing thought processes. You lot simply miss it. Pathetic!

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Stevie jods - November 1, 2016 at 12:30am

No touch screen because they just made the iPad pro, they always put profit margins before innovation, I figure out already this because of the small updates on the phones like better camera or little more stupid gimmicks, nothing serious I know how they play nowadays

Mang Domeng - October 31, 2016 at 7:47pm

If there is a touchscreen Macbook Pro it will be a big business for cleaning products because you always clean your dirty screen all the time. Touchscreen on a small laptop must have an optimized interface with bigger buttons for fingers and stylus which Windows 10 really suck!

ANDREW YU - October 31, 2016 at 5:34pm

If Apple introduces a touch screen macbook pro, that would be the dead of the ipad.

jayseee - October 31, 2016 at 6:03pm

This so not true, very inaccurate. There are tons of windows users that like the iPad as a tablet, that would buy an iPad in addition to their laptops. There are tons of users that just need a laptop to work with, a 600$-1000$ while the MacBook Pro costs over 1400$ the cheapest one. Also if what you are saying was true, it would be a smart move for apple, the millions of iPads that are sold every year would be millions of MacBook Pros instead which they don't sell as many right now. Please check your facts before making stupid statements.

matrixmaniac - October 31, 2016 at 6:06pm

Yeah... and if they added a decently implemented file system and usb-c to the iPad Pro that might be the death of quite many PCs... But they stubbornly hold on to their weird principles nowadays even if it becomes an obvious mistake... I slowly start to believe they really miss Steve as he was always able to throw over any decision when it turned out to be wrong.

John P - October 31, 2016 at 4:25pm

Damn Apple. It would have been awesome if you included at least one USB 3.0 port... Also, a touch screen is really useful for specific things and not for day to day uses... there's nothing worst that not being able to markup a PDF in the macbook pro with a pencil... Sometimes I'm reviewing a PDF where I have to make a simple annotations and its not possible or really tedious doing it with the mouse... Its so easy on the ipad or on a surface machine. You would have nailed it if you included 1 usb 3.0 and allowed the mac to receive touch inputs on the screen.

Anderson McConnell - October 31, 2016 at 4:18pm

Apple's executives, mainly in design, are burned out and need to let a fresh generation of leaders take the company forward with enthusiasm for the future of the brand. As a long time fan who has owns and uses most of Apple's products I'm sorry to say the direction of their line in the past year or so has become a growing disappointment. I finally bought an Android tablet to try the competition and to my surprise and delight it's a great product. I've been owning, using and recommending MacBook Pro's and all things Apple everyday for the past 10 years and this new series is a huge letdown. I don't buy the "courageous" decision to remove proven standard connectors that add great value and utility to phones and notebooks, then require a drawer full of expensive proprietary connectors that add ABSOLUTELY NO IMPROVEMENT to the experience. It merely achieves what the competition delivers out of the box with clunky, ugly, expensive adapters to lose. That's a fail on the customer experience vs TCO curve. I remember when Apple's products were really best of breed, delivering more capability and value than the competition so worth a premium price. Now it feels like just a money grab and a logo creating a mess on the desk. Different without being better is just different. Mr. Ive and the gang have been delaying retirement too long. That old saying "Leave 'em wanting more" refers to the duration of your stint, not the products you hock.

Ke.x - October 31, 2016 at 3:42pm

I don't need s touch screen and I really like the fact that there are only USB-Cs on MacBooks now! Gonna buy two! :D

odedoo1 - October 31, 2016 at 2:20pm

Bullshit, all I hear is him avoiding the questions with absolutely real reasons why not! While the whole world wants it and only Apple refuses to give, so what do they do? Give us a strip of a touch screen and at the same time strip all connections beside USC type C while doubling its prices.

odedoo1 - October 31, 2016 at 2:21pm

*USB

odedoo1 - October 31, 2016 at 2:27pm

Seriously what the f*ck is going on? The iPhone 7 disappointed me but the new MBP killed me! Did Apple really lost their touch like everybody are saying? Because right now it's really feels like they did.

gamerscul9870 - October 31, 2016 at 2:41pm

I call bull shit on your remark! At least the MacBook knows what it wants to be instead of trying to be two different devices that would be going through many changes that would abandon the Mac and iPad design in terms of how they closely would resemble either, but it makes sense because the touch bar can work like a touchscreen, yet you don't have to reach out and get fingerprints all over the screen, yet to me, it's a clever way to implement iOS functions like this along with organizing keys your way. Aside from that though, Apple didn't lose their touch that many are losing their minds over (because they want to give up) and it feels like they didn't. I like what they did with iPhone 7 which was really worth getting rid of the jack and this new computer only has little to no problems with me. If anything though, tpuchscreen in a Mac would just feel like a secondary mouse that would make your arms tired.

odedoo1 - October 31, 2016 at 2:59pm

Oh yes only GB16 RAM another fu*k up, and what I meant was that they should have made the screen fold all the way to the back and now you have a touch pad which don't hurt your arms, or at least put OS X on the iPad Pro, other companies are not scared to do it so why Apple does? And you know what I'm not really interested with you answering me, I've read on so many blogs with Apple fans like me complaining worst then me, Apple are loosing their touch or they are just plying with us to get our money before next year.

odedoo1 - October 31, 2016 at 5:21pm

Finally someone who gets me, thanks!!!!

:D - October 31, 2016 at 2:09pm

Personally the only reason I wouldn't care for a touch screen is the amount of finger prints you would get on that screen.

Name14 - October 31, 2016 at 5:20pm

My pet peeve!