Apple Launches First Touchscreen MacBook Pro, Ending Jobs-Era Taboo
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Apple this week unveiled its first touchscreen MacBook Pro — an OLED, M5-powered laptop that ends nearly two decades of resistance to touch on the Mac. With global laptop shipments down 11% this year, the real question is whether a touch-plus-OLED premium can prop up higher prices in a shrinking market.
Jobs called it "ergonomically terrible" — why is Apple doing it now?
Steve Jobs explicitly opposed a touchscreen Mac, calling it "ergonomically terrible." Tim Cook later compared merging laptops and tablets to "merging a fridge and a toaster."
According to Bloomberg, Cook and current CEO John Ternus reversed course roughly four years ago and became the key sponsors of the touchscreen MacBook Pro.
This means → the project was not a bottom-up engineering experiment but a CEO-level strategic bet — the goal: inject fresh appeal into the Mac and justify higher pricing.
What is actually different about this machine?
The new MacBook Pro carries an OLED display — previously reserved for iPhones and iPads, now on a Mac for the first time — and runs on M5 Pro or M5 Max chips.
The body is lighter than the current pro-laptop lineup, and the interface has been redesigned for touch interaction.
In plain terms = OLED means a brighter, more power-efficient screen; touch means you can use your fingers directly. Neither technology is new — but Apple has never put both into a Mac at once.
What else did Apple ship this week?
Also launched this week: a lower-end 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M6 chip, an updated iMac, and a new iPad mini with an OLED screen and a higher price tag.
iPhone Duo went on sale last Friday.
This means → Apple packed nearly every major hardware refresh into a single launch week, visibly accelerating its release cadence and closing out this year's product cycle.
The market is ice-cold — why is Apple raising prices?
IDC projects global laptop shipments will fall 11% year-on-year in 2025; third-quarter PC shipments dropped 20% YoY. Apple's own shipments slid 11% in that quarter.
Rising memory prices are a key pressure point. Cook warned this summer that memory costs were "unsustainable," and Apple has raised prices across nearly its entire Mac lineup this year.
This reflects a deliberate playbook: Apple is not trying to grow volume through the slump — it is stacking premium features to lift average selling prices and protect margins.
Will touch actually be the reason consumers pay more?
Apple's most recent quarterly Mac revenue was $10.35 billion, roughly 10% of total company revenue.
IDC VP Ryan Reith noted that touchscreen laptops have existed in the Windows world for years, yet touch remains "a feature, not the selling point behind most purchase decisions."
Only about 17% of global laptop shipments this year will include a touchscreen. In plain terms = whether touch plus OLED can meaningfully lift Mac average selling prices is a question the market has not yet answered.
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