Hands-on with Apple’s touchscreen MacBook Pro

Steve Jobs famously called touchscreen laptops “ergonomically terrible,” and for over a decade, Apple stridently refused to make one. Today that all changes with the MacBook Pro — the company’s first laptop to embrace a touch interface. While it’s unlikely that Apple can fix all the “terrible” ergonomics of having to lift your arm up and touch a laptop screen, the company has put some effort into making macOS more touch-friendly.

The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display weighs just 3 pounds, which is noticeably lighter than the current generation of non-touch MacBook Pros, which start at 3.4 pounds for the newly introduced M6 models. The difference is even bigger when you jump to the 16-inch model, which clocks in at 4 pounds, while the M5 Pro version without a touchscreen is 4.7.

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Also exciting is the return of the glowing Apple logo. It’s a seemingly minor feature, but one that definitely got the audience excited during the introduction, and marks the return of a bit of flair to the MacBook lineup which, let’s be fair, has grown a bit utilitarian-looking over the years.

Touch works almost exactly like you’d expect it to with Apple’s first-party apps. You can swipe directly on the screen to scroll through websites, pinch to zoom, and double-tap to maximize a window. Some third-party apps might need to be updated to take advantage, but they shouldn’t be completely useless since macOS does simply translate taps to clicks as a fallback. That being said, anyone who has tried to “click” on a tiny button in an app with their finger knows that a pretty fiddly experience, at best, and infuriating at worst.

Unsurprisingly, there is a price premium for the new MacBook Pro PROLED XDR. The touchscreen OLED model starts at $2,899, $400 more than the otherwise similarly-specced M5 Pro MacBook Pro.

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