For years, the idea of tapping a laptop screen felt like a feature borrowed from tablets rather than a natural part of a notebook computer. That question now has new urgency, because Apple has finally introduced MacBook Pro models with touch-enabled PROLED XDR displays, bringing a capability once mocked as impractical into one of the company’s flagship products.
The debate is not new. Back in 2010, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs argued that vertical touch surfaces felt awkward and tiring, a criticism that shaped the industry’s approach for nearly two decades. Yet the market kept experimenting. Microsoft Surface machines, Windows on ARM notebooks, and many traditional Windows laptops have offered touch input for years, even if the feature is often used sparingly.
With John Ternus now at the helm, Apple’s latest MacBooks suggest that the company may see touch not as a core replacement for the trackpad and keyboard, but as a useful extension of its displays. The question is whether that use is practical enough to justify the shift, or whether it remains a demo-friendly addition that struggles in everyday use.
Perhaps the most balanced answer is context-dependent. On a convertible or 360-degree laptop, touch makes more sense because the device can fold flat into a tablet-like form. On a conventional clamshell MacBook Pro, however, the benefit is narrower: it can help with occasional adjustments, creative workflows, or users who prefer pointing directly at the display, but it may not overcome the ergonomic concerns that made vertical touch feel so unnatural in the first place.
So do touchscreens on laptops make sense? Maybe not as a necessity for every user, but increasingly as a flexible option. Apple’s move does not prove the idea was wrong in the past; it may simply show that as displays improve, software matures, and use cases narrow, touch can earn a more limited place in laptop design.
