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Posted by etothet 6 hours ago

MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch(www.apple.com)
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/10/apple-unveils-groundb...
455 points | 784 commentspage 3
Wazzymandias 2 hours ago|
Apple used to delay and deliver their own brand or interpretation of technology with meaningful differences

Nowadays it feels like a gilded copy of existing tech that also failed to find PMF

Moreover they lost sight of excellent UX, each new OS update adds more bloatware and needless "features" while the calendar app weeps in the corner and slow performance and bugs plague the system

i hope there's a linux analog to pro display xdr at which point i can jump ship

allenu 6 hours ago||
The touch screen is such a silly idea here. It even looks ridiculous in their own marketing photos. [1] The keyboard and track pad are already a great combo for getting things done.

I don't get why they're doing this other than making another step towards unifying iOS and macOS (and visionOS?).

[1] https://mastodon.social/@allenu/117519656286195439

qingcharles 5 hours ago||
Here's the official launch video, where it looks silly to me, but I know very casual users who love their touchscreen laptops:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZI5uUSdEo

hbn 5 hours ago||
Casual users should not be buying the most expensive MacBook Pro unless they have so much money that $3000 (or more) means little to them.
ajay-b 6 hours ago|||
I could see it with tablet but reaching out to touch my laptop, or worse desktop, screen would get very tiring, very quickly.
allenu 6 hours ago|||
I agree. The ergonomics of using a touch screen on a laptop screen aren't great. It only really works if you convert it to a tablet so that the screen is closer to you and angled up a bit for comfort, but it's no longer a laptop, so why bother?
SirMaster 6 hours ago||
I mean it seems like a good idea to me for mobile app development, being able to touchscreen the simulator.
giwook 6 hours ago|||
That seems like a great use case for it.

How many Macbook Pro owners are mobile app developers though?

whynotminot 6 hours ago|||
They sell other equally capable MacBook pros if this isn’t your use case?
giwook 5 hours ago||
But without the new screen, which is genuinely impressive and a noticeable upgrade.
whynotminot 5 hours ago||
And nicer new screens cost more money!

You don’t have to touch it?

SirMaster 6 hours ago|||
Not sure, but I bet most mobile app developers are MacBook users haha.

I mean it's a $400 up-charge over the same model without touchscreen. Not that unreasonable if you are a heavy app developer IMO.

Kwpolska 5 hours ago||||
Is it really that useful if you need to test on real hardware anyway?
hirvi74 5 hours ago|||
Simulation is already great, and one can (and should) test their app on device.
nightc1tyrogue 5 hours ago||
1. Improved thermal system

2. Even better speakers

3. Thinner and lighter while retaining the 100 Wh battery

4. No more notch

Seems like a solid all-around update to be. Other than cellular, I can't possibly imagine what more people could want.

teovall 3 hours ago||
I don't know why there's all this talk about putting cellular in MacBooks. Tethering between macOS and iPhone is practically seamless and even to Android it's not difficult. Where are people going with their laptop and not their phone?
seunosewa 58 minutes ago||
Tethering uses up the phone's battery when you're not even using it. And you're still going to use it.
devindotcom 4 hours ago|||
replacing the notch with a hole punch isn't much of an improvement for me anyway. it still kills the top quarter inch of the display for non-letterboxed movies, games etc. I'm tempted to replace my Air with a Neo just to have a non-punctured screen.
kec 4 hours ago||
Mac displays are 16:10, you're getting letterboxing for movies no matter what you do, with or without a notch or hole punch.
mvkel 3 hours ago||
we're back to celebrating the pursuit of thinner and lighter again? Things really have fallen off.
npunt 2 hours ago||
It's a tick tock cycle between weight and power, always will be
semireg 1 hour ago||
Well, at least my children can now instinctively touch the screen and it’ll do something, instead of dad saying “stop, it’s not an iPad.”
jgbuddy 5 hours ago||
Steve had been an outspoken critic of touchscreen laptops. It seems that none of his original gripes are addressed in this release. Another drop in the bucket of half-assed hardware releases from apple "our competitors have it so we need it too" (vision pro, new homepod thing, iphone duo, etc)
cromka 5 hours ago|
I also assumed Apple had something up their sleeves that would make sense to everyone once shown.

Meanwhile they just added a touchscreen. No new hinge. No new UI. Not even a Pen support.

WTF are they doing?

desolate_muffin 3 hours ago|||
Similar feelings about the Duo. Very little innovation beyond what is offered by Androids. In fact, I feel like there are many foldable Android phones that offer better hardware (Motorola Razr Fold comes to mind). I say this as someone who is a huge Apple Fanboy and got a Duo on release day.
stetrain 3 hours ago|||
Various android phones have had better specs and more innovative hardware than Apple for like 15 years. It took them years to finally turn around to big screens, but following Android on that didn't hurt Apple in the long run.
cromka 3 hours ago|||
Same position: I still very much appreciate this but seriously feel something is being lost here and the brand is slowly chipping away.
stetrain 4 hours ago|||
> WTF are they doing?

Presumably adding a feature that doesn't cost them very much or otherwise negatively affect the product, but which some users might like.

cromka 3 hours ago||
But there's a cost involved if you go against one of your most defended stances and offer nothing to back up that change of heart.

It's a negative on the brand because that sort of consistency is something that made Apple.

stetrain 3 hours ago||
What percentage of Apple's customers remember Steve Jobs saying that thing in 2011? I think most of them are here in this thread.

And there was an answer given by John Ternus:

"The Mac is first and foremost an indirect input device, built around the trackpad and keyboard. But I think there's times when it's comfortable and handy to have touch.

We needed to get to a point where adding touch didn't make the product lesser in any way. It didn't make it heavier. It didn't make it thicker. That came together with the OLED screen, the best display we've ever put into a Mac. All of these things, and, oh yeah, it has touch as well."

cromka 2 hours ago||
Things aren't decided by customers only. There are journalists, YouTubers and whole class of influencers who can decided something is shite on a whim. If enough people do so, the tide may change faster then you'd think. It happened to companies with cult following before. It's literally happening to Nike as we speak.

Apple has had more flops than hits in recent years. The Vision Pro, the Glass interface, the Duo hinge flaw that will almost certainly end up with a recall. The Apple Watch always listening, now the bangle touch display with nothing innovative to back it up?

They don't deliver like they used to. I was their fanboy for 10 years and they did deliver the quality and innovation consistently, I just don't see it anymore. The only thing they have going is the CPU.

seatac76 1 hour ago||
You would think they would add a cellular modem to it now that they have their own, but no we get a touchscreen.
cmckn 6 hours ago||
$3400 for the base model 16”, 24GB/1TB. $2900 for the 14”. Quite steep.
djanogo 6 hours ago||
$4950 for Max, Nano Texture 36GB/2TB - This is getting ridiculous.
gtm1260 6 hours ago|||
Seriously. I paid 3400 for my M3 Max 128GB macbook in 2023. Sad times.
Aurornis 5 hours ago|||
> I paid 3400 for my M3 Max 128GB macbook in 2023

A 16" M3 Max with 128GB of RAM and no other upgrades would have been $5000 at launch.

They started shipping at the end of 2023, so you couldn't have bought a refurb.

Either you're remembering the price wrong or you got a crazy deal.

KingFelix 6 hours ago|||
are you still on the same macbook? Im using the same config and its running solid, note from above is true on the darker colored version, getting some color changes, but its still a beast of a machine.
mabunday 5 hours ago|||
Not who you responded to, but I am. M3 Max with 128GB and I use every bit of it for photo/video editing and local building/compiling heavy projects. I'm glad I took this configuration then with the way prices are now and don't see myself replacing this for another few years.
sunaookami 5 hours ago|||
Not the poster but I'm also still using my M1 Max 32 GB RAM Macbook bought at the end of 2022 (yes, just right before the M2 Max...) and see no reason to buy another. Also paid 3400 (euros).
varispeed 6 hours ago|||
Here they offer no finance for over £5k. Crap.
Hamuko 6 hours ago||
Really glad I'm not currently shopping for a new computer.

It's also pretty fucking sad how this thing comes with less RAM than my low-end Mac Studio from 2022. I only upgraded from a 512 GB SSD to 1 TB, and I still have 32 GB. And even still, I paid 2599€ for it, where as the OLED MacBook Pro is 4049€.

okso 6 hours ago||
If the main reason to use macOS is that it's required to develop iPhone apps, a touch screen helps with testing them.
vincnetas 6 hours ago|
Would it not be just easier to connect actual iphone to the laptop for testing?
okso 5 hours ago|||
Not for fast user interaction tests.

I have a Linux laptop with touchscreen, and my main use is to test the touch interactions on web apps, sometimes Android apps.

Sure it's possible to open it on the phone, but that's an extra step usually not justified.

makeitdouble 5 hours ago||||
That's an additional device, additional financing potentially on a different life cycle, potentially a different account to manage.

For a dedicated iOS dev that's worth the hassle, for someone managing a team of devs or employees only needing apps to run without requiring a full dev env, it's quite convenient and potentially cheaper.

elxr 6 hours ago|||
I don't own an iphone
layer8 5 hours ago|||
You could buy one from the price difference of the touch MacBook.
carlosjobim 43 minutes ago|||
If you are developing iPhone apps, perhaps it would be reasonable that you buy an iPhone?
aabajian 3 hours ago||
I'm going to offer a use case for touch screens: Augmented reality (AR) development.

I think there's a real possibility that AR takes off in the next 1-5 years. The combination of LLMs + smaller AR glasses makes AR a viable computing platform.

For example, simple things like, "Where are my keys?" is a lot easier to solve if (a) you're wearing your AR glasses already and (b) they have access to a frontier LLM.

However, it's very difficult to simulate "touching something" in AR using a mouse/trackpad and keyboard. What if you want to "twist open" a peanut butter jar? I could imagine touching the screen and twisting my fingers in a rotational pattern along the top of the can.

arttaboi 6 hours ago|
Apple perfected the trackpad to the point where a touchscreen never felt necessary; and that’s how they got away with not building one.

This feels more like a marketing gimmick, anyone remember the Touch Bar?

dpark 4 hours ago||
They have had people asking them for touchscreen laptops for years. They legitimately lose sales to people who want a Mac but refuse to buy a laptop without a touch screen.

I think this is the wrong device to start with, though. The demand for touchscreens is probably highest in the cheapest lines. But presumably this will trickle down over the next few years.

dawnerd 3 hours ago|||
I still use and love the touchbar. That was apple being innovative, then giving up way too early.
12_throw_away 3 hours ago||
No, this is a great idea! No more wacom tablet, no more going back and forth between the mac and iPad! I'm looking forward to having a mac where I can just swivel the screen to lie flat and use my apple pen to draw!

Right? ... right? ... wait

oh

oh wait what

wait seriously?

tim. wtf is this shit, tim

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