When it comes to laptops the idea of Apple adding a touchscreen has so far proven to be a wild one, but rumours of a change of heart inside Apple are starting to pick up speed. Having previously said that touching a laptop display would be a terrible experience, it’s now thought that Apple is indeed planning to bring a touchscreen to a futureMacBook AirandMacBook Pro.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously said that adding a touch screen to a laptop would be “ergonomically terrible,” but that might not have stopped Apple from testing it. Earlier this year the well-connected Mark Gurman reported that Apple wasworking on a touchscreen Macwith a potential launch window of 2025. However, a new leak claims that both Samsung and LG have been tapped to produce a new kind of touchscreen technology for Apple, but it won’t hit that 2025 timeframe.
If Apple is getting touchy, it won’t be until 2027
This latest report comes via the X leaker @Tech_Reve who has proven accurate in sharing information about unannounced Android phones previously. Now he’s turning his attention to Apple with a post that claims that Apple is expected to introduce a display-integrated touchscreen technology in the OLED MacBook anticipated to be released in 2026–2027."
The post goes on to say that the new touchscreen MacBooks will actually be of the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro variety, all sporting OLED displays built by two familiar Apple partners.
According to the leak, Apple will use a new display-integrated touch technology that is ‘Y-OCTA’ by Samsung Display and ‘Touch On Encapsulation (TOE)’ by LG Display. It differs from the usual method of attaching a touch layer to a normal display in that it integrates it into the panel itself, allowing for a thinner solution all around. That would now doubt be appealing to Apple.
The 2026-2027 timeframe does of course mean that these machines will ship later than Mark Gurman reported, but it’s important to remember that Apple’s plans can and do change, especially when we’re talking about products that are years away from shipping.
The prospect of a touch-based Mac is an interesting one and it remains to be seen what software these laptops would run. Would Apple choose to make macOS touch-capable, or would these MacBook Pro and MacBook Air devices run some new software that would merge macOS with iPadOS? At this point it’s impossible to know, of course, but we can hopefully expect to see more leaks between now and the big unveiling - if indeed there ever is one.
