Apple to unveil touchscreen OLED MacBook Pro, Gurman says

Apple plans to announce 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with touch-enabled OLED displays on Wednesday, October 28, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported, according to MacRumors. The laptops will be Apple's first touchscreen Macs. The move reverses a position the company has held for years, when it argued that touch belonged on the iPad and not the Mac.macrumors.com

The products are expected to be announced in a press release. Invited guests at Apple's "Pro and tell" experience in Los Angeles, which starts at 10 a.m. Pacific Time, will likely get hands-on time with them afterward, MacRumors reported. Apple sent the invitations on October 19 but did not name any products. Reuters noted that Bloomberg had linked the event to the touchscreen MacBook Pro.9to5mac.com+1

Lighter design, higher price

In his Power On newsletter, Gurman said the new models will look much like the current ones. They will weigh less and replace the screen notch with a Dynamic Island. He had earlier reported that they will use the M5 Pro and M5 Max chips Apple released in March, MacRumors said. The current mini-LED models start at $2,499 for the 14-inch and $2,999 for the 16-inch in the U.S. MacRumors estimated the new OLED versions could cost up to $500 more. Gurman described the expected price as "significantly higher," 9to5Mac reported.9to5mac.com+1

The mini-LED models will stay on sale for now but will eventually be discontinued, Gurman said. A base 14-inch model with an M6 chip is expected to fill out the lower end of the lineup, according to 9to5Mac.9to5mac.com

Touch as a secondary input

According to Gurman, macOS Golden Gate will have a "dynamic interface" for touch. "The system will take previous interactions into account, presenting controls based on whether someone has been touching the display or using the trackpad," he wrote. He added that touching a button can open a menu around the user's finger, and that the Dock and Menu Bar have been optimized for touch, as quoted by MacRumors.macrumors.com

A compromise inside Apple

The design came out of internal disagreement. Gurman reported that former CEO Tim Cook and current CEO John Ternus both believed customers now expected touch on Macs, since Windows laptops have offered it for years. Apple's industrial design team opposed the idea, The Mac Observer reported. Apple sped up development about four years ago. The two sides settled on a compromise: users can scroll, swipe, pinch and zoom on the screen, but the keyboard and trackpad stay the main ways to control the Mac, according to the same report.macobserver.com

Apple has not confirmed the touchscreen features or the final pricing.