AFTER YEARS OF saying it wouldn’t ever slap a touchscreen on a laptop, Apple may now be planning to do just that. A report by Mark Gurman at Bloomberg asserts that Apple is testing touchscreen tech on some of its MacBooks. The info is based on leaks from the company, so touchsreen Macs are not a sure thing, and even if they were, these computers wouldn’t emerge until at least 2025. Apple might also cancel those plans entirely, as it frequently tests and abandons ideas for changes to its products.
The company has long rejected the notion of putting a touchscreen on MacBooks, citing ergonomic concerns, like the fact that your arm wears out after a while of tapping on a vertical touchscreen. It also has been hesitant to bring touch to MacBooks because it has a whole product line for finger gestures—the iPad. So the fact that Apple is considering touchscreens for MacBooks is noteworthy. Apple has been steadily fusing the functionalities of MacBooks and iPads, with lots of crossover in both software and hardware components between the platforms. Having touchscreens on both devices could blur those lines even more.
Read on for some other stuff going on in the world of consumer technology.