Apple insiders are talking about a new touchscreen future for the company’s laptops. Last month, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo suggested that Apple would integrate touchscreens into MacBooks in the coming years, “further blurring the line with the iPad.” Today, Mark Gurman at Bloomberg confirmed this prediction, sharing even more details about the touchscreen approach for a MacBook Pro currently scheduled for release in late 2026 or early 2027.
Gurman reports that the touchscreen laptops are known internally as the K114 and K116 and will run on M6 chips; Apple just introduced the M5 generation of its silicon for this year’s iteration of the MacBook Pro and iPad Pro. Its sources also say that the laptops will have OLED screens and will have “reinforced hinge and screen hardware” so that the screen portion does not move while in use. The laptops will still have a trackpad and keyboard for touchscreen-free control, and will be housed in “thinner, lighter bezels.” Finally, this laptop would ditch the MacBook Pro’s notched camera housing in favor of a punch-hole design that leaves a display area around that sensor.
Longtime Apple executive Steve Jobs was adamantly opposed to touchscreen computers. But most other computer companies have been offering touchscreen models for about a decade, so Apple has stuck to this philosophy for a very long time. Rather than bringing touch to a laptop, Apple tried for a while to position the iPad as being able to do all the tasks you would use a laptop for, as demonstrated by the famous “what is a computer?” announcement. It should be interesting to see how touchscreen MacBooks and iPads will coexist.
