Multitouch Macs?

[Rene Ritchie]

The idea of multitouch MacBooks and iMacs is something that gets rumored every once and a while.

The iPad has made multitouch just so instinctive as a way of interacting with screens, that we almost can't help ourselves. We just want to reach out and tap and pinch and flick.

Microsoft, for their part, made Windows 8 with a touch friendly layer.

Apple has said that they don't like the idea of multitouch on traditional computers. That the ergonomics are bad.

Apple says a lot of things though. They say no video on iPods. They say they're not making a phone. They say something until the minute they say something different

Now OS X as it exists today is certainly not touch friendly. Indeed, it would take an incredible amount of effort to make OS X touch friendly.

Peter is going to write about this next week, but I was curious what you guys think? Would you like to see touch enabled Mac? Would you like to see a touch friendly operating system from Apple?

Where would you like to see iOS as an interface layer on top of the Mac? Like dashboard, or like front row used to be?

What would you like to see?

 

[jclisenby]

It'll happen one day. I think we may see a multitouch panel on MacBooks instead of the traditional keyboard and trackpad. That seems like the next logical step for Apple, versus making it an actual touch display. I guess we will see shortly.


Tappin and Talkin from my iPhone 5

 

[Fausty82]

I really like the idea. Except for grandkids and PBJ coated fingers

As Apple continues to migrate iOS and OS X together, the will definitely be in a position to make it work relatively soon... it would look to me to be an inevitable move on their part... a touch screen retina MacBook Pro woulds freaking awesome! One caveat... don’t replace the keyboard with just the touch screen... computers still need keyboards. #justsaying

 

[Rene Ritchie]

Apple isn't migrating iOS and OS X together at this point though. They're just painting them familiarly. The plumbing is still all different.

Apple could converge them at some point, but right now they're two very different things that just happen to share some common origins, name, and design conventions.

 

[anon(4698833)]

I have an almost OCD habit of cleaning my MBP's screen...there isn't a chance i would want grubby finger prints all over it in the way you have on iPhone and iPad, it would drive me insane! Hopefully they can come up with some new tech to make this a non-issue. I've also always kind of thought that another screen where the keyboard is would be cool, and would allow for some pretty amazing customization (including having a keyboard and trackpad naturally).