Apple unveiled its first touchscreen MacBook Pro on Wednesday, ending years of keeping touch displays off its laptops. The new model combines an OLED screen with an M5 Pro chip but continues to run macOS, rather than the operating systems used by the iPhone and iPad. The launch marks a shift in how Apple approaches Mac interaction, arriving as laptop shipments fall and rising memory costs push prices higher.
OLED and touch, with macOS unchanged
Apple says the new MacBook Pro's OLED panel improves brightness, color and viewing angles, while the laptop is lighter than current professional models. In a product video, Apple showed users swiping directly on the display to work with video and images.
The device remains a Mac running macOS; Apple has not adopted iPhone or iPad software for the laptop. “Yes, we’re bringing touch to the Mac for the first time,” CEO John Ternus said at an event for media and analysts in Los Angeles. It was Apple's third major product launch since Ternus became CEO, underscoring a faster pace of hardware releases under his leadership.
Weak laptop demand meets higher memory costs
The launch comes as the global laptop market contracts. Forecasts point to an 11% decline in overall laptop shipments this year. IDC data showed global PC shipments fell 20% year over year in the third quarter, while Apple's shipments were estimated to have dropped 11%. Tight memory supply and higher prices have added to pressure on the market and lifted laptop prices, weighing on consumer demand.
Apple has also been affected by rising memory costs. Former CEO Tim Cook described the memory-price situation as “unsustainable” this summer. The company has raised prices across nearly all Mac products this year: the Mac mini introduced in August, for example, cost $300 more. Mac prices also rose by a combined hundreds of dollars in June. The new iPad mini announced on Monday starts at $699, up $100 from its predecessor.
Mac's role in Apple's AI strategy
Apple has rolled out several products over the past two months. This week, alongside the touchscreen MacBook Pro, the company introduced new iMac and MacBook Pro models powered by the M6 chip. Products announced in September included the iPhone 18 lineup, Apple's first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, and HomeView, a smart speaker with a display and an updated version of Siri. The touchscreen laptop is another sign of the brisker launch schedule since Ternus took over.
Mac revenue remains far below iPhone sales, but the platform's value to Apple extends beyond its contribution to revenue. Mac sales were $10.35 billion in Apple's most recent quarter, just under 10% of total revenue. Many software developers rely on Macs, and building iPhone apps still requires Apple's supported development platform.
Apple has also highlighted how its in-house chips and memory architecture can support local and edge AI, where models run on devices rather than relying entirely on the cloud. Meta's AI model team bought hundreds of Mac minis this year to test AI agents. This month, Apple and Meta said clusters of Macs connected by high-speed cables could run large models approaching frontier scale, letting developers run agent code without paying Anthropic or OpenAI.
A change in Apple's view of touch
Apple had long argued that touchscreens were not well suited to laptops. In 2018, software chief Craig Federighi said extended periods of reaching up to touch a display could cause fatigue. Ternus, then senior vice president of hardware engineering, said in 2021 that the iPad was optimized for touch while the Mac was designed around indirect input, and that Apple had no reason at the time to change that approach.
Ternus has been closely involved in Mac development and, alongside chip chief Johny Srouji, helped lead the transition from Intel processors to Apple's own chips. His launch of the first touchscreen Mac signals a change in a design position Apple had maintained for years.
Touchscreen laptops have been available on Windows for years, but IDC global device tracking vice president Ryan Reith said touch is generally an added feature rather than a primary reason most consumers choose a computer. IDC estimates that just 17% of laptops shipped worldwide this year have touchscreens, and that touch models have a slightly lower average selling price than non-touch models. Reith said the key question for Apple is not whether touch hardware can work, but whether the interface and software deliver a good experience; the feature could also appeal to developers. Whether it changes demand for touch-enabled Macs will depend on how the new laptop performs in everyday use.