Phil Schiller: Nope, Apple still isn’t planning to make a touchscreen Mac

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Phil Schiller: Nope, Apple still isn’t planning to make a touchscreen Mac
Don't even think about swiping that screen!
Photo: Apple

Apple isn’t going to release a touchscreen Mac any time soon, says Phil Schiller, SVP of Marketing.

In a new interview, Schiller chimed in on the question on whether Apple might consider merging its mobile and desktop operating systems. The answer might disappoint fans of the Microsoft Surface.

“That engineering effort is better spent on making the Mac be the best keyboard-trackpad experience possible,” Schiller says in response to a question about adding a touchscreen to the Mac. “That’s what our customers want us to spend our time on.”

Schiller expounded on the topic of whether he sees a future where both merge.

“No, that’s not our view. Because then you get this in-between thing, and in-between things are never as good as the individual things themselves. We believe the best personal computer is a Mac, and we want to keep going down that path. And we think the best tablet computing device is an iPad, and we’ll go down that path.

iPad benefits because we assume that you need to be able to do most everything with touch, and we don’t have to trade off on that experience. Mac assumes you want to do most everything with a keyboard and mouse input. We don’t have to trade off on that path. You can look at some of the other products that will try to go halfway between the two. They end up just compromising experiences. That’s not good.”

A touchscreen Mac? No, but Apple is merging iOS and macOS… kinda

Apple has, of course, increased interoperability between the two platforms in recent years. Features like Handoff and Continuity make it easy to transfer files or pick up on mobile where you left off on desktop. MacOS Catalina’s Catalyst framework makes it easier for developers to turn iOS apps into Mac apps. Meanwhile, Sidecar lets users use their iPad as part of their Mac workflow. These are all ways of bringing mobile and desktop together — but without doing it as literally as Microsoft has done with Windows.

Do you think this is the right philosophy when it comes to MacOS and iOS? Would you like a touchscreen Mac? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source: CNET

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