Will We Ever Get A Touchscreen Mac? These Patents Say Maybe

Apple might never deliver a Mac with touchscreen functionality in adherence with Steve Jobs’ dislike for the idea, but one of the company’s most intriguing iMac patents at least explores the idea of a touch-sensitive screen. The closest Apple has ever gotten to a Mac touchscreen was the TouchBar, the divisive strip at the top of the MacBook keyboard deck that was both vocally loathed and warmly embraced, depending on where you looked. The former sentiment appears to have been in the majority, as Apple nuked the TouchBar with the debut of its new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.

“Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical. It gives a great demo, but after a short period of time, you start to fatigue, and after an extended period of time, your arm wants to fall off,” Steve Jobs said back in 2010. “It doesn’t work, it’s ergonomically terrible,” he added, in case his viewpoint wasn’t crystal clear. Apple has stuck to the mantra ever since. The company didn’t stop experimenting though. The scissor-switch keyboard was terrible, but Apple stubbornly stuck with it for five generations and finally abandoned it in 2020. The universally mocked Magic Mouse and its inexplicably bad charging design continue to live on.

But it appears that at least Apple’s designers at one of its secret labs are warming up to the idea of touchscreens on an iMac. Partially embracing it, that is. Earlier this month, an Apple patent — and subsequent concept render based on it — presented a dazzling iMac redesign with a curved, all-glass display. It had some glaring design shortcomings too, but Apple appears to have addressed them with a few tweaks to its patent application. The standout addition, though, is the mention of a touchscreen-style display. “The desktop computer of claim 8, wherein the input device extends along at least a portion of the planar display area to form a touchscreen-style display,” says one of the updates.

No Harm Imagining The Dream iMac

While touch input seems certain, what is confusing is whether a touch-sensitive region will be an extension of the main display, or if it will only be limited to the curved region connecting the keyboard deck and screen. The latter implementation seems like a middle-ground choice, and would somewhat fill in the gap left by the TouchBar. It is also possible that the touch-sensitive area might be the space on either side of the keyboard, serving as some sort of an integrated Magic Trackpad.

Another design issue with the patent schematics was the attached keyboard. It would’ve been an ergonomic hell, as the user would be stuck with a non-movable keyboard. Plus, the screen didn’t appear to offer any scope for angular adjustments. But those flaws appear to have been fixed as well. Updates to the patent that were spotted by PatentlyApple suggest that the keyboard will be detachable from the glass housing. Plus, there will at least be some freedom with angle adjustment, somewhat like the tilt-only adjustment offered by the 2021 M1-powered iMac. But this is a patent after all, and given Apple’s love for conservative industrial design, the patent appears too good to be true.

Sources: USPTO, Patently Apple

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