In the meantime, though far from perfect, Neonode’s AirBar provides the next best thing.Įmail: Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist on Twitter The bottom line The lack of a touchscreen Mac in Apples computer lineup has been a hot topic of debate, with some people saying its a glaring omission and others predicting that Apple will never offer a touchscreen on the Mac. Maybe at some point Apple will relent and produce its own touch-screen Mac. Other Mac sizes are said to be coming soon. Neonode also makes $79 versions of AirBar for non-touch Windows PCs with 13.3-, 14 and 15.6-inch display sizes.
MAC TOUCH SCREEN LAPTOP PC
And sometimes after I’ve used a touch-capable Chromebook or Windows PC and then come back to the Mac, I reach out to make contact with a screen that is oblivious to my touch.
MAC TOUCH SCREEN LAPTOP WINDOWS 10
That said, I generally do just fine with the touch displays on several Windows 10 PCs, as well as Google Chromebooks, with the Windows operating system better designed to take advantage of touch than the Mac. We haven’t really felt a reason to change that. And the Mac is totally optimized for indirect input. I struggled, for example, to tap the icon for the Mac’s Notification Center, and didn’t always hit my target when I tried tapping the tiny onscreen buttons to close or maximize a window. In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal (transcribed by 9To5Mac), John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, said, We make the world’s best touch computer on an iPad.It’s totally optimized for that. I’m inclined to agree, especially when I strained to tap the upper, side or bottom reaches of the display while using AirBar. I was also able to tap the screen with a stylus, regular pencil and other pointy objects, and use touch, however imprecisely, while wearing a glove.Īpple’s thinking is that having you reach up or out to touch the display on a Mac just doesn’t feel right and natural. My favorite use of touch was being able to rapidly pore through a bunch photos with my finger. And I dragged a map around with a single finger. I also used two digits to rotate an image. And pressed two fingers against the display to scroll inside my calendar or in the Safari browser. I was able to take advantage of common multi-touch gestures: I pinched and spread my fingers, for example, to zoom in and out of photos and webpages. When it worksĪirBar makes it possible to “touch” the screen by projecting an invisible light field on the surface of your display. At the same time, Apple has been moving its operating systems closer and closer together.
From then on you just connect it and are good to go. It is likely that that kind of touchscreen Mac is never going to happen.
MAC TOUCH SCREEN LAPTOP INSTALL
There’s a pouch for carrying AirBar when you’re not using it I stashed it in my backpack.ĭuring the initial setup, I had to install software and update the firmware on the AirBar. You can easily remove the AirBar from the MacBook Air while leaving the magnetic dots in place, and you’ll have to do so if you want to fold the lid of the laptop back into its closed position.