Apple is finally putting a touchscreen on a MacBook — something Windows laptop makers have offered for over a decade — and it expects working Americans to pay premium prices for the privilege of catching up. Bloomberg reports that Apple will debut a touchscreen MacBook Pro with an OLED display and Dynamic Island around October 27th, weeks after its October 13th smart home launch event.
Why it matters: Apple has extracted billions from consumers by deliberately withholding standard features, then rolling them out years late as must-have upgrades. The touchscreen MacBook is the latest example of a company that cripples its own products to keep the upgrade cycle spinning.
The Verge, citing Bloomberg, reports the new MacBook Pros will be lighter and feature touchscreen OLED displays with an iPhone-like Dynamic Island. Apple also plans MacBook Pros that keep the current design but add the M6 chip — another incremental refresh designed to make last year's model feel obsolete. An updated iPad Mini with a landscape-facing camera and revamped speakers rounds out the late October lineup.
TNW and MacRumors focused heavily on the October 13th event, which Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak teased on X as "Welcome home. October 13." That launch centers on smart home products: a $350 smart home hub with a 6-inch square display, a refreshed HomePod mini, and a new Apple TV 4K. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman noted these devices were supposed to launch in late 2024 but were delayed because "they'll rely on Siri AI," which only shipped with iOS 27 last month. MacRumors reports the hub will come in wall-mounted and tabletop versions with presence detection and a customized interface — a product that sounds a lot like Amazon's Echo Show and Google's Nest Hub, both of which have been on the market for years.
The framing split is telling. The Verge highlighted the touchscreen MacBook as genuine product evolution. TNW barely mentioned it, burying the MacBook news in favor of the smart home lineup. MacRumors focused on the home hub and noted an OLED iPad Mini could appear at the earlier event. None of the outlets pressed Apple on why it took this long to add a feature competitors have shipped since 2012.
Follow the money: Apple's business model depends on controlled feature releases that make perfectly functional hardware feel outdated. The company posted $94 billion in net income last year. Every year Apple delays a touchscreen MacBook — while selling $2,000-plus laptops without one — is a year consumers pay top dollar for deliberately limited machines. The M6 chip refresh for existing designs ensures that even buyers who don't want a touchscreen will feel pressure to upgrade.
The open question: how many working Americans have shelled out for MacBook after MacBook, waiting for basic features the competition already had, while Apple banked the difference?
