QuickTake: The M6 iMac should have had touch first, not the MacBook Pro

Macs and touch support have always been a contentious topic. But Apple is a company that changes its mind. This month, it happened again when the new 14/16-inch MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display lineup was announced with touch support. But while I think this was inevitable for the category, it should have appeared on the M6 iMac first.

"If you can point, you can touch a Macintosh"

iMacs have been great for creators. Artists have plugged in a drawing pad from Wacom for years so they can more accurately refine and draw out projects. To me, replacing this with touch has always felt like the next natural step, and having the iMac also lie flat on a desk would make it easier for creatives to use the display in apps like Affinity and DaVinci Resolve.

But there's also a nostalgic part to the iMac. It essentially rebooted Apple in 1998, a year after Steve Jobs' return, and heralded a new era for the company. To see touch in the M6 iMacs instead of only a chip upgrade would have given this refresh more of a reason for desktop users to look into one. A remake of the ad pictured above, for touch-enabled iMacs, would have been a great callback to 1984.

The design of the iMacs means that touching the display wouldn't result in it wobbling, as I've seen in many videos of the new MacBook Pros. Even seeing the press shots of four fingers being used on GarageBand via the display looks awkward, and not the win some at Apple think it is. If there was Apple Pencil support, that could have been a big win for creatives.

I remember the Surface Studio 2 from 2019 - looking similar to an iMac - but it could be manipulated so that the display could almost lie down, letting users use the touchscreen without having to reach out, as the PROLED MacBook Pro requires.

The OLED iPad mini was also made available on the same day as the new MacBooks (November 6). But the latest upgrade to Apple's tablet still lacks ProMotion, which makes me think Apple missed another win. I watched the interview with YouTuber Chris Lawley, who spoke to Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering, Dave Pakula. His response to the lack of ProMotion in the mini sounded weak to me. If Apple can put this into 80% of its iPhone lineup, the iPad mini can feature it too.

The idea of working on the iMac with Apple Pencil, then continuing it on the go with an OLED iPad mini, would have been a great advert, and justified both devices far more.

And the new MacBook Pro could have sold itself with the better display and Dynamic Island, without having touch. It feels like something Apple felt it had to add.

I've also barely seen anything about how touch can benefit Mac users, especially those with accessibility needs. The framing seems to be, 'It's there if you want to use it'. Then my point is: why have it at all? Instead, we could have seen artists and video editors use touch on macOS to showcase how good it could be on an iMac, along with promoting the iPad mini and how the apps work with other devices. We don't see that these days.

I hope touch comes to the iMac next. But as we see them being updated every three years or so, I'd be surprised to see it arrive this decade. With the baffling HomeView device that doesn't directly offer third-party apps to install, it feels that some at Apple have a different idea of what some users need for their devices.