Note, 29 October 2026

The touchscreen MacBook Pro, and Apple's two answers to a screen you poke

On 28 October Apple announced a MacBook Pro you can touch. Apple names two measures for it: a new hinge and stabilization of the camera feed. We found no published test of either yet, and the laptop ships on 6 November.

What Apple announced

On 28 October 2026 Apple announced the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display. Its press release headline says it brings "Touch for the first time on Mac". The 14-inch model with an M5 Pro chip starts at $2,899. The 16-inch starts at $3,399. Both are available on 6 November, and pre-orders opened on 28 October.

The press release says two things about using it. First: "a newly designed hinge provides greater stability while using Touch". Second: "advanced video stabilization automatically smooths the camera feed in real time while using Touch on a video call". The product page puts the second one more plainly: "advanced video stabilization lets you touch the screen without causing your camera feed to shake."

What Apple did not say

Apple does not say that the laptop wobbles. It does not say how the stabilization works, or how much steadier the hinge is. Press got hands-on time at Apple's launch event, but we found no published measurement of either, and none has shipped.

"Wobbles" is our inference. If a hinge needs to be more stable when you touch the screen, and a video feed needs to be smoothed when you touch the screen, then touching the screen must move something. That is a reading of two sentences, not a measurement. The film says "wobbles" in its first line, and this is the reason we mark it as ours.

Why the camera may be the hard part

The physics here is ours, not Apple's. A lid turns about its hinge. A point on the lid moves in proportion to its distance from the hinge. So the top edge moves the most, and the camera sits at the top edge.

That would explain why a better hinge is not the whole answer. A hinge can make the lid settle faster. While the lid is still moving, the camera at its far edge moves by the largest amount. A fix in the video feed covers what the hinge cannot. We do not know that this is Apple's reasoning.

The cutaway hinge in our film is an illustration. It is not Apple's design. The whole film is our own 3D model of the 14-inch. We used photos on apple.com as reference for the shape; no Apple image or video appears in the film.

What was said in 2010

At Apple's "Back to the Mac" event on 20 October 2010, Apple's chief executive at the time spoke about touch on vertical surfaces. In the Business Insider transcript he says: "We've done tons of user testing on this, and it turns out it doesn't work... your arm wants to fall off." He also calls it "ergonomically terrible". He was talking about vertical touch surfaces and notebooks. That is sixteen years before this announcement.

Two smaller details

MacRumors reports on 28 October that the illuminated Apple logo on the lid is back, after Apple removed it from the MacBook Pro with the 2016 redesign. Apple's press release and product page do not mention it.

Apple's Polishing Cloth costs $9.00. Its compatibility list includes "MacBook Pro (14-inch PROLED XDR Display, M5 Pro or M5 Max)". The 16-inch model is on it too, and so are many older MacBook Pros, so the entry says nothing special about touch.

Our take, and what we would build

Our take: a screen you press is a lever. The designers of any touch device have to decide how much of the motion the structure absorbs and how much the software hides. Apple has put part of the answer in the hinge and part in the video. That is a reasonable split, and it is only as good as the numbers behind it. This is an engineering opinion about two press sentences, not a review of a laptop we have not held.

We would build the test before we trusted the claim. A repeatable actuator taps the screen at several heights, from near the hinge to the top edge. An accelerometer on the lid records how far it moves and how long it takes to settle. We record the camera feed at the same time, with stabilization on and off, and measure the frame-to-frame shift. The result is one table: tap position, lid motion, settle time, image shift. The claims hold if, with stabilization on, image shift stays near zero at every position, and the lid settles at least as fast as on the previous MacBook Pro.

Transcript

This new MacBook wobbles when you touch it. Apple built two fixes. One isn't the hinge.

You've done it. Pointed at a screen, poked it, and watched it bounce.

In 2010, Apple's chief executive said touch laptops don't work. "Your arm wants to fall off."

Sixteen years later, here it is. Fix one: a new hinge. Apple says it's steadier when you touch it.

But a screen on a hinge still swings. And the camera sits up top, the part that swings the most.

So fix two is the camera: video stabilization. Poke the screen, and your camera feed won't shake.

Oh, and close the lid. The glowing Apple logo is back.

It starts at almost three thousand dollars. And Apple's nine-dollar polishing cloth? Officially compatible.

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