I’m trying to get caught up on reviews of the much-ballyhooed MacBook Pro PROLED XDR, which officially went on sale today. Joe Rossignol put together a nice roundup for MacRumors of the numerous takes on the internet. On the touchscreen, the consensus seems to be, in the words of The Verge’s David Pierce that, however long overdue and appreciated it is, the feature isn’t something which “meaningfully changes the laptop experience.” It feels like an apt descriptor because Apple has not engineered a wholesale rearchitecting of macOS for touch input, which means touch is intended to be an optional and additive. Hell, there’s a setting under Accessibility to disable it altogether if you want.
While perusing Rossignol’s roundup, I was struck by a sentiment in Kyle Barr’s review for Gizmodo.
“The touchscreen is occasionally useful. It’s not the end-all-be-all. But it sure is handy,” Barr said in his embargoed review published on Thursday. “If you’re one to use the iPhone mirroring feature on MacBook Pro, the touchscreen makes it more intuitive. Instead of having to click on the bottom bar to minimize an app, you can simply swipe up from the bottom of the mirrored iPhone, like normal. Using the touchscreen on the mirrored iPhone isn’t as snappy as the real deal. It’s obvious though that Apple has been working towards this touchscreen design for a while, as more and more macOS features start to make better sense with the touchscreen in tow.”
I use iPhone Mirroring often on my Mac when at my desk, despite my iPhone sitting not even two feet from me on Apple’s MagSafe puck. In my experience, it’s much more accessible to use iPhone Mirroring to quickly check something on my phone versus eating over and wrestling the phone off the charger. The problem is, though, it feels unnatural to click through the virtual phone using my Magic Trackpad—especially given my mouse pointer is supersized for better visibility. I have yet to see, let alone use, the new MacBook Pro, but Barr’s report delighted me and jibes philosophically with accessibility. As he notes, it’s a clever, sensible implementation of touch on Apple’s part.
Better iPhone Mirroring notwithstanding, however, I’m unconvinced the new MacBook Pro is for me as my primary machine. Of course I’d love to try one for journalistic purposes—the OLED screen would be my #1 reason to upgrade—but as a practical matter, my current MacBook Pro lives its life permanently docked to my Pro Display XDR. It means I hardly ever see the laptop’s built-in screen. Given my workflow, then, the calling cards for the new MacBook Pro are largely negated not by disinterest or skepticism but by the sheer setup of my current work environment. C'est la vie.
Personal quirks aside, score one more for ostensibly mainstream functionality providing big gains for accessibility.
