It's almost 11 years ago that I first went freelance. I needed a computer fast, but I was also watching my money carefully. I'd heard so many horror stories of late-paying clients, I figured it was better to have money in the bank than waste it on the absolute best laptop available. So I bought a touchscreen Chromebook.
I was going to be mainly writing and editing, rather than designing or making videos. So although it was basic, it did everything I need. A stopgap, I told myself, until I could afford something “proper”.
I said all this to myself, I have to add, through gritted teeth. This machine was a huge step-down, power-wise, from the top-of-the-range desktop Mac I'd been able to access as associate editor of Creative Bloq. So what happened next was a total shock. My little Chromebook turned out to be the most enjoyable computer I’ve ever owned.
Why? Partly because it was so simple. Pretty much all there was on my screen was a browser, and it turned out, that was pretty much all I needed. But also, because it had a touchscreen. And oh my gosh, did I love using that.
Suddenly, scrolling through a feature, tapping a link or nudging an image into place felt natural in a way a trackpad never had. It felt like walking on air. I was getting more done, more quickly, but it all seemed so effortless.
Goodbye to my Chromebook
It didn’t last, though. As time went on, I started to do different types of work, some of which needed software that wouldn't run in the browser. So over time, I moved to Windows and eventually back to a Mac.
Today, macOS is the best home for the creative tools I rely on. But because there are no MacBook touchscreens, I’ve never experienced that sense of flow I had on that little Chromebook. Which means I'm super-excited that Apple is about to make my dreams come true.
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Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who's rarely wrong about these things, has said that Apple is preparing to unveil OLED touchscreen versions of the MacBook Pro at an event on 28 October. And the actual laptops could theoretically be in shops as soon as 6 November.
That’s a shock, because suspicions of touchscreens has been in Apple's DNA ever since Steve Jobs called touchscreen laptops ergonomically terrible back in 2010, stating that stating that "touch surfaces want to be horizontal". Similar remarks have been made since, by software chief Craig Federighi in 2018 and John Ternus, now Apple’s CEO, in 2021.
A mixed experience
I get their point, in theory, at least. Holding your arm up to poke a screen all day isn’t ideal, and nobody wants a display covered in fingerprints. But what I think they're missing is that no one uses a touchscreen as the sole input on a laptop. On my old Chromebook, I didn’t abandon the keyboard and trackpad. I just used whichever one was easiest and quickest in the moment.
And I think for a broad range of creative work, the potential is huge. Think about scrubbing through a timeline in your video editing software, cropping a photo in Photoshop, pinching to zoom on a layout, or flicking through a client’s PDF proof. These are the kind of tasks that a trackpad is just not designed for. And exactly the kind of tasks that a touchscreen is.
So I'm excited. Although as ever with Apple, I'm not sure I'll be buying one straight away, because the price is likely to be super-high, especially with memory costs soaring right now. I'm also happy for other people to discover the bugs that will inevitably come with a new release, and for Apple to fix those over time at their expense.
Over time, though, assuming prices come down, I reckon it's going to be a winner. Because in my view, Macbooks can't be beaten in terms of specs. But using a laptop for creative work isn't just about specs, it's about user experience. And if Apple can recapture that sense of joy I had from that first Chromebook, I’ll be a happy man indeed.
Tom May is an award-winning journalist specialising in art, design, photography and technology. He is the author of the books The 50 Greatest Designers (Arcturus) and Great TED Talks: Creativity (Pavilion). Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine.