Apple finally releases a touchscreen MacBook Pro, the idea Jobs called ergonomically terrible: the most expensive configuration costs 14,549 dollars

Apple has unveiled its first MacBook Pro with a touchscreen, in 14- and 16-inch versions. The starting price in the US is 2,899 dollars for the smaller model and 3,399 dollars for the larger one. Orders open on October 30, with sales starting November 6.

For the company this is a small admission. Steve Jobs called the idea of a touch Mac ergonomically terrible, and other executives rejected it too, Tim Cook among them. Almost ten years ago, in 2016, Apple offered the Touch Bar instead of a touchscreen - a thin touch strip above the keyboard, which it later dropped. Now, under new CEO John Ternus, the Mac can finally be touched.

The hardware is serious: a PROLED XDR display with peak brightness of 2,000 nits and a 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio, a Dynamic Island-style cutout instead of the notch, a redesigned hinge that keeps the screen steady when you touch it, M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, up to 128 GB of unified memory and up to 16 TB of storage. Both models are lighter than their non-touch predecessors - 1.38 and 1.82 kilograms. There are three Thunderbolt 5 ports, HDMI, an SDXC card reader and MagSafe.

The real news is the price. The fully loaded 16-inch model, with the M5 Max and the biggest upgrades, costs 14,549 dollars (about 12,500 euros) in Apple's configurator. The previous 16-inch MacBook Pro topped out at 10,149 dollars, which means the ceiling has risen by 4,400 dollars. The 16 TB drive alone costs an extra 7,000 dollars, and 128 GB of memory another 2,000. Part of the price rise is explained by a shortage of memory chips and the demand for hardware driven by artificial intelligence.

A day earlier Apple also unveiled a regular 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M6 chip, from 1,999 dollars, and in September it showed its first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo. The strategy is clear: new ideas arrive at the top of the price list. Whether a touchscreen is worth a starting 900 dollars more than the cheapest new MacBook Pro is for buyers to decide. How many people in the region would pay the price of a used car for a laptop is a whole other question.