Apple released its first touchscreen laptop on Wednesday, named MacBook Pro with ProLED XDR Display.

Apple stated that this notebook is equipped with a new display that uses OLED technology, offering higher brightness, better colors, and a wider viewing angle. It is powered by Apple’s M5 Pro or Max chips. On Wednesday, Apple claimed that this new model is lighter than the company’s existing professional-grade notebooks.

This is still an Apple laptop, running MacOS, not the operating system of iPhone or iPad. In a video, Apple demonstrated how users can manipulate videos or images by swiping on the screen. There is also a glowing Apple logo on its lid.

This new laptop will go on sale on November 6th, with the 14-inch version starting at $2,899. The 16-inch version will cost at least $3,399. Both versions have seen a significant price increase compared to the current models.

This is the third major product release under the leadership of Apple's new CEO, John Ternus, indicating that the pace of hardware releases is accelerating. It also marks a significant shift for Apple. For decades, Apple has refused to include touchscreens in its laptops, while some models from Windows already feature this technology.

"Yes, this is the first time we have introduced touch technology to Mac," Ternus said during a live speech to the media and analysts in Los Angeles.

At a time when the notebook market is experiencing one of its most severe downturns in history, this new MacBook Pro makes its debut. Overall shipments are expected to decline by 11% this year. Analysts say that the global memory shortage driven by AI has pushed up notebook prices, which in turn has hit sales and demand.

Market research firm IDC stated that global PC total shipments in the third quarter decreased by 20% year-on-year. According to the firm's estimates, Apple's own shipments also fell by 11% during the same period.

Even Apple has not been spared from the impact of rising memory prices. The former CEO Tim Cook warned this summer that the memory price situation was "sustainable." This year, almost all Mac have raised their prices. For example, the Mac Mini launched in August saw a price increase of $300.

This announcement will bring to an end the busy two-month product release season following the appointment of Ternus.

Apple also launched new models iMac and MacBook Pro this week, which are equipped with M6 chips. In June, the price of this product line had already increased by several hundred dollars. On Monday, Apple introduced the new iPad and Mini, with a starting price of $699, which is $100 higher than their predecessors.

In September, Apple released new models of iPhone, which included its first foldable screen phone, the iPhone and Duo. Apple also launched a new smart speaker with a display, the HomeView, which features a redesigned Siri version and uses a more modern AI to answer a wider range of questions.

This release indicates that although the revenue generated by Mac is lower than that of iPhone, its importance within Apple's strategy is on the rise. In Apple's most recent quarter report, Mac, sales amounted to 10.35 billion US dollars, accounting for just under 10% of the company's total revenue.

However, many software developers have a particular fondness for Mac, and it remains the only supported platform for developing iPhone applications. In recent months, Apple has also emphasized its chip and memory architecture, attempting to show that its computers are best suited for running AI locally on the device, or at the edge AI, rather than in the cloud AI.

For example, the AI model development team of Meta purchased hundreds of Mac Mini this year to test agents. Earlier this month, Apple also collaborated with Meta to announce that large, state-of-the-art models can run on Mac clusters connected by high-speed cables, allowing developers to run proxy code without having to pay Anthropic or OpenAI.

Apple has always resisted touchscreen laptops throughout its history – a software executive Craig Federighi explained in 2018 that such a design would cause fatigue to users from an ergonomic perspective. Ternus, who was then Apple's Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, told the Wall Street Journal in 2021: “We made the best touchscreen computer in the world, and that is iPad. It is completely optimized for that purpose. Meanwhile, Mac is entirely optimized for indirect input. We really didn’t feel the need to change that.”

Since joining the company, Ternus has been working in the Mac business area. Together with the chip supervisor Johny Srouji, he is considered a leader in driving Mac to switch from using Intel chips to Apple's own-developed chips. Apple also mentioned Ternus's work in Mac in its official CEO handover statement.

This might also be the reason why, in the early days of Ternus serving as CEO, he became the executive who broke with Apple's long-standing design philosophy.

IDC, Vice President of Global Device Tracking, stated that touchscreen laptops have long existed on Windows machines, but they have always been just a feature, rather than a selling point that drives most purchasing decisions.

According to IDC data, only 17% of laptops shipped globally this year are equipped with touchscreens. The average selling price of touchscreen laptops is also slightly lower than that of non-touchscreen laptops.

He added that hardware technology is not the limiting factor for Apple to integrate desktop and mobile interfaces; Apple may have been waiting until it could provide a good user experience, and after making attempts to make the iPad more like a laptop, it will then refine the software before launching a touchscreen laptop.

Reith said, "This is actually a user interface and software issue. It adds another factor that can attract developers."