“You see, when you completely rethink it from the ground up, a touch Mac doesn’t make sense because then no one would also buy an iPad, since it’d be too obvious that it’s just a slower Mac, running the same apps, on a smaller screen, with a keyboard you have to buy separately.” pic.twitter.com/ebAfQbnxMV

— Francisco Tolmasky (@tolmasky) November 15, 2020

But, to be clear, the Mac doesn't have to go touch-first to justify touch support. Apple Pencil support on macOS, on a drafting table iMac, would fit into all kinds of pro-level workflows currently dominated by Wacom, from illustration to 3D modeling. Absolutely a value-add

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) November 14, 2020

There’s a big difference between what I think the actual odds are that Apple will release a touchscreen Mac in the next two years (low probability) vs. what I think the public believes about that (much higher probability).

— John Gruber (@gruber) November 14, 2020

Seemingly new feature in macOS 11 for iOS apps: iOS-Simulator-style 'touch alternatives', like a virtual finger cursor ? pic.twitter.com/BqvrXPc0h9

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) November 15, 2020

Apple tells us how it made its new chip and MacBooks https://t.co/98B6C8CAho // perhaps thou doth protest too much? pic.twitter.com/CbJBu0NGU2

— Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) November 15, 2020

macOS would still need dramatic changes if it were ever to go touch-first. Catalyst is not in any way designed to dynamically switch between 'Mac' & ‘iOS’ modes — if an app has adopted Catalyst to explicitly make a Mac UI, it would be a *ton* of work to support dynamic switching https://t.co/ohC4AeYCPc

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) November 14, 2020

I just published Apple: No Mac-In-Touch https://t.co/hReQPZruvm

— Jean-Louis Gassée (@gassee) November 15, 2020

I get it that a lot of things are subjective, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, etc, but how can anyone say these alerts with all the text centered look good? Or are even legible? I like Big Sur overall, but this change is just baffling. https://t.co/lKkBq46HUA

— John Gruber (@gruber) November 15, 2020

What a trainwreck of dialog-box design on so many levels.

Big Sur’s design is so fresh and great! As long as you never use alerts or sheets or open/save panels or proxy icons or toolbars. https://t.co/cILFvTUVg3

— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) November 15, 2020

“We are willing to go through a multi-year transition on the Mac to use the same chip as the iPad, and do a design overhaul to make macOS icons look touchable, and even let iPad apps run on macOS, but we refuse to make these steps make sense by shipping a Mac with a touchscreen.”

— Francisco Tolmasky (@tolmasky) November 14, 2020