I just watched Apple unveil its first touchscreen MacBook Pro. It’s a gorgeous machine. But I think Apple borrowed from the wrong product.
Why it matters: Touch came from the iPhone. The interface the Mac actually needs is trapped inside a $3,499 headset that almost nobody wears.
I’ve seen the future. The first time I tried on the Apple Vision Pro, I saw the future of computing. You look at something and it’s selected. You pinch your fingers and it opens. It’s the Minority Report interface we’ve been promised since 2002, except this one actually works. You’re not using the computer. You’re literally in the computer.
The catch: You look like a complete dork.
Exhibit A. (Photo: Bram Van Oost / Unsplash)
Exhibit B: You pretty much never see anyone using one in public. Apple has sold roughly 600,000 since launch, returns have reportedly run unusually high, and the company has all but stopped work on it.
The magic was never the goggles. It was the eyes and the hands.
The idea: Bring Vision Pro’s eye tracking and hand-gesture recognition to the MacBook Pro through an expanded notch.
Apple just went the other way, shrinking the notch into a Dynamic Island. I’d make it bigger and pack it with the sensors that let Vision Pro know where you’re looking and what your hands are doing. Look at a window to focus it. Pinch in the air above the keyboard to click. Flick to scroll.
It might be even better than a touchscreen:
No gorilla arm. Steve Jobs said it best back in 2010: “Touch surfaces don’t want to be vertical.” Reaching up to poke a screen gets old fast. With gestures, your hands barely leave the keyboard.
No smudges on a $2,899 OLED display.
Your eyes are already on the screen. Let them do the pointing.
It’s less of a moonshot than it sounds. Apple already ships eye tracking on iPhone and iPad using nothing but the selfie camera.
The pièce de résistance: Turn the trackpad into an e-ink surface that takes a stylus. Sketch a diagram, sign a contract, or mark up a draft without ever lifting your hands from the laptop. (Funny enough, the new touchscreen doesn’t even work with Apple Pencil.)
Lenovo has flirted with pieces of this. Its Yoga Book C930 had an E Ink panel you could write on, and its Yoga Pro Aura Edition laptops let you sketch on the trackpad. Nobody has put it all together.
The bottom line: Eyes to point. Hands to gesture. A pen to create. No goggles required.
Apple, please steal this idea.