Finishing packing up my bags for Thailand! It’s getting real. This is our last trip of the year after Egypt, Jordan, France and Mexico. We were on a roll to celebrate our twenty years anniversary together!

On a side note: I’m doing some tweaks to my Scribbles Poster mini web app to add image uploads… it will be useful. 🖼️👀

As we are getting ready for our trip, my wife and I has been using Siri AI more than usual for things that, frankly, I wasn’t sure would work. But 90% of the time, Siri AI accomplished the task. Example: fetching the Aeroplan number and flight reservations numbers to fill a flight registration form in Safari. We couldn’t do that before with the older Siri. It’s encouraging.

I like how Apple introduced touch-screen support on the new MacBook Pro. Sure, the company was under pressure to add it, but its framing is clever and bodes well for future MacBooks. Thanks to the switch to an OLED panel, Apple didn’t have to compromise on the screen or macOS to add touch support. It’s clear that Apple will move its MacBook line to OLED panels over the next few years, which should also bring touch support to the rest of the lineup. The iPad launched in 2010, sixteen years ago; people entering higher education in the next few years can reasonably expect their laptops to support touch.

When buying a new Mac, you can have only one trade-in. I plan to return my M2 MacBook Air which offers a greater trade-in value than my Mac mini. I’ll either try to sell the latter myself or keep it, in last resort, to act as some home server. Keyboard wear is easy to notice by a potential buyer but Apple doesn’t seem to care too much. But Mac minis are a harder sell, so there is that.

Apple has long been known for the best trackpad on its laptops, with great OS-level support, so it didn’t need to add touch support to its screens. The trackpad is a solved problem, and it has been for a long time; what’s left? Add touch support to the screen with a great OS-level touch implementation, because they knew how; they’ve been doing it on the iPad since 2010.

First, let me set the context: I own an aging 15-inch M2 MacBook Air and a M4 Mac mini. The former is my daily driver while the latter is occasionally used. I have a few more projects that I want to tackle early next year: building native iOS-iPadOS-macOS apps using Claude Code.

Second, here’s the plan: buy the 14-inch MacBook Pro with touch screen support while returning the MacBook Air for a credit and selling the Mac mini. Both will help me finance this upgrade. Here’s why it will be worth it.

This is a massive upgrade: the best screen, a much more powerful Mac in an attractive and portable machine. The screen will offer more room for content, in a much higher image quality while getting rid of the notch, to be replaced with a much more useful Dynamic Island. This new MacBook Pro will be able to drive both of my displays, an Apple Studio Display and a 4K UltraFine.

From what I’m seeing, Apple did a great job at making macOS touch friendly. I can’t wait to try this out.

I’m winning on all counts. Still to be decided, though: adding the nano texture option. I’ll pay a visit to an Apple Store in the next few weeks to decide.

One more thing: the Apple logo now is glowing! 🤩

What’s Left for ‘Pro and Tell’ Week: Touch-Enabled OLED MacBooks:

So I’m just wondering if tomorrow’s new touchscreen OLED MacBooks aren’t replacements for the current MacBook Pros, but instead are the start of a new MacBook family with another name. I don’t think they’d call them MacBook “Duos”, because they’re not two-in-one devices. MacBook “Ultras”, maybe — with the same specs as the MacBook Pros but more expensive displays? But “Ultra” seems like a wrong name for a MacBook because Apple’s M-series Ultra chips are (to date at least) desktop only. It’d be weird if the M5 Ultra is exclusive to the Mac Studio while the MacBook “Ultra” maxes out with the M5 Max. So maybe they just are the new MacBook Pros and this first OLED/touch generation uses the same chips as the ones from March?

If we project ourselves into the future where all MacBooks get upgraded to include a touch screen, then the ‘Ultra’ naming wouldn’t make any sense for today’s MacBook Pro being named ‘Ultra’. They will simply keep the MacBook Pro name with a short tagline, ‘MacBook Pro with touch support,’ or something similar.

I’ll slowly, quietly¹ start thinking about this Micro.blog super app. It doesn’t have a name yet. I have no idea what the app icon could be. I’m not an icon designer, and I don’t have the money to commission one. I’m not even sure it will see the light on the App Store. But one thing is clear: I’m afraid Apple will refuse or reject the app when I submit it to the App Store.