Although Apple’s iPhone helped popularize the idea of a touchscreen smartphone, it still doesn’t want to bring the technology to its Mac desktop systems. It has also made it clear to questioning journalists, it has no plans to swap out Intel hardware for ARM processors.
These questions came to light during a recent roundtable discussion Apple had with a number of journalists it invited out to its Cupertino, California, headquarters. During the chat, several reporters asked whether Apple had any plans to add touchscreen functionality to its Macs, in a similar manner to Microsoft’s all-in-one Surface Studio products.It was also asked whether there was any possibility of dropping Intel CPUs from its Macs. On both accounts, the answer was a resounding no. However, Apple did purportedly say that there was a chance it would make more use of ARM chips in future as a secondary processor, much in the way it did in the MacBook Pros to run the Touch Bar, according to Axios.
Apple marketing head Phil Schiller apologized for the time it was taking in upgrading the Mac Pro and claimed there was something new in the works.
“We’re going to come up with something great to replace it,” he said. It also plans a small performance update for existing Mac Pros soon, to help tide users over in the mean time.
Schiller also reiterated Apple’s commitment to professional users of its Mac hardware and said it was continuing to develop software like Final Cut and Logic and will introduce new versions of iMac hardware later in 2017.
One move we do know Apple is making with its hardware, though, is ditching Imagination Technologies graphics chips from its mobile hardware. There is even the suggestion that those processors will be switched out for Apple’s own design in the coming years.
