JUNE 2019 MACWORLD 9going to start making their way
to the Mac later this year, likely
in droves, are fundamentally
designed for touch. Games
designed for iOS—or at least,
the kinds of games that Apple is
building an entire subscription
service to support—usually rely
on the visceral nature of a touch
interface, and might very well
lose something intangible when
translated to keyboard and
pointing device.
That doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t
need to be accommodations, of course.
The operating system on the Mac is still
firmly rooted in the pointing device and
cursor dynamic and would likely need
some updates to take full advantage of
touch options. None of those changes are
inherently impossible, but they do take time
and thought.
Apple has made a point of bringing
features from iOS back to the Mac, but for
all of that the company has remained
steadfast in holding back the single biggest
innovation of the platform. At some point,
sticking to your guns can start to look like
intransigence. But it’s not as though the
company and its leadership haven’t
changed their minds on other points in the
past. Foregoing a touch interface on the
Mac shouldn’t be the hill that Apple’s
leadership chooses to die on. ■human-technological interaction has
been perhaps too successful. The Mac,
much as I love it, can feel hidebound by
comparison—the last vestige of an old
way of doing things. So perhaps it’s time
for a change.
GETTING TOUCHY
Now is, to my mind, a perfect time to
make such a leap. If the iOS pointing
device rumors bear out, Apple may be
about to loosen the strictures delineating
its two methods of interaction, knocking
down the arbitrary wall that it’s erected
between its platforms. And it seems only
fair—just, really—that if iOS has pointer
support, the Mac should commensurately
get a touch interface.
Moreover, Apple has already
telegraphed the biggest change needed:
software. The Marzipan apps that are
Touch interfaces are standard nowadays, making the Mac
UI seem dated.