Rumors are again stirring about a new Apple product that one consultant believes will be available this fall: a touchscreen MacBook. It would, in theory be dubbed the MacBook touch. As in iPod touch.
MacDailyNews says they received the tip from the same anonymous source who had previously leaked information about Apple’s wireless iTunes Store a week before the company debuted it. Wired has also picked up the story.
“Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured Multi-Touch,” the anonymous source told MDN. “Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion’s haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at ‘low’ price that will reduce margins. Apple wants to move these babies. And move they will. This is some sick s**t. App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too. By October at the latest.”
The web site Gizmodo has even released the concept art shown here. It is certainly a very good rendition of Apple marketing’s look and feel if it isn’t the real thing.
The technology already in use in the iPhone makes a MacBook Touch seem plausible. It would essentially be a larger, more powerful iPhone, but would it make phone calls and if so would it be available from AT&T? No word from the anonymous source on such speculation.
Adding fuel to the speculation was a comment by chief financial officer Peter Oppenheim about, “a future product transition, which I can’t discuss today” which he said would allow Apple to deliver “state-of-the-art new products that our competitors aren’t going to be able to match.”
Could the untouchable product be a MacBook Touch?


July 27th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Zoiks! That looks very cool to this old gal.
July 27th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
If this is real I just may hold off buying that wacom cintiq 20wsx for a little while longer.
July 28th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Dang! That looks nice as heck! But I saw something very similar to this in MacLife mag. Here, take a look!
http://www.maclife.com/patents
February 20th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
I subscribed to your RSS feed but the post aren’t coming through, mind looking into it?