Apple’s long-awaited first entries into the touchscreen laptop market could arrive as early as the fall, according to a new report from Bloomberg, with a feature familiar to iPhone owners: Dynamic Island.
The pill-shaped cutout and alert interface sits at the top of the screen and would presumably offer to people using new touchscreen MacBook Pro models the same kind of conveniences Dynamic Island brings to iPhones — system alerts, app controls, and tracking live activities, among other features — at the top of the screen, using a small amount of real estate.
The Dynamic Island is an evolution of Apple’s much-maligned «notch» from 2017. In 2021, Apple brought the notch over to laptop models around the hardware’s camera.
Dynamic Island aside, the new laptops will not involve a massive redesign, according to Bloomberg’s report. The first touchscreen versions will reportedly be iterations of its 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros with OLED screens. They’ll retain the keyboard and large trackpad, but will add a context-sensitive touch menu when someone puts their finger the the screen. Scrolling or pinching to zoom would be part of the touch interface.
Given that it’s Apple, you can expect other enhancements specific to the touch experience. Bloomberg suggests there may be touch-optimized features for choosing emojis, for instance, but given the physical keyboard, owners likely won’t use the screen to type as they would on an iPhone.
The report also suggests that Apple plans to redesign its Dynamic Island feature to make it smaller on its iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max models.