Joz, Federighi, and Ternus on the M1 Macs – and Cold Water on Big Sur Being Designed for Touch

Andrew Griffin scored an interview with Apple’s Mac leadership for The Independent. It’s a good read. This bit on whether Mac OS 11 Big Sur is somehow designed for touchscreen use reiterates my feelings:

This has led to ideas including the theory that Apple had redesigned its new macOS to make way for touch screen Macs. The Big Sur aesthetic borrows from the iPhone and iPad – buttons are bigger, with more space, which numerous commentators pointed out would make them perfect for manipulating with your fingers – but not because of some secret plan to change the way the Mac works, Federighi says.

“I gotta tell you when we released Big Sur, and these articles started coming out saying, ‘Oh my God, look, Apple is preparing for touch’. I was thinking like, ‘Whoa, why?’

“We had designed and evolved the look for macOS in a way that felt most comfortable and natural to us, not remotely considering something about touch.”

Touchscreen Mac advocates can pooh-pooh this on the grounds that Apple executives — having learned from the master — routinely say X is a bad idea, not forthcoming, not something they’re thinking about, etc., right up until the point when they release X and claim it’s a new Apple innovation. But I’ll just point out that Federighi’s remarks here aren’t about whether there should or ever will be touchscreen Macs. He’s just saying what to me is rather obvious when you look at Big Sur — it looks different, yes, but it wasn’t designed for touch.

★ Saturday, 14 November 2020