Apple Caves: A Touchscreen Mac

Apple unveiled a new touchscreen MacBook Pro in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes, with starting prices of $2,899 and $3,399 respectively. The machines use M5 Pro or M5 Max chips rather than the M6 chip in the other MacBook Pros announced earlier in the week. Their new “Pro LED XDR” screens are tandem OLED panels with up to 2,000 nits of peak SDR brightness, a 120Hz refresh rate, and a 10-million-to-one contrast ratio. Apple says the touch sensor is built into the display rather than layered over it, reducing latency. The screen supports ordinary interactions such as scrolling and zooming, but Apple also imagines testing iOS and iPadOS apps on the Mac and playing software instruments directly on the display. Apple’s apps are optimized for touch, and an updated API will let developers add touch support to their own software. The laptops have Dynamic Island functionality for items such as live activities, a glowing Apple logo on the lid, slimmer bezels, and a redesigned hinge. The 14-inch model has a 14.2-inch display and weighs three pounds; the 16-inch model has a 16.3-inch display and weighs four pounds. Both are thinner than their predecessors and offer up to 24 hours of battery life. They include MagSafe 3, a headphone jack, an SD card reader, HDMI, and three Thunderbolt 5 ports. They support three external displays, or four with an M5 Max chip, and have a six-speaker system that Apple says delivers 50% deeper bass. The host emphasizes how much this reverses Apple’s long-standing position. Bloomberg reported that Steve Jobs called touch Macs “ergonomically terrible,” while Tim Cook once compared combining a laptop and tablet to “merging a fridge and a toaster.” Executives resisted the idea for nearly two decades, but Cook and new CEO John Ternus eventually backed a touchscreen MacBook Pro about four years ago. Ternus, who took over from Cook the previous month, introduced the machine on stage, with Apple hoping premium features and higher prices will give the Mac new momentum and revenue.

Amazon held its own hardware event the same morning, unveiling the $500 Echo Show 16, the $199.99 Echo Time smart alarm, the $199.99-and-up Alexa Photo Frame, an Echo Studio with a camera, and an updated Echo Dot. It also raised smart-speaker prices and previewed Alexa Home Map. Panos Panay, Amazon’s senior vice president of Devices, Alexa, and Leo, said Amazon was spreading the launches out because when “we do everything at once, not all your children get enough attention.” He said the event’s central focus was the home, with additional Ring and Echo-on-the-go announcements still to come. Panay spent roughly 45 minutes introducing five new Echo speakers and displays, along with software that will initially appear on the Echo Show 16 and later reach existing Show products. The features include dedicated home screens, an interactive 3D map for controlling smart-home devices, and meal planning. Amazon also opened up more of Alexa Plus’s generative-AI capabilities, describing a “new brain” that can conduct deeper research in addition to controlling lights, setting timers, and playing music. A new card interface stores conversations on Show devices, in the Alexa app, and on Alexa.com so users can continue a chat elsewhere. Amazon’s Alexa Home Map will let users scan rooms with a smartphone to create a 3D layout. The map can update in real time, place Echo devices, Ring and Blink cameras, lights, locks, and thermostats in their actual locations, and show outdoor-camera activity such as cars or people moving through a yard. Amazon said the feature would roll out in preview later in the year. Despite the Alexa Plus discussion, the host notes that the day was unusual because almost none of the main news involved AI.

The Echo Show 16 is Amazon’s premium 16-inch smart display, scheduled to ship after Apple’s $299 HomePod-like Home View arrives on November 13. Amazon says it provides 10% more viewing area than the Echo Show 15, twice as vibrant colors, and an anodized-aluminum frame nearly 40% thinner than the previous model. Its redesigned audio system has ten drivers intended to remain audible in a noisy kitchen or living room. A Nano Matte anti-glare display is available as a $570 option, which Amazon says preserves clarity in direct sunlight or bright rooms. The display has a 13-megapixel camera with the widest field of view on an Echo Show, Visual ID recognition that works from up to 17 feet away, and a night mode for monitoring in darkness. Its central software feature is “Screen Styles,” customizable home screens that can act as a family organizer, smart-home dashboard, Alexa-widgets page, or digital photo frame. The screens can remain visible or appear when someone approaches, providing quick access to calendars, meal planning, photos, and frequently used controls. The Verge reviewer saw this as the practical family-hub experience that smart displays have lacked, since they have traditionally been voice-first devices with screens offering only extra context. The device resembles a large tablet, particularly Amazon’s Alexa Tablet Pro 12, and uses a MediaTek processor rather than Amazon’s AZ3 chip. With an optional stand it can look like a small iMac, although the reviewer thought it might be too large for a kitchen counter. The conclusion was mixed: the hardware and software represent a substantial improvement, but at $500—twice the price of the $250 Echo Show 11 and $200 more than Apple’s $200 Home View mentioned in the coverage—it may be too expensive even for committed Alexa users.

Amazon’s Alexa Photo Frame is a $199.99 black device, or $229.99 in birch or walnut, designed to make digital photos look more like wall art. TechCrunch compares its semi-matte, anti-glare display and overall aesthetic to Aura frames and Samsung’s Frame TV. The 10-inch screen is calibrated to look like a matte photograph rather than an overly bright laptop display. Its advantage over a standalone photo frame is integration with Amazon accounts: Prime members receive unlimited Amazon Photos storage, and Alexa Plus is supposed to select images intelligently. Amazon says Alexa can favor photos in which people are smiling and the lighting is good, match images to the season, and avoid screenshots or receipts. That means family Halloween photos could appear in October rather than in spring. Users can add voice notes to photos, and new pictures sync automatically as they are taken. The frame was available to order immediately. The $199.99 Echo Time is a baseball-sized alarm clock combining a 3.2-inch fully round touchscreen with a speaker. Its clock face remains the priority: after Alexa turns on lights, plays music, or shows a doorbell feed, the display returns to the clock. The screen is larger than the Echo Spot’s 2.83-inch display and can dim below 0.3 nits. Unlike the Spot, the Time lets users set alarms by touch, avoiding the need to speak beside a sleeping partner. It has no camera, making it better suited to a bedside table, and its small icons allow users to inspect timers or music without losing the clock display. An optional sleep-sensing feature uses an ultrasound transducer and motion detection to estimate breathing and sleep stages, then wake the user at an optimal point up to an hour before the set alarm. It is opt-in and can be disabled with the mute button. For habitual snoozers, alarm tones start quietly and become more energetic each time the user snoozes by tapping the device or asking Alexa.

The new Echo Studio with Home Camera costs $249.99 in graphite, while Amazon continues selling the standard Echo Studio for $219.99. The built-in camera can monitor a room while the owner is away, show objects to Alexa, and eventually support video calls on Fire TV devices. Amazon also adds Advanced Room Adaption, which continuously tunes the audio to the room, and adaptive volume, which adjusts loudness depending on where the listener is so music and audiobooks remain at a consistent level while someone moves around. Gizmodo describes the camera as adding “visual intelligence” to the flagship speaker. Amazon’s examples include holding up a board game and asking Alexa how to play it, or using the device as a living-room video feed. Panos Panay demonstrated video calling by calling his parents at a press event; the host notes that while people could use FaceTime, a stationary device may be more convenient for hands-free calls and larger groups. Amazon says a status light indicates when the camera is active and a button can deactivate it. However, visual information is processed in the cloud, a privacy consideration the coverage specifically flags, and the host questions whether people will want another Amazon camera in the living room despite the popularity of Ring cameras. Amazon’s updated Echo Dot costs $99.99 and uses the company’s custom AZ3 chip plus a fourth microphone intended to improve conversations with Alexa. It now includes a smart-home hub supporting Zigbee, Matter, and Thread, as well as a built-in eero Wi-Fi extender that Amazon says can add up to 1,000 square feet of coverage. It comes in Graphite, Glacier White, Agave Green, and Coral Pink. The host closes by returning to the day’s unusual theme: an entire episode of tech news without a substantial AI segment, joking, “What is this, 2016?”