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For 16 years, Apple rejected touchscreens on the Mac. This week brought the first MacBook Pro that responds to your finger. Add to that a new iMac, a new entry-level MacBook Pro and an iPad mini with OLED, all within three days. On top of that: a memo on the display cracks in the iPhone Duo and a calculation that shows how expensive storage has become for Apple.
The previous issue belonged to the iPhone Duo and its launch. This week, the focus shifted back to the Mac, and right away with the biggest change in how it is operated in years.
Apple handled the round without a keynote, using only press releases and demos for the media. At the same time came iOS 27.2 with all its sister systems, the HomePod mini 2 in stores and a roadmap for Apple Intelligence in China.
🔥 Story of the Week: The Mac Gets Touch
On Wednesday, October 28, Apple unveiled the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR display in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes. It is the first Mac with a touchscreen, and it adds a tandem OLED display with up to 2000 nits even for SDR content and a Dynamic Island instead of the notch. According to Apple, the 14-inch model weighs 1.38 kilograms, around 230 grams less than before, and the 16-inch model is around 320 grams lighter.
The chips remain as of March: M5 Pro and M5 Max. In Germany, the lineup starts at 3,299 euros for 14 inches and 3,899 euros for 16 inches. The Mini-LED models stay in the lineup alongside them, with the 14-inch model with M5 Pro still starting at 2,899 euros. All articles about the device are collected on the MacBook Pro page.
What Touch on the Mac Can and Can't Do
macOS automatically translates every touch into a click, so many apps can be used with a finger right away. Beyond that, macOS responds to the finger in only a few places: According to first impressions from the media event, the window buttons in the top left get slightly larger under the finger, a double tap expands a window to full size, and a swipe moves it into a tiled position. According to the first hands-on reports, the display does not support the Apple Pencil.
Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro and Pixelmator Pro from Apple Creator Studio are the first to get their own touch features, via an update in November. Third-party apps such as Microsoft Office and DaVinci Resolve are set to follow later in the year.
Anyone who doesn't want touch can, according to a hands-on report from MacStories, turn it off completely in the Accessibility settings. According to Bloomberg, an Apple employee told reporters that Apple is only at the beginning of adapting macOS for touch. For developers, there are online labs on November 18 and 19, and the Xcode 27.3 beta is coming soon.
One limitation affects German-speaking countries: Spotlight only moves into the Dynamic Island when Siri AI is available and turned on. However, Siri AI still does not run in German on the Mac.
Why Apple Is Changing Course After 16 Years
Ever since Steve Jobs warned in 2010 about the tired arm in front of a vertical screen, Apple has rejected touch on the Mac with the same arguments. In a conversation with Wired, John Ternus explains the reversal as an addition, not a new core principle:
The Mac is first and foremost an indirect input device, built around the trackpad and keyboard. But I think there's times when it's comfortable and handy to have touch.
According to Ternus, the condition for this was that touch would make the device neither heavier nor thicker. Hardware chief Johny Srouji attributes the timing to advances in display technology, chips and software, while marketing chief Greg Joswiak points to professionals and young creatives who expect touch.
The Rest of the Lineup: M6 and iPad mini
Apple spread the announcements over three days: the iPad mini with A20 Pro on Monday, the iMac with M6 and the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 on Tuesday, and the OLED model on Wednesday. All four have been available to pre-order since October 28.
| Device | New | Starting price Germany | In stores |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPad mini (A20 Pro) | 8.5-inch OLED, IP67, 5.4 mm | 749 € | November 6 |
| iMac with M6 | two more cores, WLAN 7 | 1.799 € | November 6 |
| MacBook Pro 14″ with M6 | two more cores, WLAN 7 | 2.299 € | November 6 |
| MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR | OLED, Touch, Dynamic Island | 3.299 € | November 6 |
The iMac stays at the price the M4 model last sold for. The MacBook Pro with M6, on the other hand, costs 2,299 euros instead of the previous 2,199 euros, with the same memory and the same SSD. The iPad mini has no ProMotion, and only the 512 GB model gets the 6-core CPU. Apple does not specify the memory, but Xcode 27.2 lists the iPad mini with 12 GB. All devices, prices and dates from the lineup are in the overview of Apple's October releases.
📰 What Else Mattered
iOS 27.2 is available to everyone. Since Monday, Apple has been rolling out iOS 27.2 along with the versions for all other systems. Apple Music gets a black-and-white icon, the iPhone Duo gets support for the Apple Pencil with USB-C, and the HomePod gets Sound Glow. Across all updates, Apple fixes 329 security vulnerabilities, 163 of them in iOS and iPadOS 27.2. Images from Image Playground and photos edited with certain AI tools in the Photos app now carry an invisible SynthID watermark.
Siri AI learns five languages, German is not among them. With the 27.2 updates, Siri AI now also works in French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. Four more are set to follow by the end of the year, but there is no date for German. In the EU, Siri AI remains blocked on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
Apple Intelligence is coming to China, without Siri AI. Apple has confirmed the launch in China with iOS 27.3 in December, with the beta following in early November. Apple names only Alibaba as a partner, whose Qwen model powers Siri, Writing Tools and Visual Intelligence.
The trial date in the dispute with OpenAI is set. The court in San José has granted Apple additional expedited discovery, including insight into how former employee Chang Liu used AI. One day later, Judge Edward J. Davila set the schedule: the trial begins on July 19, 2027 at 6 p.m. German time. The defendants' motion to dismiss the lawsuit is still pending.
The HomePod mini 2 is in stores. Since Friday, the HomePod mini 2 has been available for 169 euros, or 139 francs in Switzerland. Sound and Sound Glow work right away, but surround sound with four speakers requires the new Apple TV 4K, which won't arrive until November 13. On the same day as the HomePod mini 2, the iPhone Duo launched in 28 additional countries and regions.
The iPhone 18 Pro only grows thanks to China. According to Counterpoint, the series sold 3.1 percent better than the iPhone 17 Pro in its first three weeks. China grew by 29 percent, while sales fell in the US and Japan.
Apple brings in its next data team. The European Commission's acquisitions list revealed that Apple is taking over employees and patents from Ascend.io. The startup built software that lets AI agents manage data pipelines and is shutting down.
A crime thriller started on Apple TV, and two series are moving forward. The Kepler crime thriller Nocturne has been streaming since Friday. Filming on Pluribus season 2 was scheduled to begin in Albuquerque on October 31, and according to cast member Jessica Williams, Shrinking season 4 has wrapped. And Jay-Z will headline the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show on February 14, 2027.
💡 Rumor of the Week: The iPhone Duo Is Expected to Account for Almost One in Three Foldables in 2027
Not a leak, but a market forecast: research firm TrendForce sees Apple at 29.8 percent of all foldable smartphones shipped in 2027. Samsung would remain ahead, but only by a little over two percentage points.
| Manufacturer | Share 2026 (estimate) | Share 2027 (forecast) |
|---|---|---|
| Samsung | 35,1 % | 31,9 % |
| Apple | 24,8 % | 29,8 % |
| Huawei | 24,8 % | 21,3 % |
As a market research firm focused on display and component supply chains, TrendForce draws on insights into manufacturing, but it does not give a unit figure for 2027. In early September, Counterpoint Research had still forecast 40 percent for 2027, putting the two firms a good ten points apart. TrendForce itself cites damaged inner displays, apps that haven't been adapted and the power consumption of the large display as obstacles.
📊 Number of the Week: $134
That is how much gross profit Apple keeps on the iPhone 18 Pro when a customer in the US pays $200 extra to upgrade from 256 to 512 GB. With the iPhone 17 Pro, it was still $185. The figures come from a Wall Street Journal report on Apple's storage purchasing, which is based on estimates from TechInsights.
| iPhone 17 Pro (2025) | iPhone 18 Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Surcharge of 256 GB for 512 GB (USA) | $200 | $200 |
| Apple's storage costs for this | 15 dollars | approximately 66 dollars |
| Gross profit | $185 | approximately 134 dollars |
The reason is the price of flash: around 5 cents per gigabyte in 2023, now more than 30 cents. Apple is expected to spend around $25 billion on flash storage in 2026, after $6 billion the previous year. According to the Journal, Apple put heavy pressure on manufacturers for years, and now they have the upper hand.
No relief is in sight. SK Hynix reports that DRAM and HBM are practically sold out through 2029. In June, Apple justified higher prices for Macs and iPads with increased component costs.
👎 Flop of the Week: The iPhone Duo Gets a Memo Instead of a Fix
Three days after launch, Apple confirmed the cracks in the inner display as a problem. The statement is brief:
We are aware of an issue impacting the inner display on a small number of iPhone Duo units.
Affected users are told to contact AppleCare, meaning Apple Support. Later in the week came an internal memo to Apple Stores and Authorized Service Providers, reported by MacRumors: technicians are to inspect reported devices and repair or replace them following standard procedures. There is no recall, no service program either, and Apple has still not named a cause.
Without a program, the inspection of the device decides whether a crack counts as a warranty case. A new inner display costs 1,149 euros outside the warranty, or 99 euros with AppleCare+. In Germany, there is also the two-year statutory warranty, and during the first year it is presumed that a defect already existed at the time of delivery. Everything about the device is on the iPhone Duo page.
🔭 What's Coming Next Week
Monday, November 2: Apple reports its results for the fourth fiscal quarter, with the conference call starting at 11 p.m. German time. It is the first report with John Ternus as CEO, and analyst expectations are in. From Sunday, standard time also applies in the US again, making the time difference to the West Coast nine hours.
iOS 27.3: For the first beta, which also starts the testing of Apple Intelligence in China, Apple gives November 4. When the final version will arrive is covered in the outlook on the iOS 27.3 release date.
Friday, November 6: The iPad mini, the iMac with M6 and both new MacBook Pro models go on sale, including in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The Mac buying guide shows which Mac suits which use.
💬 My Take
With the iPhone Duo, the software wasn't finished at launch. Some apps still don't look good on the large display, and yet the device changed how I use it from day one. I open it around 95 percent of the time and have rebuilt my Home Screen with widgets because the form factor leads me to.
The touchscreen on the Mac doesn't push me toward anything. Keyboard and trackpad remain the norm, touch can be turned off, the adapted pro apps won't arrive until November, and Apple itself says it is only at the beginning. For me, it's an offer: you can use it, but you don't have to.
Whether it becomes more than that will be decided by the apps, not the hardware, which is the same point where the Duo is still growing. The fact that Apple offers touch only on the most expensive MacBook models looks to me more like a test among those who buy the top model anyway than a new way of operating the Mac for everyone.
📚 From Our Archive
- MacBook power adapter: What wattage does your model need?
- Unlock iPhone Duo with Apple Watch: Here's How
Three days, four devices, and of all things, the feature that grabbed the most headlines can be turned off in the settings.
Would you go for the MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR starting at 3,299 euros for touch and OLED, or is the Mini-LED model with the same chip starting at 2,899 euros enough for you? Let us know in the comments whether putting your finger on the screen would be worth the extra 400 euros to you.
Until next Sunday, Apfelpatient wishes you a relaxing read and a good start to the week.
