💁🏽‍♂️Aston🦦

Ironically, almost to the same day 14 years ago, Microsoft introduced the Surface RT with Windows and capacitive touch. Some of my favorite Apple exec quotes against touch on Macs: Tim Cook, CEO, 2012: •April earnings call, asked about tablet and PC convergence: "you can converge a toaster and a refrigerator," but the tradeoffs leave a product nobody likes. •To the WSJ, on a touch iMac: "this kind of reach for me isn't a terribly intuitive thing." He wouldn't discuss touch notebooks, calling that a roadmap question. •October call, on Microsoft's Surface: you could design "a car that flies and floats," but it wouldn't do those things well. •Craig Federighi, SVP Software Engineering, Jan. 2014 (Macworld): He said it's easy to "slap a touchscreen on a piece of hardware," then asked whether that's a good experience. "We believe, no." •Federighi, Oct. 2014 (CNET): "We don't think it's the right interface, honestly." He said constantly reaching forward from a desk to touch the screen is uncomfortable. Apple was "not all that interested in building one." •Jony Ive, Chief Design Officer, Oct. 2016 (CNET): Apple ruled out a touchscreen Mac years earlier because "it wasn't particularly useful or an appropriate application of multitouch." •Phil Schiller, SVP Worldwide Marketing, Oct. and Nov. 2016 (Touch Bar launch): ◦To CNET: engineering was better spent on the "best keyboard-trackpad experience possible." ◦To The Independent: Apple had looked at it, and "it's a bad experience." ◦To Backchannel: a touch desktop would "become absurd." "You can't optimize for both. It's the lowest common denominator thinking." •Federighi, Oct. 2016 (CNET): Apple had working prototypes years earlier. But grafting touch onto a system built around a precise pointer "really compromises the experience." •Federighi, June 2018 (Wired): He said he's "not into touchscreens." He said lifting your arm to poke at a screen is "a pretty fatiguing thing to do." Good to see Apple changed their mind.