Discussion
Turning a MacBook into a Touchscreen with $1 of Hardware
t1234s: Is there a coating you can apply to the glass to help with smudge marks?
als0: Still an amazing hack today and I love it. However, I heard Apple are developing a touch screen MacBook this year, and I simply don't get why they're doing that. I don't know what's worse, the ergonomics or the fingerprints.
spidermonkey23: Using an external webcam is that not more than $1? cool project though; reminds me of how you could use a Wii remote to create a interactive whiteboard.
jbverschoor: Internal with a small mirror
Etheryte: So you mean they're developing the iPad, an insanely popular device, and you're not sure why they would make such a device?
anandkulkarni: Brilliant!
bardackx: i used to have a bad touch screen laptop like 7 years ago and back then it made the mobile development more pleasant (both native and web based)
brcmthrowaway: Checking this profile of a random hacker in 2018, of course they are now working on AI.
nothrowaways: Touch screens are not pleasant for laptops. I prefer not to have them.
gavinsyancey: You don't have to use it.
ForOldHack: I think I could do this for less than 15 cents: four small peices of double sided tape, and the tiny mirror, and two hair pins... but the software? Priceless.
long-time-first: This is amazing. They should start to install upward looking cameras to implement this officially.
dotBen: I wouldn't want a touchscreen MBP even if it was free, anyone else feel similar?I don't get the draw - we already optimize for keyboard commands to avoid living our fingers over to a touchpad. Why would I want to start clicking on my screen?If you're using your computer for tasks (rather than entertainment) and you're not a visual designer, I don't get why Apple are apparently going to be putting them into the new MBP line later this year.
post-it: > I don't get why Apple are apparently going to be putting them into the new MBP line later this year.Apple has apparently being going to put a touchscreen in a laptop every year since the iPad came out, and it's never materialized.
xmprt: Previously, those were rumors from enthusiasts who wanted to see it. Now it's an internal leak so there's a lot more credibility to those rumors.
nothrowaways: you will accidentally touch the screen more often that you think.
thesuitonym: Macs are definitely not optimized for keyboard commands. If you feel the software you use is keyboard optimized, odds are it's not really Mac software.
anishathalye: I was working on AI in 2018 too :)At that time, I was quite interested in adversarial examples and ML security.
Waterluvian: I don’t understand touchscreens on laptops that aren’t designed to fold flat. It’s got the feel of finger painting an unconstrained birthday balloon.
eitally: I very much would want a touchscreen for my use cases.
egypturnash: I wonder how well this would work with my bright blue fingernails that are about .5" longer than my finger.I then wonder how much recalibration I would have to do when one of them broke and I was poking directly at the screen.
Synthetic7346: You could still use the keyboard and track pad
mrtksn: It's actually quite pleasant user experience for scrolling. Some interactions are better with a pointer, others are better with touch.You can try it on an iPad with Magic Keyboard attached, it's very good to be able to do precision through the trackpad and then casually move large things on the screen with your fingers.
prmoustache: Honestly I just hate having fingerprints on a screen. And I use pageup/pagedown mostly which to me is better than scrolling.Trackpad is nice for a device you can lay flat on a table or keep on one hand while sitting on the sofa, not too much when the device has a keyboard permanently attached to it and it cannot fold. I know I have a thinkpad like that and I never use the touchscreen.
JaredCampbell: It feels real because of the dirty touchscreen.
bitmasher9: Sometimes, if I’ve been using my iPad for awhile and switch over to my MBP, I might reach out and touch the screen out of habit. I can’t be the only one.
antonymoose: I had the opposite problem when work issued me a ThinkPad - I would accidentally brush my screen with my caveman knuckles once a day and somehow nuke a dozen lines of code.
hu3: No, there were internal "leaks" in the past as well.https://archive.ph/xOgtp
jacobgkau: > January 11, 2023> Based on current internal deliberations, the company could launch its first touch-screen Mac in 2025Even if it didn't come to pass, just a few years ago is a more relevant leak than the every-year-since-the-iPad-released "rumors."
rox_kd: Neeeeveeeer!!! please let macbooks be as they are .. why would I ever choose to put fingers on that beautful screen ... I don't get it!
ianberdin: I was laughing so much. Thank you. Unexpected tech!
LtWorf: Yesterday someone online told me I'm a boomer because (among the many other issues I mentioned) I said that apple computers lack page up/down keys which is annoying.
criddell: As long as there's a way to maintain the current display density, that would be just fine.However, like on Windows, I suspect macOS would increase the tap target size on lots of the touchable elements. Even if I don't use the touchscreen, I would still have to pay the touch target real estate tax in my applications.
dataflow: [delayed]
9dev: Huh? Of all the wonky shit about my Mac, the flawless keyboard navigation is really none of that
devmor: “Flawless” is absolutely the opposite of how I’d describe the third class keyboard navigation in MacOS.It’s actually more intuitive to use a magic keyboard on the iPad than on the desktop OS.
sitharus: What do you find missing from macOS keyboard navigation?I've been using macs since the 90s so I'm quite used to it, so I'd love to know what I've been missing out on.
