If you’re waiting for a touchscreen MacBook, we’ve got bad news

Are you waiting for Apple to release a touchscreen MacBook, perhaps fueled by last year’s rumors that the company is working on such a device?

Unfortunately, it probably won’t happen, at least not anytime soon. According to Tom Boger, Apple’s vice president of iPad and Mac product marketing, who spoke to the Wall Street Journal‘s Joanna Stern, the company doesn’t plan to launch a touchscreen Mac.

In fact, despite some marketing that’s telling us otherwise, Boger claims that Apple doesn’t see the iPad and the MacBook as competing devices. The iPad has “always been a touch-first device,” he said, whereas the Mac is for “indirect manipulation,” meaning using a keyboard, mouse, or trackpad.

While this may be true, there are plenty of users who are wondering would it be so bad if the MacBook got a touchscreen as a secondary option for interaction. After all, plenty of Windows-based laptops have touchscreens, allowing the users to choose whether they want to use them or not.

But according to Boger, this isn’t likely to happen with the MacBook. “MacOS is for a very different paradigm of computing,” he said, adding that the iPad can be seen as a device that lets you extend your work from a Mac. So if you want it both ways, you’ll need to buy both a MacBook and an iPad.

There’s a glimmer of hope here, though. Stern asked Boger whether Apple will ever change its mind about MacBooks being not-for touch. “Oh, I can’t say we never change our mind,” he said.