If you think that the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pro is a stepping stone to Apple releasing a touchscreen Mac, you might want to reconsider that in light of comments made by Apple SVP of marketing Phil Schiller.

Speaking to Backchannel, he was quoted as saying, "We think of the whole platform. If we were to do Multi-Touch on the screen of the notebook, that wouldn't be enough -- then the desktop wouldn't work that way. Can you imagine a 27-inch iMac where you have to reach over the air to try to touch and do things? That becomes absurd."

The problem, according to Schiller, is optimizing the user interface:

"You can't optimize for both," said Schiller. "It's the lowest common denominator thinking."

From this, we can take away a few things:

The split between iOS and macOS is here to stay for the foreseeable future
If Apple likes to "think of the whole platform" then that's a strong indication that the Touch Bar is going to spread to the whole Mac lineup
But nothing is set in stone, and things could very well change going forward

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