Apple launched a new page on its Developer site yesterday with resources for supporting Touch on Macs. So far there are three videos (Design for Touch on Mac, Bring Touch to your Mac app, Bring Live Activities to Mac), group labs, and documentation. Xcode 27.3 beta is listed as “Coming Soon.”

(The videos are also available on the Apple Developer YouTube channel, a phrase which still leaves me astonished.)

The updated Human Interface Guidelines added “guidance for gestures and touch input in macOS,” including this passage on ergonomics:

Ergonomics. People generally use a Mac while they’re stationary, often placing the device on a desk or table. On a Mac with a touch display, people reach forward to touch the screen, so they tend to use touch for brief, intentional interactions rather than sustained work.

That aligns with my expectations for how I’d use a touchscreen Mac.

The HIG also introduces guidance for touch-enabled UI on macOS:

Support standard gestures on trackpads and Mac devices with a touch display. Use larger tap targets and controls that expand on touch to make touch interaction easier, while keeping control size and density the same to stay optimized for keyboard and pointing device input.

Gestures for macOS expands on this, explicitly calling for developers to “Keep the layout and size of interface elements the same when you support touch,” “Make tap targets bigger, not the controls themselves,” and “Consider providing expandable controls.” I’m particularly pleased to see “Don’t use touch as the only way to access controls or features,” because too many developers bury features behind right-click/control-click contextual menus with no other way to get to them.