New Apple patent applications indicate their bet on the touch interface,  both for laptop as well as desktop.

It’s pretty clear where Apple sees the future and if the iPhone/iPad are any indicators, competitors will follow promptly and the whole inertia created will make fully touch-based computing a quite likely scenario.

Presumably this will be used for iOS type interface on laptops/desktops, but maybe also MacOS, if Apple allows touch in parallel to mouse/keyboard, which could make sense as the evolutionary path.

via: PatentlyApple – Laptops, Desktops