I suspect as of Big Sur that Apple were intending to release touchscreen Macs, but the changes to the OS in future versions makes me suspect that they then changed their mind.
I think Apple prepares for a lot of eventualities internally and only some things end up being released. Eg. they built macOS X on Intel years before they announced the switch.
It's quite possible someone is working on making macOS touch-screen capable, even when they don't have concrete plans for releasing a touch screen Mac.
> they built macOS X on Intel years before they announced the switch.
Not a correction, just adding context: Mac OS X always had Intel builds, even before release. It would be surprising to me if they don’t still maintain Intel macOS builds just in case.
Interesting. I’ve thought about macOS on bigger iPads, but never the mini.
(I confess that personally, after a couple years of trying to make an iPad my main mobile device—and getting pretty good at making it do what I want, learning how capable iPadOS/iOS really is—I’ve retreated to my original circa-2011 understanding of “Macs are computers, iPads are appliances.”)
It's quite possible someone is working on making macOS touch-screen capable, even when they don't have concrete plans for releasing a touch screen Mac.