Here's the official launch video, where it looks silly to me, but I know very casual users who love their touchscreen laptops:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnZI5uUSdEo

Casual users should not be buying the most expensive MacBook Pro unless they have so much money that $3000 (or more) means little to them.

I could see it with tablet but reaching out to touch my laptop, or worse desktop, screen would get very tiring, very quickly.

I agree. The ergonomics of using a touch screen on a laptop screen aren't great. It only really works if you convert it to a tablet so that the screen is closer to you and angled up a bit for comfort, but it's no longer a laptop, so why bother?

I mean it seems like a good idea to me for mobile app development, being able to touchscreen the simulator.

That seems like a great use case for it.

How many Macbook Pro owners are mobile app developers though?

Not sure, but I bet most mobile app developers are MacBook users haha.

I mean it's a $400 up-charge over the same model without touchscreen. Not that unreasonable if you are a heavy app developer IMO.

They sell other equally capable MacBook pros if this isn’t your use case?

But without the new screen, which is genuinely impressive and a noticeable upgrade.

And nicer new screens cost more money!

You don’t have to touch it?

Is it really that useful if you need to test on real hardware anyway?

Simulation is already great, and one can (and should) test their app on device.