Hi there. My mom could really use an upgrade soon. I'd love to get her hooked on a Mac, especially since she loves her iPhone. But she absolutely insists that the desktop computer be a touchscreen monitor. I know Apple is super annoying weird about macOS computers not being allowed to have touchscreens, but could we get a Macbook and dock/attach it to a Samsung touchscreen monitor? Would the touch gestures work (including multitouch gestures)?
macOS Sierra (10.12)
It might work, in that the touchscreen might send compatible trackpad-like signals and gestures to the Mac, but you'd have to confirm that it could work at that level.
The big, big problem is even if you can get the touchscreen to work, macOS itself is fundamentally not prepared for touchscreens as well as say Windows 10 is. There are far too many controls in macOS that are sized for a precise mouse pointer, which would be agonizing to try and hit with a big fat finger. Windows 10 has a complete touch version of the user interface that provides big finger-friendly controls. That is completely missing from macOS, so even if you connect a touchscreen to the Mac, macOS is not ready for it.
Is there any chance your Mom could do well with an iPad or iPad Pro? The iPad Pro screen is as big as a computer, and when you attach a keyboard cover it's a lot like a touchscreen laptop, and as you know, the design and operation of iOS is fully touch-based. Is there anything she really needs a computer for, or would an iPad do everything she needs?
If she insists on a real computer (not iPad) that has a real touchscreen, it's not going to be a Mac.
So she really likes playing Pogo Games. However, according to the iTunes reviews, the iOS version *****. It looks like they are mostly Flash based games or maybe even a few Java games. Would a browser like Google Chrome or Firefox on the iPad be able to (1) Always go to the Desktop site and (2) Load a Flash game (since I'm pretty sure that's a no-no on Safari)?
No. You can't attach a touchscreen monitor to a Mac and turn macOS into a touch-based OS.
Touchscreen Monitor for Mac
