[chucker]

In this case, the monitor itself implements it, not the attached computer. I’m actually not sure how you configure it. I imagine the software on the computer needs to call an API.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by PB PM Kind of crazy to think of a screen as needing that powerful a CPU, or a full blown OS to do it’s thing. Does that mean one day you won’t be able to use that display because Apple won’t support that OS version anymore? I say that because one of the best parts of an external displays is how long a good unit can be used for. As long as the backlight holds up there is no reason it couldn’t be used indefinitely.

If Apple bricks these things by not supporting the OS past 7 or so years, they're gonna have a lot of very angry customers to deal with, and likely some lawsuits to go along with it. Computers I can understand, but not external displays.

[Matsu]

That is an unpleasant thought that hadn't occurred to me. I wonder if more displays will go this way? Apple's all in now with their last two external displays, will others follow simply because people will want more web-cam, speaker and perhaps security and wireless integration? I just want accurate colors and comfortable viewing, but who knows what the marketplace will look like?

[kscherer]

The fact that the computer runs iOS is a bit unnerving. We can compare AppleTV, where older models still work but get no new apps, etc.

So, perhaps the display will continue to work and security vulnerabilities will be patched, but maybe new features are not supported and things like fancy camera focus won't work any longer?

Either way, I smell trouble.

[709]

I think there could be useful applications of having it run its own iOS, say for those times where it's not hooked up to a machine and you might still want to be able to query Siri and have it displayed on-screen. Or – and I'm not saying I would necessarily want this – to be able to install 'always on' Display-Only apps. I don't know, just spitballing here and trying to imagine where Apple ultimately sees this going.

[chucker]

I was hoping they’d add AirPlay, until I realized they probably didn’t put Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in.

(There is a tiny chance they did and haven’t told us, and it has happened before. But it would show up in some regulatory filing.)

[709]

Ah, right. Well that kinda kills any Siri lookups.

[Matsu]

It occurs to me this A13 implementation might simply be Apple’s way of streamlining production. Certainly any number of cheap ICs can cover user interface controls like volume, brightness, hue, tint, saturation, contrast, and mic input and camera feed. Likewise usb/tb are known quantities with off the shelf controllers. Maybe they’re so flush with these things that it’s just easier to raid the parts bin for something they use widely and maybe doesn’t cost them much. If it’s powerful enough to introduce extra value features like centre stage, noise cancelling mic input and spatial signal audio processing, ok, even better. It just needs some choke points in the API so in the absence of supported features it can present itself to the computer as a display with speakers mic and camera that can be turned on-off and have levels adjusted even if/when any more advanced functionality/control is not supported. It basically should be sealed from planned obsolescence by making certain core function agnostic/accessible. You know, I plug any usb mouse or RF dongle into my work PC or Mac and they act more or less the same. I point, the cursor moves. It has no external settings, but either windows or Mac OS will give me an option to adjust click speed and scrolling behaviour, and tracking sensitivity. I haven’t worried about one of those being obsoleted in years.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Matsu If it’s powerful enough to introduce extra value features like centre stage, noise cancelling mic input and spatial signal audio processing, ok, even better.

Right. This way, they didn’t have to port Center Stage to a different platform. It’s literally running iOS 15 on an iPhone 11 chip.

[PB PM]

Given that it's running iOS, why not make it so the screen can act as a stand alone web browser/streaming device as well. Could be the first step towards the Apple Television that was rumored a few years ago?

[chucker]

Like I said: no Wi-Fi.

[PB PM]

Yup, but it could, thus the comment that it could be a step towards the Apple TV that's not the silly little box.

[kscherer]

Apple Studio Display has 64GB of internal storage.

Hmmmm …

[chucker]

Might’ve been easier. Just take the SoC and flash from the iPhone 11. Maybe even more from the logic board. Why modify it when you don’t have to?

This way, they could use the extra time to figure out a good way to have a standard, simple power connector. …oh

[psmith2.0]

Originally Posted by kscherer Apple Studio Display has 64GB of internal storage. Hmmmm …

That's 48 more than my phone.

Then again, my phone wasn't $1,599...maybe it should have 64GB, just because.

[kscherer]

Originally Posted by chucker Might’ve been easier. Just take the SoC and flash from the iPhone 11. Maybe even more from the logic board. Why modify it when you don’t have to? This way, they could use the extra time to figure out a good way to have a standard, simple power connector. …oh

Oh, I'm sure it was just a spare parts bucket-dig, but one never knows what those weirdos have planned for the thing.

[Matsu]

So, I took a bit of a dive on Mac Studio display info. I think the panel is suitable for professional work, with a few caveats. Let's call it a premium panel implementation that lacks some of the very highest end features, but likely compensates for them in well decided ways. DPReview has a pretty good general write up.

• It is not the LG ultrafine 5K panel, which is obvious in the video on at least a couple of Youtube reviews I watched. (and more on that later)
• It is not a "true 10-bit" panel, but rather an 8 bit+FRC, albeit a very good one, color stability/accuracy is excellent already using preset calibrations, and can improved even more.
• Panel uniformity is excellent.
• No hardware LUT, but at least in MacOS, it has a comprehensive set of trim/adjustment controls that the display does store settings in it's own memory. They confirmed by making changes through a mac and the display carrying them over when connected to a PC.

A few other tidbits:

• The power cord is removable. One reviewer just pulled it straight out, but Apple has a specialized tool to avoid breaking the connector. Hint, you could make your own tool with a soup can and a oil filter wrench. It's easy to imagine iFixit and the like with cord replacement kits for DIYers, eg, people who need a longer power cord for some sort of custom installation? From the pics it looks like a thick pressure fit gasket holds the power cord connector in place. The connector itself is just a shallow three prong purposely designed to fit within the display profile. It's not so much that it can't be pulled, it's that doing it ham handedly or too often would probably result in someone bending the pins.
  
• HDR It's not an HDR certified panel, but... it seems to be able to display HDR600, and was able to show HDR content quite well compared to the LG Ultrafine 5K. This is the clearest evidence that neither panel, backlight or coatings are the same... Seemed from the test I saw that so long as you could control your room lighting, you could view HDR content correctly on it.
  
• It has 64GB of memory in it. That seems enough to me to be able to add quite a robust set of features to it or turn it into a smart display, among whatever else Apple can think up.

My impressions from all this.

It got me to take a look at what's out there in display tech, and my biggest concerns with Apple's display has more to do with how I use displays. I use two displays. Two Apple displays is one way to go about it. That can be pricey, and the duplication of iSight and speakers is arguably wasted there. But there really aren't any other 5K choices out there, not at 27" or any other size, they seem to have all disappeared in favor of 4K or non-standard ultrawides. There's lots of good 4K panels at 27", but I'm not sure what it will be like in Mac OS filtering between an 218ppi screen on one side (Apple 5K) and a 164ppi screen on the other side (4K 27"). I use two 2560x1440 panels, so nothing changes tracking across the screens. When I'm plugged into a work laptop, I still have roughly the same ppi (1366x768 14" screen), but I tend to keep all my work on the 27" screen and just have the laptop open for teams chat and video. It gets kinda annoying when I drag something over and I hit the edge of the larger screen and have to mouse over to the shared edge or a portion of the window disappears or gets redrawn as I track into the smaller display. It's be nice if Apple could scale the smaller resolution display to present all the UI elements the same size (but more pixelated) rather than smoothing the higher res display. Basically if the UI could recognize that the physical dimensions of the screen are the same and let the mouse and windows move across 100% of the shared edge (but simply be more pixelated on the 5K screen and sharper on the 5K side, tricky when dealing with resized image and/or video windows perhaps??? Anyway, I don't know, having not tested mismatched displays in ages.

And speaking of 4k 27"... In a perfect world I'd go even bigger, but there's quite a bit of price difference between 27 and 32" prices, and after a careful look there might be some good budget choices at 27" 4K. I think HP is worth looking at here. They have a nicely priced 4K, 10-bit (8bit+FRC likely), matte, 600 nit, DCI-P3, 27" HDR600 rated display with pretty good reviews: HP Z27xs G3 goes for $674USD. HP's online presence is horribly disorganized, so getting good info from them isn't straightforward, but the reasonable sources I found indicate it's quite decent even in factory calibration. It's even attractive enough for a display...

[chucker]

Originally Posted by psmith2.0 That's 48 more than my phone. Then again, my phone wasn't $1,599...maybe it should have 64GB, just because.

Get a new SE already.

Originally Posted by kscherer Oh, I'm sure it was just a spare parts bucket-dig, but one never knows what those weirdos have planned for the thing.

Things get interesting if a teardown reveals Wi-Fi after all.

[Frank777]

I'm presuming that the display is using that 64GB RAM as some sort of graphics memory buffer?

Why else would you need that much separate RAM in a display? (My understanding is that Smart TVs use 2-8 GB RAM)

[chucker]

It’s flash, not RAM. And it’s largely unused, at least for now (and probably always).

[Kraetos]

At this point they should have just made it the 27" iMac with the same range of specs that the 24" iMac has and leaned into Target Display Mode if you want to pair it with a Mac Studio or MacBook Pro. What an overengineered piece of hardware.

[Matsu]

I think they killed target display mode with 5K iMacs because of an issue with the controller, but perhaps it can come back in a Thunderbolt 4 monitor?

I do think part of market placement strategy here might be to present a 27" iMac that is a comparative steal by providing a full computer for not much more than a 27" display: If you could have this display for $1599, or a 27" iMac starting at $1999 ??? There's a case to make for each. An AIO version isn't necessarily a deal, but to the person who asks themselves the question it might nudge them towards the online checkout on an iMac. The Studio buyer already knows what they want...

[Frank777]

It's upgradable! (Sort of.)

[Kraetos]

Right, exactly. The Studio Display is a base level 9th-gen iPad with a 5K 27" screen. It is literally that, it just never sends the iOS springboard to the display so you can't use it like that. Apple silicon dev kits were running on A12Zs, so the Studio Display is a Mac, hardware wise. With an A13, the computer in the Studio Display can probably run macOS better than the average Intel Mac still being used.

The 9th-gen iPad is $329 and the Mac mini is $699. It's a $370 difference, although not a perfect one, the iPad has a screen and a battery, the mini has a much bigger power supply and array of ports, so lets just call it a wash. So if you just throw that $370 on top of the Studio Display you're at $1,969, a totally reasonable starting point for a 27" M1 iMac whether you round down to $1,899 (use the 7-core GPU M1 and you're there) or up to $1,999. Bring back Target Display mode and make that the external display for the Mac Studio.

Of course had they done that you would have had a bunch of people complaining that Apple's long awaited standalone external display has $700 worth of computer attached to it that they don't need, in which case they could have just sold it without the Mac for $1300, i.e. directly replacing the Ultrafine 5K. Same chassis, same panel, $600 or $700 difference between the two.

But this whole "the onboard A13 does spatial audio and center stage," man, what a bunch of nonsense. It's crazy to me that anyone inside Apple thought this was something people would get excited about rather than something people would just see as a wasted $300. The M1-whatever in the Mac it's connected to should just handle that and save everyone the price of a 9th-gen iPad, and just leave those features disabled when connected to an Intel Mac. Who cares about Intel Macs at this point anyways? Who the hell is rushing to connect a brand new, underwhelming $1600 display to their Intel Mac?

Bonus points, do the same thing with the 24" iMac. That starts at $1299, so just take the M1 out and you have a nice $699 or $799 4.5K display.

iMac-sans-Mac. That's all Apple had to do here. Splitting the price difference by bolting on an iPad that you can't even use... just.. why?

[Matsu]

I had a photography professor who shot a lot of weddings when it was still profitable to do so. One day he explained his pricing structure too me. He always tried to present 3 tiers: entry, middle, and high end. His goal was mostly to sell the middle tier by keeping the entry package a little thin and the luxury package a bit too aspirational. Between the two was something most people could convince themselves they needed, and felt like comparative value next to how little you got with the basic and how much the luxury package cost. I think a lot of stuff gets sold this way, with some sort of halo product and entry product co-ordinated to amplify the impression of value when the consumer spends more than they wanted to, but less than they dreamed of…

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Matsu I had a photography professor who shot a lot of weddings when it was still profitable to do so. One day he explained his pricing structure too me. He always tried to present 3 tiers: entry, middle, and high end. His goal was mostly to sell the middle tier by keeping the entry package a little thin and the luxury package a bit too aspirational. Between the two was something most people could convince themselves they needed, and felt like comparative value next to how little you got with the basic and how much the luxury package cost. I think a lot of stuff gets sold this way, with some sort of halo product and entry product co-ordinated to amplify the impression of value when the consumer spends more than they wanted to, but less than they dreamed of…

Yep. This is why Apple often does “you can have it with 64 GB storage, or 256… but nothing in between”.

[Kraetos]

Yeah, it's a pretty common pricing tactic. Internally (and often externally) Apple calls it "good, better, best."

This lineup has no "better." The 24" iMac is "good," but none of the BTO options really rise to "better." On the other hand, Studio Display + Mac Studio with M1 Max starts at $3,600, which is realistically already into "best" territory.

A monitor with price options spanning $1,600 to $2,300 is just an insanely hard sell for anyone who isn't already deep into the Apple ecosystem and has money to burn. It's a disappointing product coming in the wake of a litany of Macs which are drawing people in from other platforms on performance alone.

[Matsu]

At the risk of sounding like a skipping turntable, I really think this display will be part of a line-up designed to nudge a certain buyer towards a future 27" iMac. Which is not to say that they priced the Studio Display not to sell well. I think it will meet or exceed their sales expectations for this peripheral, and will grace a lot of style conscious "studio" spaces and desks for those creative types that want an Apple embossed aluminium objet d'arte facing their clients or even just to please their own aesthetic sensibility. And, they will be getting a very good display too.

In its own unique way it even even fits the good-better-best tactic. They'll sell you a 24" LG Ultrafine 4K for 700 USD. It's not bad really, but it doesn't have that "Designed by Apple in California" vibe. They'll sell you an 32" XDR display, which turns the vibes up to eleven, but starts at $5,000 USD, and probably doesn't leave the checkout without another $1000 of options in the cart. Or, for 1/3rd the price, you can get 83% of that screen (by pixels) and Apple's statement industrial design.

It might not fit my specific needs, but I think they know what they're doing here.

[chucker]

(A 24-inch 4K isn't quite Retina, though. The Ultrafine was originally 21.5 inches because of this. But I guess that sold far too poorly.)

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Matsu In its own unique way it even even fits the good-better-best tactic. They'll sell you a 24" LG Ultrafine 4K for 700 USD. It's not bad really, but it doesn't have that "Designed by Apple in California" vibe. They'll sell you an 32" XDR display, which turns the vibes up to eleven, but starts at $5,000 USD, and probably doesn't leave the checkout without another $1000 of options in the cart. Or, for 1/3rd the price, you can get 83% of that screen (by pixels) and Apple's statement industrial design. It might not fit my specific needs, but I think they know what they're doing here.

It was a lot more potent when it was “made in California”. of course it was often very different from everything else, at least during the early 2000s. Now meh, the design of Apple stuff it just an aluminum shell, like many other high end products. All you end up with now is a rebranded LG or Samsung panel with $300-500 of extra margin built in. No appeal at all. Maybe my eyes aren’t good enough to tell anymore, but the difference between 4K and 5k is kind of lacklustre at best. I’m still very satisfied with my two 1440p monitors, even for working on 45MP files. These companies will have a hard time selling me on 8k, given that I find 2k good enough.