Monitoring Apple’s Display Efforts

Many ardent Apple fans like myself have been begging for a new display for years. And no, the $5,000 XDR with the $1,000 stand doesn’t count. Most of us who don’t use iMacs have been using plastic Dell, LG, Samsung, Asus, etc displays for most of the past decade. And they’ve been pretty ugly and the experience has been pretty average at best. A few highfalutin people probably bought the 32” XDR out of desperation for an Apple display. But most had no interest in the price tag and held out hope that a more affordable option would be in the pipeline.

And it was. Introduced this week at the latest Apple event, we finally have a new…mostly affordable…Apple Studio Display. The colors, brightness, resolution, speakers, webcam, and enclosure design appear to be the absolute top of the line. This thing looks amazing!

I currently use a 38” LG Ultrawide HDR monitor with a 3840 x 1600 resolution. I wish the resolution was a bit higher; but it’s still pretty nice when I’m sitting an appropriate distance from the screen. It’s a crappy plastic build with relatively narrow bezels and an ugly white LG logo on the bottom chin. It has a Displayport and HDMI input along with some USB stuff. No webcam or speakers.

And despite all that, the new Studio Display doesn’t tempt me to dump my current ugly plastic monitor in the slightest. Here’s why.

The Size.

The 27” display is just too small for 2022. I will concede it is probably still the most popular size with normal people who go to Best Buy with a budget of $250 to buy a monitor to use for their post-COVID home office; but this display is not meant for “normal people”. It’s not meant for the high-end market of the 32” XDR either; but this display is not priced or specc’d for the average person just looking for something bigger than their laptop screen. Those people will purchase colorful iMacs or one of the Best Buy brands above because it’s easier and more cost-effective.

No, this monitor is meant for professionals who know a thing or two about tech and can appreciate all the features that make the Apple Display better than the 27” LG offering that Apple has sold on its website for years now. I think there are two sets of people in this target market: those who know they want a larger display. And those who don’t realize they would rather have something larger because they haven’t used one yet. I was in that latter camp until I finally took a chance on something bigger. I will never go back. Historically, one of the great things about Apple has been their ability to show customers what they need before they even know they want it. Here, they seem content to stick with the status quo.

I have no issue with a 27” option because obviously some people have no more space allowance than that; but I do think additional, larger options with different aspect ratios such as ultrawide is something that many in my position whould rather have instead. And maybe those sizes are in the pipeline; but I have my doubts. Apple seemed to signal that the $5,000 32” XDR is the display for people like me who need more screen. Sure, you could argue that the pixels in one of these 27” displays outnumbers my current display and would therefore show more information; but my eyes are getting older and my tolerance for squinting is much lower than it used to be. Two of these new Studio Displays would certainly be cheaper than a single XDR and would get me back closer to what I currently have with my LG ultrawide. But that still gets pretty expensive relative to my current setup and takes up more space than a single monitor with 1 VESA arm and the cable’s / involved power supply.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea of an ultrawide formfactor is internally thought of like the Plus-size iPhones were back when the company was insistent that 4” was plenty big enough—absolutely unacceptable to them and anybody who wants one is probably a tasteless pleb. But it really would be nice if Apple’s display offerings went the route of the iPhone and iPad lines where there’s something for everybody. It may be too niche of a market for that, however. I’ll assume most people will still be content with the Best Buy options.

The size wasn’t the only dealbreaker however. There was also…

The Inputs.

Apple’s Studio Display has 3 USB-C ports and 1 Thunderbolt port. That’s it. If you are only buying the display to use with a Mac or an iPad, you are good to go. The Thunberbolt port makes for a simple connection to charge a computer while also taking advantage of all the above features (sound, webcam, etc) with a single connection. No dock required. It’s great.

But if you are somebody who would like to use this display for something other than a Mac connection, you’re screwed. Again, I’d venture to say that many if not most people interested in this display only want to use it with their Mac. But if you are somebody who would like to connect a PC that doesn’t have Thunderbolt (like myself with my AMD Threadripper box) or a gaming console (like my Switch), then you will need an additional display. It should also be mentioned that while Windows laptops that do have Thunderbolt should technically work, it’s anything but a seamless experience as far as I’ve been told on Reddit.

Conclusion.

Look, I realize that Apple wants everybody to stay within their ecosystem. They want to assume that nobody else would even have the gall to step outside their perfectly tended walled garden to use an icky Windows machine or to play games that aren’t on Apple Arcade. In many cases, this is the proper decision. For example, Airpods work best with Apple’s hardware and that experience would be neutered quite a bit if they were just generic bluetooth headphones with an easy-to-find “pair” button. On the flipside, the Homepod was an example where leaning too hard on Apple’s Airplay and Siri as the only way to use the thing did not make the product better. In fact, it made it a product I ultimately got rid of because I couldn’t use it with my turntable or desktop (without janky third-party software at least).

Those are consumer products and ultimately it’s “whatever” because not every product has to be for everybody. The problem is that the Studio Display is intended for professionals. It’s intended to drive a studio.

Spoiler alert: some large portion of us who aren’t in the promotional videos actually have to use hardware and software that aren’t supported by Apple for one reason or another. Whether it’s software that is only on Windows like Autodesk Revit or hardware that Apple detests such as Nvidia RTX graphics cards… sometimes we as professionals don’t have a choice what we can use. I would love nothing more than to use my Macbook Pro + Studio Display for every single thing I do to create architecture; but I can’t.

Apple isn’t obligated to supply endless options or cater to every niche use case. In an M1 generation that has seen HDMI return to the Macbook Pro because it’s something that professionals want and need… it just feels like a giant miss to ignore that “more flexibility” ethos on the piece of hardware Apple fans have been wanting for a decade to finally finish off their beautiful “Designed in California” workspace.

It looks like LG will continue to have that honor on the muchcattle farm. For now at least.