Apple is certainly taking their time on this. It was a strategic error to discontinue a brandedApple monitor+dock. They should have shipped an Apple Thunderbolt 5K display in 2018. They really should have done it in 2016, but I digress.
I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago.
Would love to hear how their product marketing and finance folks made all these decisions. Better be a book. It would be a horror book, but those are fun to read too. Maybe it was a bargaining chip with LG for monitor development?
Define “strategic error”? While we would certainly enjoy branded monitors, I don’t think there are as many customers as you think there are. The Mini was originally marketed as “BYOM” for switchers before becoming a small server of sorts and then midrange machine…Certainly not a mass market device like the iMac. MBs are popular mass market devices, but most ”normals” do not get docks and external monitors — and if they do they’re gonna get a $250 monitor, not a $1000 monitor. Pros and enthusiasts, sure, but I doubt that market is as large as you’re speculating. So I’m struggling to see how this could possibly be a strategic error for Apple’s efforts, which is on its way to be the first $3 Trillion company. ...
Yeah, I don’t think they lost billions in monitor sales. Premium monitors just isn’t that big of a market.
Imo, the strategic error was not shipping a Thunderbolt 3 Display, with TB3, USBC, USBA, ethernet, maybe SDcard, in late 2016 when the 4th gen MBP models were shipped. 4th gen models are MBP models with 2 or 4 TB3 ports all the way to 2020. blastdoor makes the usual comment about tactics versus strategy, and I'd agree with him that this was more a tactical error while strategic errors would be thinking that they were in the post-PC era and PCs weren't important anymore.
Exacerbating the situation: the MB12 shipped with USBC from 2015 until it was discontinued 2019, the MBA had TB2 until the rMBA model in late 2018, the Mac mini had TB2 until late 2018, and the Mac Pro had TB2 until it was discontinued. The iMacs didn't get TB3 until mid-2017. A rather large fraction of sales were the MBA with TB2 all the way until late 2018. Even furthering the problems were that Intel iGPUs could barely drive 5K resolutions at the time, so you can argue that only half of Apple's Macs could drive 5K monitors. Maybe this was the real reason for not having a Thunderbolt display successor? But this would be a reason of their own making, not something they couldn't change. Apple would have had to make the decision not to develop a TB3 monitor in 2014 in order for them to say that 4th gen MBP buyers should get the LG UF27 in 2016.
The reason I call it an error is that a lot of customers would have bought a TB3 5K monitor for their 4th gen MBP, a lot of their high paying customers. These are the customers who use external monitors all the time, and sometimes more than two. It's a prime front facing part of computing, and Apple should own that too for their products. TB3 plug-n-play with a laptop and an external monitor with dock, camera, speakers and mic is a great user experience. I do it with my MBP15 and LG UF27. iMac 5K users could buy one and have a monitor of the same DPI and size, and it comes with more ports. If Apple wanted to be ambitious, they could have put in a couple of NVMe slots for additional SSD storage.
You've described what you wanted and that which Apple didn't do, yes. But you've not established that this was an error. Apple is selling more Macs than ever, generating massive revenue, and on its way to being the most valuable it's ever been. It is impossible to call this an error-state for the company simply because they didn't sell the techie dream monitor enthusiasts want. Specialist markets (~$1000 monitors are very niche) just isn't the definition of commercial success or error. They say no to markets all the time, even stuff we like -- Apple-branded printers, scanners, routers, etc... Do I wish they didn't? Sure, of course. Is it an error that they did? Unlikely. Only they have the sales data, but very unlikely.
Since they have returned to selling a branded monitor, and are rumored to sell a more affordable one soon, is that not an indication of an error or a mistake?
You don't agree that they would have sold a lot of TB3 monitors in the 2016 to whenever this more affordable monitor comes out, if it comes out. Obviously, I think they left a lot of revenue off the table, in the billions if they had enough Mac buyers get it. Then, during the pandemic sales bump, it would have been another nice bump in revenue above what they have right now, and I think it could have been in the high hundreds of million to low billions per year.
In saying "strategic", I think what I was thinking was Apple was mistaking what is a computer. A lot of laptops are used on a desk 95% of the time. The 5% of time when mobile is critically important, so it has to have great mobile characteristics and features, but 95% of time, it is stationary on a desk. Having an external monitor on that desk is a very attractive. Productivity scales with screen size. Every laptop owner should have one. This trend is only increasing, becoming more common. With the pandemic, Apple has a chance to sell two monitors to a Mac buyer, one for the desk at home and one for the desk at work. As such, as a vender that sells computing systems, Apple definitely should have a lineup of monitors to complement their computing machines.
Apple is certainly taking their time on this. It was a strategic error to discontinue a branded Apple monitor+dock. They should have shipped an Apple Thunderbolt 5K display in 2018. They really should have done it in 2016, but I digress.
I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago.
Would love to hear how their product marketing and finance folks made all these decisions. Better be a book. It would be a horror book, but those are fun to read too. Maybe it was a bargaining chip with LG for monitor development?
I’d say tactical marketing error rather than strategic error, but otherwise I agree.
An apple branded monitor is a marketing tool. Marketing-wise it’s nuts to have Mac users staring at a Dell logo all day. If they’re going to do that, then might as well put “intel inside” stickers on Macs too.
Apple left billions of revenue off the table by discontinuing monitors.
Apple sells about 20+ million Macs per year that could use an external monitor. With a take-up rate of 5% for a $1000 Apple monitor, 1m units per year, that's $1b per year in monitor sales alone. That's huge! Wasn't thinking about branding purposes at all.
They must not have been selling well for Apple to discontinue them, there's no way they'd end a product line that was making money. I think part of the problem is that they make those kind of products in a way that people don't need to keep buying new ones very often, like with their routers. People used the Cinema displays for over 10 years and so sales dry up and Apple assumes nobody wants them but people already had one that didn't need replaced yet. Eventually that time comes around but it could easily be over 10 years, it's around 8 years for TVs.
I also expect that most average buyers are happy with Dell/HP displays that are around $200-300. $1000 is a lot of money for most people to spend on a display. At least the XDR displays offer something worth paying that much extra for with good black levels, HDR, 5k+ resolution, 120Hz, Thunderbolt ports.
Hopefully they'll sell standalone XDR displays at a more affordable price point but at the very least allow the iMacs to have display input so that if someone owns an iMac and MBP, it's possible to plug the MBP into it and use its display and be able to repurpose old iMacs as displays, which helps maintain their resale value.
I think Schiller, a lot of product guys under him, and Jobs before them, became true believers in the "post-PC" era after seeing 2 years of crazy iPad sales in the 2011 and 2012 time and drove Apple's decisions accordingly for Macs and iPads for the next 5 years or so. A lot of them, or perhaps even most of them, were poor decisions. Not developing a successor to the Thunderbolt Display was one of those decisions, and they left it all to LG. It's as if they thought an external monitor was not a core part of their computing offerings anymore.
They only started the course correction in early 2017. The Pro Display XDR came out last year. This rumored cheaper Apple display will hopefully come out next year, which notionally will be a true blue successor to the Thunderbolt Display, with TB4, miniLED, 5K resolution, and some accoutrement of other ports. This means they have come full circle after about a decade, with a monitor in the $1000 to $2000 range.
Yes, the vast majority of Mac buyers will get a cheaper external monitor. That's way I said "take-up rate of 5%". If only 5% of Mac buyers bought an Apple branded monitor at $1000, that would be a billion dollars per year. Maybe it really would have 1%? Lower? But having external monitors attached to a laptop at a desk at home and in the office is very normal and an increasing market imo. A monitor with a built-in dock would be pretty attractive for a lot of laptop owners. There are people who want 2 monitors, and if they could be daisy chained so only 1 TB cable is needed, great, but only 4K or lower for now. A 4K 40" monitor is something that people use. If the iPad Pro had extended display support, some of them would buy an Apple branded monitor too. It's a big market of monitors, and if they only get a small fraction to buy it, that's billions of dollars.
With the iMac 24 being so monitor like, yes having display input would be nice as it has a very nice monitor in it. However, for Apple's macOS machines, I'd like to see Universal Control on steroids. Hook up a TB cable between two iMacs (or iMac and Mac mini+external monitor, etc), network them up, have a master-slave clustering arrangement (or some form of clustering), and have apps be able distribute processes between them. Like, if you open up a new Safari window, it's running own its own process, you drag it from one iMac to a 2nd iMac, and that Safari process runs on the 2nd iMac. The 2nd iMac's filesystem can be mounted onto the first iMac so that files can be moved in-between easily (or forms of storage fusion).
Apple already does clipboard, link sharing, and app state sharing today. Universal Control is another step up from that. Clustering would be another step up. Ie, you run Handbrake, and it would know to distribute its transcoding processes across multiple Macs.
If they created a DisplayOS that was the "desktop-like" parts of iPadOS (granted these need improving still) basically a Catalyst target machine that had all the Universal Control features (on steroids. Yes Please) then it would be something we'd pay for, Subscription model even. Would be so useful for making use of older machines. Would be a great target machine for light users.
I think Offices would be willing to buy an Apple smart monitor appliance especially if it allowed remote access to hosted machine. For hot desking or loosefit offices it makes a great system for workers just to turn up with a Laptop or iPad/iPhone (supplied or DYOD) just bump up to any screen in the office and get to work.
Environmentally it would be great to keep full-formed products used as long as possible but that might be why it needs a subscription attached the accountant let alone the shareholders aren't going to let Apple spend time on keeping it running without a revenue stream attached.
Still, this would be the last great piece of the 1997 Return of Jobs "Plan". He started those remarks by saying at NeXT he just walk up to a computer and a simple login makes it his to use. The seamlessness of interaction he described is still missing from Apple Systems - Universal Control is only just getting there now.
"DisplayOS" as an ultra-thin client? Just enough logic performance to perform login functionality and to drive the display. The rest of the horsepower is all in the computer in the rack. If Apple sold some rack units/servers, I can see it, but this seems more anathema then them selling a lineup of 24", 27" and 32" external monitors.
The "5K and 6K 120 Hz with an A13/A14 chip inside" rumors is interesting. As far as I understand, TB3/TB4 does not have enough bandwidth for 5K at 120 Hz let alone 6K at 120 Hz. So, their solution is to have enough compression, decompression performance for 120 Hz refresh rates across TB3? Wonder if they would run a cut down iOS for it? Only Apple Silicon machines can drive 120 Hz due to hardware encoders in the SoC?
I was also thinking that this rumor meant the ARM SoC inside would be running as an eGPU, but this seems troublesome. And the rumored SoC basically put it to bed. Anyways, it they have an A13 or A14 in it, and it's using iOS, they are like halfway there.
Apple is certainly taking their time on this. It was a strategic error to discontinue a branded Apple monitor+dock. They should have shipped an Apple Thunderbolt 5K display in 2018. They really should have done it in 2016, but I digress.
I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago.
Would love to hear how their product marketing and finance folks made all these decisions. Better be a book. It would be a horror book, but those are fun to read too. Maybe it was a bargaining chip with LG for monitor development?
I’d say tactical marketing error rather than strategic error, but otherwise I agree.
An apple branded monitor is a marketing tool. Marketing-wise it’s nuts to have Mac users staring at a Dell logo all day. If they’re going to do that, then might as well put “intel inside” stickers on Macs too.
Apple left billions of revenue off the table by discontinuing monitors.
Apple sells about 20+ million Macs per year that could use an external monitor. With a take-up rate of 5% for a $1000 Apple monitor, 1m units per year, that's $1b per year in monitor sales alone. That's huge! Wasn't thinking about branding purposes at all.
They must not have been selling well for Apple to discontinue them, there's no way they'd end a product line that was making money. I think part of the problem is that they make those kind of products in a way that people don't need to keep buying new ones very often, like with their routers. People used the Cinema displays for over 10 years and so sales dry up and Apple assumes nobody wants them but people already had one that didn't need replaced yet. Eventually that time comes around but it could easily be over 10 years, it's around 8 years for TVs.
I also expect that most average buyers are happy with Dell/HP displays that are around $200-300. $1000 is a lot of money for most people to spend on a display. At least the XDR displays offer something worth paying that much extra for with good black levels, HDR, 5k+ resolution, 120Hz, Thunderbolt ports.
Hopefully they'll sell standalone XDR displays at a more affordable price point but at the very least allow the iMacs to have display input so that if someone owns an iMac and MBP, it's possible to plug the MBP into it and use its display and be able to repurpose old iMacs as displays, which helps maintain their resale value.
I think Schiller, a lot of product guys under him, and Jobs before them, became true believers in the "post-PC" era after seeing 2 years of crazy iPad sales in the 2011 and 2012 time and drove Apple's decisions accordingly for Macs and iPads for the next 5 years or so. A lot of them, or perhaps even most of them, were poor decisions. Not developing a successor to the Thunderbolt Display was one of those decisions, and they left it all to LG. It's as if they thought an external monitor was not a core part of their computing offerings anymore.
They only started the course correction in early 2017. The Pro Display XDR came out last year. This rumored cheaper Apple display will hopefully come out next year, which notionally will be a true blue successor to the Thunderbolt Display, with TB4, miniLED, 5K resolution, and some accoutrement of other ports. This means they have come full circle after about a decade, with a monitor in the $1000 to $2000 range.
Yes, the vast majority of Mac buyers will get a cheaper external monitor. That's way I said "take-up rate of 5%". If only 5% of Mac buyers bought an Apple branded monitor at $1000, that would be a billion dollars per year. Maybe it really would have 1%? Lower? But having external monitors attached to a laptop at a desk at home and in the office is very normal and an increasing market imo. A monitor with a built-in dock would be pretty attractive for a lot of laptop owners. There are people who want 2 monitors, and if they could be daisy chained so only 1 TB cable is needed, great, but only 4K or lower for now. A 4K 40" monitor is something that people use. If the iPad Pro had extended display support, some of them would buy an Apple branded monitor too. It's a big market of monitors, and if they only get a small fraction to buy it, that's billions of dollars.
With the iMac 24 being so monitor like, yes having display input would be nice as it has a very nice monitor in it. However, for Apple's macOS machines, I'd like to see Universal Control on steroids. Hook up a TB cable between two iMacs (or iMac and Mac mini+external monitor, etc), network them up, have a master-slave clustering arrangement (or some form of clustering), and have apps be able distribute processes between them. Like, if you open up a new Safari window, it's running own its own process, you drag it from one iMac to a 2nd iMac, and that Safari process runs on the 2nd iMac. The 2nd iMac's filesystem can be mounted onto the first iMac so that files can be moved in-between easily (or forms of storage fusion).
Apple already does clipboard, link sharing, and app state sharing today. Universal Control is another step up from that. Clustering would be another step up. Ie, you run Handbrake, and it would know to distribute its transcoding processes across multiple Macs.
If they created a DisplayOS that was the "desktop-like" parts of iPadOS (granted these need improving still) basically a Catalyst target machine that had all the Universal Control features (on steroids. Yes Please) then it would be something we'd pay for, Subscription model even. Would be so useful for making use of older machines. Would be a great target machine for light users.
I think Offices would be willing to buy an Apple smart monitor appliance especially if it allowed remote access to hosted machine. For hot desking or loosefit offices it makes a great system for workers just to turn up with a Laptop or iPad/iPhone (supplied or DYOD) just bump up to any screen in the office and get to work.
Environmentally it would be great to keep full-formed products used as long as possible but that might be why it needs a subscription attached the accountant let alone the shareholders aren't going to let Apple spend time on keeping it running without a revenue stream attached.
Still, this would be the last great piece of the 1997 Return of Jobs "Plan". He started those remarks by saying at NeXT he just walk up to a computer and a simple login makes it his to use. The seamlessness of interaction he described is still missing from Apple Systems - Universal Control is only just getting there now.
"DisplayOS" as an ultra-thin client? Just enough logic performance to perform login functionality and to drive the display. The rest of the horsepower is all in the computer in the rack. If Apple sold some rack units/servers, I can see it, but this seems more anathema then them selling a lineup of 24", 27" and 32" external monitors.
The "5K and 6K 120 Hz with an A13/A14 chip inside" rumors is interesting. As far as I understand, TB3/TB4 does not have enough bandwidth for 5K at 120 Hz let alone 6K at 120 Hz. So, their solution is to have enough compression, decompression performance for 120 Hz refresh rates across TB3? Wonder if they would run a cut down iOS for it? Only Apple Silicon machines can drive 120 Hz due to hardware encoders in the SoC?
I was also thinking that this rumor meant the ARM SoC inside would be running as an eGPU, but this seems troublesome. And the rumored SoC basically put it to bed. Anyways, it they have an A13 or A14 in it, and it's using iOS, they are like halfway there.
You do realize those chips are more powerful than many Intel quad-cores right, that'd be way overkill and put Skylake even more in shame 😂
… I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago. …
It has been shipping, since October 2016. Straight from the manufacturer. Phil Schiller did a presentation about it at the time.
LG has made every Apple display — the Thunderbolt Display, the Cinema Display, whatever. The Pro Display XDR.
The business decision to let LG sell it directly may or may not have been a “strategic mistake,” but your back-of-the-napkin math for an Apple-branded edition ignores the question of Apple’s margins on a display LG itself still sells at $1299 today, five years later. It also ignores any exclusivity deals LG may have made with Apple — the LG UltraFine displays are still the only ones Apple sells. I don’t think that’s because they are best friends forever.
As for this particular leak — details about the existence of three standalone displays in development, all based on displays used in existing or coming-soon Apple products, there’s nothing here to suggest that the arrangement with LG that has been in place for the past five years is in jeopardy. Quite the opposite — the existence of the 32-inch demo unit suggests Apple may be ready to hand the Pro Display XDR over to LG as well?
EDIT -- I wrote all of the above (and more) before seeing that LG has just announced a 27-inch UltraFine OLED Pro display:
Like the earlier 32-inch, this is a 4K display — so not quite the same thing as the Apple-bound 5K and 6K mini LED units. But I'll admit LG's marketing here, as "UltraFine" and "Pro" for 4K displays that are positioned to compete with Apple's higher-resolution 27-inch and 32-inch XDR units, means lower-cost options for people who don't need the higher resolutions. So it's not unreasonable to guess the 2016 deal with LG for UltraFine exclusivity ended in early 2021, and this leak is a lineup of Apple-branded displays, including a lower-cost 24-inch 4.5K Retina display straight out of the current iMac and aimed at MacBook Air/Pro owners.
Apple is certainly taking their time on this. It was a strategic error to discontinue a branded Apple monitor+dock. They should have shipped an Apple Thunderbolt 5K display in 2018. They really should have done it in 2016, but I digress.
I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago.
Would love to hear how their product marketing and finance folks made all these decisions. Better be a book. It would be a horror book, but those are fun to read too. Maybe it was a bargaining chip with LG for monitor development?
I’d say tactical marketing error rather than strategic error, but otherwise I agree.
An apple branded monitor is a marketing tool. Marketing-wise it’s nuts to have Mac users staring at a Dell logo all day. If they’re going to do that, then might as well put “intel inside” stickers on Macs too.
Apple left billions of revenue off the table by discontinuing monitors.
Apple sells about 20+ million Macs per year that could use an external monitor. With a take-up rate of 5% for a $1000 Apple monitor, 1m units per year, that's $1b per year in monitor sales alone. That's huge! Wasn't thinking about branding purposes at all.
They must not have been selling well for Apple to discontinue them, there's no way they'd end a product line that was making money. I think part of the problem is that they make those kind of products in a way that people don't need to keep buying new ones very often, like with their routers. People used the Cinema displays for over 10 years and so sales dry up and Apple assumes nobody wants them but people already had one that didn't need replaced yet. Eventually that time comes around but it could easily be over 10 years, it's around 8 years for TVs.
I also expect that most average buyers are happy with Dell/HP displays that are around $200-300. $1000 is a lot of money for most people to spend on a display. At least the XDR displays offer something worth paying that much extra for with good black levels, HDR, 5k+ resolution, 120Hz, Thunderbolt ports.
Hopefully they'll sell standalone XDR displays at a more affordable price point but at the very least allow the iMacs to have display input so that if someone owns an iMac and MBP, it's possible to plug the MBP into it and use its display and be able to repurpose old iMacs as displays, which helps maintain their resale value.
I can't imagine they were selling any worse at any point than the hyper-niche XDR. Very few people need a studio reference monitor, and even fewer than that will pay $6000 for a display. Of course the quality does mean people don't buy new displays, but I think it's more that Apple as usual left prices at their already inflated introductory price for several years, when the competition was putting out displays with better panels for half Apple's price. They were likely discontinued because the panel they were using was being discontinued, and since Apple was at peak Mac neglect at that point they didn't want to bother assigning a few people to put a new panel in.
Apple is certainly taking their time on this. It was a strategic error to discontinue a branded Apple monitor+dock. They should have shipped an Apple Thunderbolt 5K display in 2018. They really should have done it in 2016, but I digress.
I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago.
Would love to hear how their product marketing and finance folks made all these decisions. Better be a book. It would be a horror book, but those are fun to read too. Maybe it was a bargaining chip with LG for monitor development?
I’d say tactical marketing error rather than strategic error, but otherwise I agree.
An apple branded monitor is a marketing tool. Marketing-wise it’s nuts to have Mac users staring at a Dell logo all day. If they’re going to do that, then might as well put “intel inside” stickers on Macs too.
Apple left billions of revenue off the table by discontinuing monitors.
Apple sells about 20+ million Macs per year that could use an external monitor. With a take-up rate of 5% for a $1000 Apple monitor, 1m units per year, that's $1b per year in monitor sales alone. That's huge! Wasn't thinking about branding purposes at all.
They must not have been selling well for Apple to discontinue them, there's no way they'd end a product line that was making money. I think part of the problem is that they make those kind of products in a way that people don't need to keep buying new ones very often, like with their routers. People used the Cinema displays for over 10 years and so sales dry up and Apple assumes nobody wants them but people already had one that didn't need replaced yet. Eventually that time comes around but it could easily be over 10 years, it's around 8 years for TVs.
I also expect that most average buyers are happy with Dell/HP displays that are around $200-300. $1000 is a lot of money for most people to spend on a display. At least the XDR displays offer something worth paying that much extra for with good black levels, HDR, 5k+ resolution, 120Hz, Thunderbolt ports.
Hopefully they'll sell standalone XDR displays at a more affordable price point but at the very least allow the iMacs to have display input so that if someone owns an iMac and MBP, it's possible to plug the MBP into it and use its display and be able to repurpose old iMacs as displays, which helps maintain their resale value.
I can't imagine they were selling any worse at any point than the hyper-niche XDR.
I suspect the XDR display was more about launching a new product technology. High-end TV manufacturers do the same where they launch a new technology like OLED or Quantum Dot at a really high price point and over a few years it filters down to mainstream products. Probably so they can assess longevity/defect rate in a low unit volume before hitting a mass market. The LED/XDR tech is now in iPads, MBPs and soon iMacs.
I could easily see Apple discontinuing the Pro XDR display and Mac Pro line for an iMac Pro line. While some might prefer the separate form factor, the reality is that this iMac Pro XDR would be equivalent to a $10k Mac Pro + $6k display ($16k) and they can sell it for $4-5k (including a stand).
The sooner Apple goes back to monitors and airport extremes, the better.
It really was horrible to go through the QC nightmares of the ultrafine displays and the various routers floating around. Apple had the best router going. Would love to see them make a new one available.
Winner winner! I hope my Airport Extreme lives long enough for Apple to pull it’s head out of it’s @ss and sell a replacement!
The sooner Apple goes back to monitors and airport extremes, the better.
It really was horrible to go through the QC nightmares of the ultrafine displays and the various routers floating around. Apple had the best router going. Would love to see them make a new one available.
Totally agree! I wish Apple put more focus on monitors and airports instead of wasting time on Airtag.
Just for fun, another way to interpret this is that a 32-inch iMac Pro Max is in the works?
iMac (24") iMac Pro (27" XDR) iMac Pro Max (32" XDR)
The price on a prospective iMac 32 with miniLED (~40k LEDs, 10k FALD zones) would be interesting. 🤪
The display will be superior to the current Pro Display XDR being sold for $5k. So, they'd have to cut the price of the successor Pro Display XDR with this display to $3k in order to ship an iMac 32 with the same display for $6k? Or, the iMac Pro Max will start at $8k? They will simply sell a Pro Display XDR 32" for $5k and an iMac 32 for $5k, and take the margin on the external display?
What happened to the monitor factory Apple was building with TSMC? Is that still in the process? I can’t help but think Apple wants to remove the profit suck of buying high-quality monitors from somebody else.
Apple is certainly taking their time on this. It was a strategic error to discontinue a branded Apple monitor+dock. They should have shipped an Apple Thunderbolt 5K display in 2018. They really should have done it in 2016, but I digress.
I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago.
Would love to hear how their product marketing and finance folks made all these decisions. Better be a book. It would be a horror book, but those are fun to read too. Maybe it was a bargaining chip with LG for monitor development?
I’d say tactical marketing error rather than strategic error, but otherwise I agree.
An apple branded monitor is a marketing tool. Marketing-wise it’s nuts to have Mac users staring at a Dell logo all day. If they’re going to do that, then might as well put “intel inside” stickers on Macs too.
Apple left billions of revenue off the table by discontinuing monitors.
Apple sells about 20+ million Macs per year that could use an external monitor. With a take-up rate of 5% for a $1000 Apple monitor, 1m units per year, that's $1b per year in monitor sales alone. That's huge! Wasn't thinking about branding purposes at all.
They must not have been selling well for Apple to discontinue them, there's no way they'd end a product line that was making money. I think part of the problem is that they make those kind of products in a way that people don't need to keep buying new ones very often, like with their routers. People used the Cinema displays for over 10 years and so sales dry up and Apple assumes nobody wants them but people already had one that didn't need replaced yet. Eventually that time comes around but it could easily be over 10 years, it's around 8 years for TVs.
I also expect that most average buyers are happy with Dell/HP displays that are around $200-300. $1000 is a lot of money for most people to spend on a display. At least the XDR displays offer something worth paying that much extra for with good black levels, HDR, 5k+ resolution, 120Hz, Thunderbolt ports.
Hopefully they'll sell standalone XDR displays at a more affordable price point but at the very least allow the iMacs to have display input so that if someone owns an iMac and MBP, it's possible to plug the MBP into it and use its display and be able to repurpose old iMacs as displays, which helps maintain their resale value.
I think Schiller, a lot of product guys under him, and Jobs before them, became true believers in the "post-PC" era after seeing 2 years of crazy iPad sales in the 2011 and 2012 time and drove Apple's decisions accordingly for Macs and iPads for the next 5 years or so. A lot of them, or perhaps even most of them, were poor decisions. Not developing a successor to the Thunderbolt Display was one of those decisions, and they left it all to LG. It's as if they thought an external monitor was not a core part of their computing offerings anymore.
They only started the course correction in early 2017. The Pro Display XDR came out last year. This rumored cheaper Apple display will hopefully come out next year, which notionally will be a true blue successor to the Thunderbolt Display, with TB4, miniLED, 5K resolution, and some accoutrement of other ports. This means they have come full circle after about a decade, with a monitor in the $1000 to $2000 range.
Yes, the vast majority of Mac buyers will get a cheaper external monitor. That's way I said "take-up rate of 5%". If only 5% of Mac buyers bought an Apple branded monitor at $1000, that would be a billion dollars per year. Maybe it really would have 1%? Lower? But having external monitors attached to a laptop at a desk at home and in the office is very normal and an increasing market imo. A monitor with a built-in dock would be pretty attractive for a lot of laptop owners. There are people who want 2 monitors, and if they could be daisy chained so only 1 TB cable is needed, great, but only 4K or lower for now. A 4K 40" monitor is something that people use. If the iPad Pro had extended display support, some of them would buy an Apple branded monitor too. It's a big market of monitors, and if they only get a small fraction to buy it, that's billions of dollars.
With the iMac 24 being so monitor like, yes having display input would be nice as it has a very nice monitor in it. However, for Apple's macOS machines, I'd like to see Universal Control on steroids. Hook up a TB cable between two iMacs (or iMac and Mac mini+external monitor, etc), network them up, have a master-slave clustering arrangement (or some form of clustering), and have apps be able distribute processes between them. Like, if you open up a new Safari window, it's running own its own process, you drag it from one iMac to a 2nd iMac, and that Safari process runs on the 2nd iMac. The 2nd iMac's filesystem can be mounted onto the first iMac so that files can be moved in-between easily (or forms of storage fusion).
Apple already does clipboard, link sharing, and app state sharing today. Universal Control is another step up from that. Clustering would be another step up. Ie, you run Handbrake, and it would know to distribute its transcoding processes across multiple Macs.
If they created a DisplayOS that was the "desktop-like" parts of iPadOS (granted these need improving still) basically a Catalyst target machine that had all the Universal Control features (on steroids. Yes Please) then it would be something we'd pay for, Subscription model even. Would be so useful for making use of older machines. Would be a great target machine for light users.
I think Offices would be willing to buy an Apple smart monitor appliance especially if it allowed remote access to hosted machine. For hot desking or loosefit offices it makes a great system for workers just to turn up with a Laptop or iPad/iPhone (supplied or DYOD) just bump up to any screen in the office and get to work.
Environmentally it would be great to keep full-formed products used as long as possible but that might be why it needs a subscription attached the accountant let alone the shareholders aren't going to let Apple spend time on keeping it running without a revenue stream attached.
Still, this would be the last great piece of the 1997 Return of Jobs "Plan". He started those remarks by saying at NeXT he just walk up to a computer and a simple login makes it his to use. The seamlessness of interaction he described is still missing from Apple Systems - Universal Control is only just getting there now.
"DisplayOS" as an ultra-thin client? Just enough logic performance to perform login functionality and to drive the display. The rest of the horsepower is all in the computer in the rack. If Apple sold some rack units/servers, I can see it, but this seems more anathema then them selling a lineup of 24", 27" and 32" external monitors.
The "5K and 6K 120 Hz with an A13/A14 chip inside" rumors is interesting. As far as I understand, TB3/TB4 does not have enough bandwidth for 5K at 120 Hz let alone 6K at 120 Hz. So, their solution is to have enough compression, decompression performance for 120 Hz refresh rates across TB3? Wonder if they would run a cut down iOS for it? Only Apple Silicon machines can drive 120 Hz due to hardware encoders in the SoC?
I was also thinking that this rumor meant the ARM SoC inside would be running as an eGPU, but this seems troublesome. And the rumored SoC basically put it to bed. Anyways, it they have an A13 or A14 in it, and it's using iOS, they are like halfway there.
Given what the iPad is capable of with the Aseries SOC then it certainly would be a lot thicker than an Ultra-Thin Client sure still a thin client as it is basically cloud/infrastructure dependant (if only because the people you'd set them up for you'd still want remote management and backups for). I mean the 4K AppleTV runs an A10X or A12 so that would drive the 24inch screen.
I wouldn't think they be creating a traditional eGPU but the system does have a fairly heavy GPU process in the users face keeping track of every window and interface element and having a big 3D scene running composing all that to screen. All the native Apps are configured to send a rendered content to that process once the Aseries GPU has done that work whatever is left over is there for Apps to use on device, but the set up seems like it would be for a mac to host the app like an eAPU then stream
Apple is certainly taking their time on this. It was a strategic error to discontinue a branded Apple monitor+dock. They should have shipped an Apple Thunderbolt 5K display in 2018. They really should have done it in 2016, but I digress.
I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago.
Would love to hear how their product marketing and finance folks made all these decisions. Better be a book. It would be a horror book, but those are fun to read too. Maybe it was a bargaining chip with LG for monitor development?
I’d say tactical marketing error rather than strategic error, but otherwise I agree.
An apple branded monitor is a marketing tool. Marketing-wise it’s nuts to have Mac users staring at a Dell logo all day. If they’re going to do that, then might as well put “intel inside” stickers on Macs too.
Apple left billions of revenue off the table by discontinuing monitors.
Apple sells about 20+ million Macs per year that could use an external monitor. With a take-up rate of 5% for a $1000 Apple monitor, 1m units per year, that's $1b per year in monitor sales alone. That's huge! Wasn't thinking about branding purposes at all.
They must not have been selling well for Apple to discontinue them, there's no way they'd end a product line that was making money. I think part of the problem is that they make those kind of products in a way that people don't need to keep buying new ones very often, like with their routers. People used the Cinema displays for over 10 years and so sales dry up and Apple assumes nobody wants them but people already had one that didn't need replaced yet. Eventually that time comes around but it could easily be over 10 years, it's around 8 years for TVs.
I also expect that most average buyers are happy with Dell/HP displays that are around $200-300. $1000 is a lot of money for most people to spend on a display. At least the XDR displays offer something worth paying that much extra for with good black levels, HDR, 5k+ resolution, 120Hz, Thunderbolt ports.
Hopefully they'll sell standalone XDR displays at a more affordable price point but at the very least allow the iMacs to have display input so that if someone owns an iMac and MBP, it's possible to plug the MBP into it and use its display and be able to repurpose old iMacs as displays, which helps maintain their resale value.
I think Schiller, a lot of product guys under him, and Jobs before them, became true believers in the "post-PC" era after seeing 2 years of crazy iPad sales in the 2011 and 2012 time and drove Apple's decisions accordingly for Macs and iPads for the next 5 years or so. A lot of them, or perhaps even most of them, were poor decisions. Not developing a successor to the Thunderbolt Display was one of those decisions, and they left it all to LG. It's as if they thought an external monitor was not a core part of their computing offerings anymore.
They only started the course correction in early 2017. The Pro Display XDR came out last year. This rumored cheaper Apple display will hopefully come out next year, which notionally will be a true blue successor to the Thunderbolt Display, with TB4, miniLED, 5K resolution, and some accoutrement of other ports. This means they have come full circle after about a decade, with a monitor in the $1000 to $2000 range.
Yes, the vast majority of Mac buyers will get a cheaper external monitor. That's way I said "take-up rate of 5%". If only 5% of Mac buyers bought an Apple branded monitor at $1000, that would be a billion dollars per year. Maybe it really would have 1%? Lower? But having external monitors attached to a laptop at a desk at home and in the office is very normal and an increasing market imo. A monitor with a built-in dock would be pretty attractive for a lot of laptop owners. There are people who want 2 monitors, and if they could be daisy chained so only 1 TB cable is needed, great, but only 4K or lower for now. A 4K 40" monitor is something that people use. If the iPad Pro had extended display support, some of them would buy an Apple branded monitor too. It's a big market of monitors, and if they only get a small fraction to buy it, that's billions of dollars.
With the iMac 24 being so monitor like, yes having display input would be nice as it has a very nice monitor in it. However, for Apple's macOS machines, I'd like to see Universal Control on steroids. Hook up a TB cable between two iMacs (or iMac and Mac mini+external monitor, etc), network them up, have a master-slave clustering arrangement (or some form of clustering), and have apps be able distribute processes between them. Like, if you open up a new Safari window, it's running own its own process, you drag it from one iMac to a 2nd iMac, and that Safari process runs on the 2nd iMac. The 2nd iMac's filesystem can be mounted onto the first iMac so that files can be moved in-between easily (or forms of storage fusion).
Apple already does clipboard, link sharing, and app state sharing today. Universal Control is another step up from that. Clustering would be another step up. Ie, you run Handbrake, and it would know to distribute its transcoding processes across multiple Macs.
If they created a DisplayOS that was the "desktop-like" parts of iPadOS (granted these need improving still) basically a Catalyst target machine that had all the Universal Control features (on steroids. Yes Please) then it would be something we'd pay for, Subscription model even. Would be so useful for making use of older machines. Would be a great target machine for light users.
I think Offices would be willing to buy an Apple smart monitor appliance especially if it allowed remote access to hosted machine. For hot desking or loosefit offices it makes a great system for workers just to turn up with a Laptop or iPad/iPhone (supplied or DYOD) just bump up to any screen in the office and get to work.
Environmentally it would be great to keep full-formed products used as long as possible but that might be why it needs a subscription attached the accountant let alone the shareholders aren't going to let Apple spend time on keeping it running without a revenue stream attached.
Still, this would be the last great piece of the 1997 Return of Jobs "Plan". He started those remarks by saying at NeXT he just walk up to a computer and a simple login makes it his to use. The seamlessness of interaction he described is still missing from Apple Systems - Universal Control is only just getting there now.
"DisplayOS" as an ultra-thin client? Just enough logic performance to perform login functionality and to drive the display. The rest of the horsepower is all in the computer in the rack. If Apple sold some rack units/servers, I can see it, but this seems more anathema then them selling a lineup of 24", 27" and 32" external monitors.
The "5K and 6K 120 Hz with an A13/A14 chip inside" rumors is interesting. As far as I understand, TB3/TB4 does not have enough bandwidth for 5K at 120 Hz let alone 6K at 120 Hz. So, their solution is to have enough compression, decompression performance for 120 Hz refresh rates across TB3? Wonder if they would run a cut down iOS for it? Only Apple Silicon machines can drive 120 Hz due to hardware encoders in the SoC?
I was also thinking that this rumor meant the ARM SoC inside would be running as an eGPU, but this seems troublesome. And the rumored SoC basically put it to bed. Anyways, it they have an A13 or A14 in it, and it's using iOS, they are like halfway there.
You do realize those chips are more powerful than many Intel quad-cores right, that'd be way overkill and put Skylake even more in shame 😂
I was contemplating the rumors of the 27" and 32" models being external ProMotion displays: 120 Hz at 5K and 120 Hz at 6K. 120 Hz at 5120 x 2880 is 42 Gbits/s bandwidth. That's just 24 bit color. With HDR, maybe other color schemes or higher bits, and efficiency losses, something like 45 to 50 Gbit/s is needed, and this is all before bandwidth needs for ports. 6K at 120 Hz going to need 60 Gbit/s.
So, how are these going to work as an external monitor with one TB3/4 bus, which is what the vast majority of Macs have? There is the usual way of using two busses and splitting the display in half. Apple will not do this. Dell would. Apple has not. They just wait. They could use DisplayPort 1.4 or 2.0, but that means these monitors will only work with new Macs, as I don't think any current Macs support DP1.4, at least the high bandwidth implementations.
The rumors are that there could be A13/A14 SoCs embedded in the displays. These could act as an eGPU over TB3/4. But then, what if I want a M1 Max GPU to drive the display? Or if it is an Intel system, a dGPU to drive the display? An alternative is to compress the display image before it goes over the wire and uncompress it with the A13/A14 in the display before displaying the image onscreen. Curious to see how well this would really work, and what kind of compatibility it would have.
I was contemplating the rumors of the 27" and 32" models being external ProMotion displays: 120 Hz at 5K and 120 Hz at 6K. 120 Hz at 5120 x 2880 is 42 Gbits/s bandwidth. That's just 24 bit color. With HDR, maybe other color schemes or higher bits, and efficiency losses, something like 45 to 50 Gbit/s is needed, and this is all before bandwidth needs for ports. 6K at 120 Hz going to need 60 Gbit/s.
So, how are these going to work as an external monitor with one TB3/4 bus, which is what the vast majority of Macs have? There is the usual way of using two busses and splitting the display in half. Apple will not do this. Dell would. Apple has not. They just wait. They could use DisplayPort 1.4 or 2.0, but that means these monitors will only work with new Macs, as I don't think any current Macs support DP1.4, at least the high bandwidth implementations.
The rumors are that there could be A13/A14 SoCs embedded in the displays. These could act as an eGPU over TB3/4. But then, what if I want a M1 Max GPU to drive the display? Or if it is an Intel system, a dGPU to drive the display? An alternative is to compress the display image before it goes over the wire and uncompress it with the A13/A14 in the display before displaying the image onscreen. Curious to see how well this would really work, and what kind of compatibility it would have.
Thunderbolt 4 has bidirectional bandwidth of 40Gb/s. For using as a display, they can put it in unidirectional mode, which gives 80Gb/s. This is enough bandwidth for 6k/120/10-bit but they'd need a second cable for data. Display stream compression is described here as offering 3:1 compression:
That compression would be enough to handle 8k/120/10-bit. Apple's own hardware can handle this, they might even have added some special hardware for it to Apple Silicon Macs already. Older computers would be able to use the display but would have to run it at a lower resolution/refresh rate/bit-depth.
… I can understand the wait for XDR miniLED versions, but a 27" 5K monitor, sourced straight from the iMac, should have been shipping 2 years ago. …
It has been shipping, since October 2016. Straight from the manufacturer. Phil Schiller did a presentation about it at the time.
LG has made every Apple display — the Thunderbolt Display, the Cinema Display, whatever. The Pro Display XDR.
The business decision to let LG sell it directly may or may not have been a “strategic mistake,” but your back-of-the-napkin math for an Apple-branded edition ignores the question of Apple’s margins on a display LG itself still sells at $1299 today, five years later. It also ignores any exclusivity deals LG may have made with Apple — the LG UltraFine displays are still the only ones Apple sells. I don’t think that’s because they are best friends forever.
As for this particular leak — details about the existence of three standalone displays in development, all based on displays used in existing or coming-soon Apple products, there’s nothing here to suggest that the arrangement with LG that has been in place for the past five years is in jeopardy. Quite the opposite — the existence of the 32-inch demo unit suggests Apple may be ready to hand the Pro Display XDR over to LG as well?
EDIT -- I wrote all of the above (and more) before seeing that LG has just announced a 27-inch UltraFine OLED Pro display:
Like the earlier 32-inch, this is a 4K display — so not quite the same thing as the Apple-bound 5K and 6K mini LED units. But I'll admit LG's marketing here, as "UltraFine" and "Pro" for 4K displays that are positioned to compete with Apple's higher-resolution 27-inch and 32-inch XDR units, means lower-cost options for people who don't need the higher resolutions. So it's not unreasonable to guess the 2016 deal with LG for UltraFine exclusivity ended in early 2021, and this leak is a lineup of Apple-branded displays, including a lower-cost 24-inch 4.5K Retina display straight out of the current iMac and aimed at MacBook Air/Pro owners.
LG Display makes the panels used in Apple’s displays and is a completely separate entity from LG Electronics, which makes standalone monitors such as the UltraFine and TVs and what not also using panels supplied from LG Display. They’re not the same company.
Comments
You don't agree that they would have sold a lot of TB3 monitors in the 2016 to whenever this more affordable monitor comes out, if it comes out. Obviously, I think they left a lot of revenue off the table, in the billions if they had enough Mac buyers get it. Then, during the pandemic sales bump, it would have been another nice bump in revenue above what they have right now, and I think it could have been in the high hundreds of million to low billions per year.
In saying "strategic", I think what I was thinking was Apple was mistaking what is a computer. A lot of laptops are used on a desk 95% of the time. The 5% of time when mobile is critically important, so it has to have great mobile characteristics and features, but 95% of time, it is stationary on a desk. Having an external monitor on that desk is a very attractive. Productivity scales with screen size. Every laptop owner should have one. This trend is only increasing, becoming more common. With the pandemic, Apple has a chance to sell two monitors to a Mac buyer, one for the desk at home and one for the desk at work. As such, as a vender that sells computing systems, Apple definitely should have a lineup of monitors to complement their computing machines.
The "5K and 6K 120 Hz with an A13/A14 chip inside" rumors is interesting. As far as I understand, TB3/TB4 does not have enough bandwidth for 5K at 120 Hz let alone 6K at 120 Hz. So, their solution is to have enough compression, decompression performance for 120 Hz refresh rates across TB3? Wonder if they would run a cut down iOS for it? Only Apple Silicon machines can drive 120 Hz due to hardware encoders in the SoC?
I was also thinking that this rumor meant the ARM SoC inside would be running as an eGPU, but this seems troublesome. And the rumored SoC basically put it to bed. Anyways, it they have an A13 or A14 in it, and it's using iOS, they are like halfway there.
The business decision to let LG sell it directly may or may not have been a “strategic mistake,” but your back-of-the-napkin math for an Apple-branded edition ignores the question of Apple’s margins on a display LG itself still sells at $1299 today, five years later. It also ignores any exclusivity deals LG may have made with Apple — the LG UltraFine displays are still the only ones Apple sells. I don’t think that’s because they are best friends forever.
As for this particular leak — details about the existence of three standalone displays in development, all based on displays used in existing or coming-soon Apple products, there’s nothing here to suggest that the arrangement with LG that has been in place for the past five years is in jeopardy. Quite the opposite — the existence of the 32-inch demo unit suggests Apple may be ready to hand the Pro Display XDR over to LG as well?
EDIT -- I wrote all of the above (and more) before seeing that LG has just announced a 27-inch UltraFine OLED Pro display:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/12/17/lg-unveils-new-27-inch-oled-pro-display-that-could-rival-pro-display-xdr
Like the earlier 32-inch, this is a 4K display — so not quite the same thing as the Apple-bound 5K and 6K mini LED units. But I'll admit LG's marketing here, as "UltraFine" and "Pro" for 4K displays that are positioned to compete with Apple's higher-resolution 27-inch and 32-inch XDR units, means lower-cost options for people who don't need the higher resolutions. So it's not unreasonable to guess the 2016 deal with LG for UltraFine exclusivity ended in early 2021, and this leak is a lineup of Apple-branded displays, including a lower-cost 24-inch 4.5K Retina display straight out of the current iMac and aimed at MacBook Air/Pro owners.
iMac Pro (27" XDR)
iMac Pro Max (32" XDR)
I could easily see Apple discontinuing the Pro XDR display and Mac Pro line for an iMac Pro line. While some might prefer the separate form factor, the reality is that this iMac Pro XDR would be equivalent to a $10k Mac Pro + $6k display ($16k) and they can sell it for $4-5k (including a stand).
The display will be superior to the current Pro Display XDR being sold for $5k. So, they'd have to cut the price of the successor Pro Display XDR with this display to $3k in order to ship an iMac 32 with the same display for $6k? Or, the iMac Pro Max will start at $8k? They will simply sell a Pro Display XDR 32" for $5k and an iMac 32 for $5k, and take the margin on the external display?
I wouldn't think they be creating a traditional eGPU but the system does have a fairly heavy GPU process in the users face keeping track of every window and interface element and having a big 3D scene running composing all that to screen. All the native Apps are configured to send a rendered content to that process once the Aseries GPU has done that work whatever is left over is there for Apps to use on device, but the set up seems like it would be for a mac to host the app like an eAPU then stream
So, how are these going to work as an external monitor with one TB3/4 bus, which is what the vast majority of Macs have? There is the usual way of using two busses and splitting the display in half. Apple will not do this. Dell would. Apple has not. They just wait. They could use DisplayPort 1.4 or 2.0, but that means these monitors will only work with new Macs, as I don't think any current Macs support DP1.4, at least the high bandwidth implementations.
The rumors are that there could be A13/A14 SoCs embedded in the displays. These could act as an eGPU over TB3/4. But then, what if I want a M1 Max GPU to drive the display? Or if it is an Intel system, a dGPU to drive the display? An alternative is to compress the display image before it goes over the wire and uncompress it with the A13/A14 in the display before displaying the image onscreen. Curious to see how well this would really work, and what kind of compatibility it would have.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180103163937/https://www.vesa.org/news/vesa-publishes-displayport-standard-version-1-4/
That compression would be enough to handle 8k/120/10-bit. Apple's own hardware can handle this, they might even have added some special hardware for it to Apple Silicon Macs already. Older computers would be able to use the display but would have to run it at a lower resolution/refresh rate/bit-depth.