foregoneconclusion

Reading between the lines: the original HP wasn’t discontinued due to lack of interest but due to not delivering the profit margin Apple wanted. In other words, $299 was the sweet spot and it hadn’t been designed to sell at $299. 

bshank said:

It’s fake optics to make it look like the administration is addressing inflation. 

FYI...inflation has  been falling for the past six months in the United States.

https://apnews.com/article/december-2022-inflation-report-72bb938a443ab0500bd72d23f62214ad

The pricing complaints relative to the market have always been worthless. $300 is not expensive for a quality audio product. Yes, there are going to be individuals who won’t buy it for that price but that doesn’t define the market overall.

dewme said: I just noticed that for conventional Zoom and FaceTime head-in-a-box use cases the Studio Display camera doesn’t really stand out to the degree that a naive user may expect. 

Tech blogs aren't supposed to be naive users though. Wide angle lens = less light going to sensor than typical front facing camera (iPhone 11 standard lens was f/2.2, wide lens was f/2.4). Wide angle lens also = use of zoom for single person in combination with a 5K resolution that is higher than the resolution of the camera. Apple was doing some trade-offs in order to have the Center Stage feature and that's just the reality of the lens technology being used for this type of product. 

dewme said: I agree that the Studio Display webcam is surprisingly mundane considering its underlying technological chops. The Center Stage feature works great however. Still waiting for Apple to put all that underlying technology to better use.

All the hysteria over the webcam turned out to be a lack of understanding of how a wide angle camera lens works in combination with the Center Stage feature. For example, virtually every tech blog used images of a single person to try and do "quality" comparisons. That's an apples/oranges comparison from the start. Apple didn't use a wide angle lens in the Studio Display because they thought it would provide a better single-person image.