And now there's the Studio Display. Whether you think it's a good value or not, it is admittedly unlike any monitor currently on the market. Again, could you imagine Tuesday's presentation with a recommendation to pair the Mac Studio with any existing monitor?
I mean, I can, because like you said, that's exactly what they did do just five and a half years ago.
The Studio Display is an OK value. It's pricier than LG's, which is already quite expensive. Part of this has got to be a volume issue, but nevertheless: almost nobody spends four figures on a monitor.
So if they think "you can get the LG for $1300, or the Apple for $1600 and up" is "a reasonable experience", I have quite a few bones to pick with that.
I would hope they're not under the illusion that those are great choices. If you've configured a higher-end Mac Studio at $5000, say, sure, what's another $1600 for the display. But if you're spending $1000 on a Mac mini, or even $2500 on a low-end Mac Studio, $1600 on a display is
a lot.
This isn't entirely Apple's problem to solve, but it partially is. They've kind of helped create it, when they moved Macs to Retina ten(!) years ago. Then they doubled down by removing subpixel rendering a few macOS releases later, making text suddenly look worse than it did two decades ago. I do understand that there are engineering realities that led to this (such as problems once GPU acceleration gets involved), but the end result isn't great regardless. They essentially went all-in on a Retina future that did come for their devices where only the external display really matters, such as iPhones, iPads, Watches, etc., but never fully happened on the Mac.
I wish instead of the Studio Display, they had announced a partnership with Microsoft and/or multiple display vendors to prices of displays with >200 ppi down, because that's what's actually needed.
