Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Just don't try to hook up a displayport cord to a Thunderbolt equipped mac. There is a huge list of people with 24" ACD that flicker on the 2011 macs. Sorry if this has already been mentioned in this list - I couldn't manage to read everyone's comments about the "value" of apple vs. dell monitors. I love apple's monitors but am pissed about this now 6-month old issue.

I plug my Mini Displayport 27" ACD to my thuderbold MacBook Pro every day at work. No problems. I even plugged it into a DVI MacBook Pro using a 3rd party converter box (dual-link DVI to mini display port) with no problem.
 
Not until anti glare

I don't understand why apple does not have a anti glare option?
Many continuously request it. Does anyone have a plausible reason why apple refuses?
 
I bought a new ACD 27inch back in January. Can someone tell me what the advantages of the new one with TB are? Is it mainly cutting back one cord? Either way I still need the power cord for my MBP and the TB cord, so basically I'm saving the USB cord. Is that correct?
 
to take advantage of the ATD, your computer MUST have a thunderbolt connector.

you get to use only two cords, and you have many more ports also. Its a great docking station for a mba

an older mDP mac will not be compatible with the new display..someone had mentioned that this was overheard from an apple employee. I would have hoped for the display part to work, but its not the case.
 
I don't understand why apple does not have a anti glare option?
Many continuously request it. Does anyone have a plausible reason why apple refuses?
The questions is how many these 'many' are? 1%, 10% of potential iMac/27"Apple display buyers?
Some people might prefer black computers (or white computers), any plausible reason why Apple refuses? I think the reason why Apple does not offer beige or brown computers is very easily understood. In the end, the glossy vs. matte issue is based on the same reasons:
  1. Apple thinks the majority of people prefer glossy over matte. Making the majority happy with the default option is certainly the reasonable choice
  2. Offering additional options adds complexity (of logistics, store display, consumer choice and purchasing, brand appearance)
  3. Sometimes aesthetics win over practical issues (since aesthetics are part of whole brand message).

People who dislike glossy naturally like to portray it as only an issue of (3) because it puts Apple under moral pressure (which they hope will make them change their stance). But in reality, reasons (1) and (2) are very likely also to play a non-negligible part and denying this is somewhat dishonest (and self-serving).

-----------------
Can someone tell me what the advantages of the new one with TB are? Is it mainly cutting back one cord? Either way I still need the power cord for my MBP and the TB cord, so basically I'm saving the USB cord.
If have an Air, it adds FW800 and GbitEthernet. Even if you have MBP, you potentially save the USB, the Ethernet and the FW cord.
 
Last edited:
It's not entirely an argument against USB 3.0 via Thunderbolt. While USB 3.0 may be able to deliver 5 Gbps, a hard drive attached to it can't. And the video signal goes in one direction only, while Thunderbolt has 10 Gbps in each direction, so reading from USB 3.0 would be at full speed, while writing might not be. You could probably attach two hard drives via USB 3.0 and they would be substantially faster than connected through USB 2.0.

USB 3.0 via Thunderbolt is not a problem. It's USB 3.0 plus all the other stuff in the ATD over a single 1st gen TB channel.

Although USB is incredibly popular for mass storage devices, these only account for a small percentage of all devices shipped. I'm not sure about the percentage of people who prefer to connect their USB mass storage devices to their displays, but I'm guessing Apple wasn't providing those USB ports on the ATD with primarily mass storage in mind.

All my drive enclosures have FireWire 800 interfaces, so I already enjoy transfer speeds that are routinely 2-3x faster than USB 2.0. Under the right conditions, a USB 3.0 enclosure with a single HDD can achieve double the transfer rates of FW 800, but most of the time the performance advantage is much less, and if you have multiple devices connected to a single USB 3.0 host controller, the advantage can swing back in favor of FW 800.

USB 3.0's big advantage, besides being inexpensive, is with flash based media and not HDDs. While it may be a corner case, a single current generation SSD can max out a USB 3.0 controller at 325-370 MB/s of sustained throughput. I stand by the point that a single USB 3.0 port could definitely degrade the performance of the other devices in the ATD that are all sharing a single Thunderbolt channel.

Can you even imagine the reaction if the first Apple product to ship with USB 3.0 was a display and not a Mac? Seriously, did anyone think that was in the cards? Besides, the silicon and drivers for USB 3.0 are just barely maturing to the point where you would choose to include them as anything more than a checklist feature.

And purposely bottlenecking to 480Mbps is a better solution than a partial USB 3.0? I don't think so. And it's Apple's fault for combining MDP with Thunderbolt.

It's Apple's fault for creating and shipping the most capable I/O interface in the history of consumer electronics, and a truly one-of-a-kind display/docking station solution based on it... Have you or anyone else developed an I/O interface with more potential than Thunderbolt? Can you produce a more elegant display solution than the ATD? Why haven't you or anyone else brought this to market yet? Apple produces a landmark product, and people bitch about what features Apple didn't give them this time around. It's not Apple's fault that you can't produce what you want yourself and depend on them to design your toys.

Only two of the five are for Windows. I have one PC and use it mostly for gaming (2nd monitor on the PC is for my driving controller rig) and video compression. 3 of the 5 are for Macs. None use glass. They're all calibrated. NO reflection problems. I don't believe any are IPS (not needed here for consumer use).

Yeah, I'm beginning to think that high quality matte displays only exist sans glass, and that the design aesthetic and added durability of the seamless glass front is what is dictating glossy for Apple. Not just the fact that it annoys a lot of people.
 
Last edited:
to take advantage of the ATD, your computer MUST have a thunderbolt connector.

you get to use only two cords, and you have many more ports also. Its a great docking station for a mba

an older mDP mac will not be compatible with the new display..someone had mentioned that this was overheard from an apple employee. I would have hoped for the display part to work, but its not the case.

I have an early 2011 MBP with thunderbolt. That should work correct?
 
Was going to jump on this, but 12ms response time is still a bit high for me if I want to play games on this monitor. It's great for apps and colors, etc.. but for games, 12ms is still a bit high.
 
Why? You can do better for this amount of money.




Nope. $854.69 on Amazon right now.

Not a fair comparison. This display includes a charger, speakers, video cam, and a full docking station built-in. Where as at a minimum you'd need to buy a dual-link DVI adaptor ($99,) and power charger ($79,) making that monitor MORE then the Apple one, for a lot less features.
 
Was going to jump on this, but 12ms response time is still a bit high for me if I want to play games on this monitor. It's great for apps and colors, etc.. but for games, 12ms is still a bit high.

12ms is 83 Hz... Do you often set your displays to refresh rates higher than that? Can you get frame rates that high at 2560x1440?

:confused:
Firstly, I am sure more devices ship with USB (1/2/3) than FW800
Secondly, USB is not only ubiquitous worldwide, it transcends pcs/laptops/notebooks/mass storage/ phones/external optical media....etc...etc

I was actually trying to say more or less what you just said. Of the many billions of USB devices shipped, only a small percentage are mass storage devices. Yet the only USB 3.0 devices that have shipped thus far are mass storage devices, because this is one of the few categories of devices that can truly benefit from SuperSpeed transfer mode at this time. So basically, everyone complaining about the lack of USB 3.0 in the ATD is complaining that a tiny subset of all USB devices will not operate at full speed should they decide to plug them into their Apple monitor.
 
Last edited:
I don't understand why apple does not have a anti glare option?
Many continuously request it. Does anyone have a plausible reason why apple refuses?

More than likely it was because Steve Jobs preferred the mirro option. I remember him rambling on how gorgeous his glossy displays where at one keynote, declaring to everyone that customers loved his glossy screens and I amongst probably 10 billion other mac owners went 'Really?'


Now that Steves outta the road (thank goodness) Tim Cook may start to bring products that actually cater for Apples rather large customer base and those feedback forms may actually get considered instead of the trash can because King Steve knew what was best for us. I hope better times are ahead and Im actually glad Jobsy has been swept to one side. He was skiving of work too much anyways!

New brush sweeps clean and all that! I too would like the anti glare option. And now it may come!
 
Where as at a minimum you'd need to buy a dual-link DVI adaptor ($99,) and power charger ($79,).

No, there's no need for dual DVI. You can use a miniDP to DP cable, which is very cheap. And the MacBooks already come with a charger, so there's no need to buy another one. That said, the ATD is convenient, I'm not questioning that.
 
... You can imagine that Apple tried a lot of things, and in the end this was the best they could come up with. What then, is the best panel on the market with a matte finish, and does it have any glass in front of it at all? I'm pretty sure the glass adds considerably to the durability of these displays and not just to the amount of glare they produce.

And I am pretty sure that having no glass is subtracting exactly nothing from the durability of the display. I have a 24" white iMac with a matte screen. Bought in 2007 or so. I replaced the hard disk and it is getting a bit old in terms of processing speed, but the screen is still perfect.

If anything is going to degrade about the screen, it is not going to be the surface, unless you are trying to scratch it on purpose.
 
[*]Apple thinks the majority of people prefer glossy over matte. Making the majority happy with the default option is certainly the reasonable choice

Yeah, but the majority of what? The current collection of Apple-users or computer-users in general?

If Apple is only offering glossy displays, of course the majority of their current buyers are going to like it.
 
Last edited:
Huh, if enough people want anti glare, why refuse?

Apple gives us what they want to give us, not what we want or what the market norm is, ie, Firewire, Thunderbolt, and no USB3 or BluRay. Always an odd port that requires a $29.00 adapter to do something mainstream, etc etc.
 
Last edited:
And I am pretty sure that having no glass is subtracting exactly nothing from the durability of the display. I have a 24" white iMac with a matte screen. Bought in 2007 or so. I replaced the hard disk and it is getting a bit old in terms of processing speed, but the screen is still perfect.

If anything is going to degrade about the screen, it is not going to be the surface, unless you are trying to scratch it on purpose.

I agree that the need for additional protection of the screen on an iMac or ATD is probably not as large of a justification for the glass as aesthetics are to the Apple design team, but on laptops I'd have to argue differently. I see lots of laptops where the screen has been badly scuffed by chafing from coming into contact with the keyboard. It is also pretty easy for small scratches or cuts to appear on the matte screens of MacBook Pros regardless of how careful one tries to be. If you consider how many Macs are deployed in K-12 educational environments, the extra protection even on iMacs may not seem so superfluous. There is no denying that a relatively cheap piece of gorilla glass in front of a several hundred dollar TFT-LCD panel is going to provide some additional protection. Case in point, almost everyone has seen an iPhone or iPod Touch with a broken top glass, but it is far less common for the LCD itself to be damaged.
 
I do not consider "better styling" to be a correct designation for a big glossy monitor.

Good industrial design involves styling that supports the function of an object.

You're right, there are a lot of features that the new TB display has that is yet to be completely realised since the TB interface is VERY new.

To say that the Dell Ultrasharp offers more ports/video interfaces (and therefore is better than the Apple) really is at the perspective of the user with their existing equipment. (and selling the Apple display VERY SHORT!) Apple isn't under any obligation to support video interfaces for PC et-al, but that being said, you are still able to output to the TB display with HDMI (albeit with adaptors) and despite what people here are saying... As time will soon tell, we should hope to see the interface expanded (by 3rd party suppliers) to support a myriad of devices; almost unlimited capacity in our current space of peripheral devices. Remember, TB offers PCIe expandability!

Please note!
THUNDERBOLT DISPLAY SUPPORTS MINI-DISPLAY-PORT MACS

Perhaps Apple marketing isn't very good at telling people this, but the TB port is the same connector as a mini-displayport for a GOOD REASON: within the interface there IS the parallel wiring for mini-displayport. IT just means you aren't able to make use of those additional features that TB carries over. That's why the ACD is still available for those people who want the peripheral ports on their non-TB macs.

The only limitation for non TB macs is that you are not able to DAISY-CHAIN to 2xThunderbolt-displays. IF you have a TB mac, you CAN daisy-chain 1x TB-display with 1x Standard mini-displayport Display; with the mini-displayport Display as the LAST LINK in the chain. (because mDP data does not carry 2 video sources and those monitors can't pass thru to the next, anyway).
 
I don't understand why apple does not have a anti glare option?
Many continuously request it. Does anyone have a plausible reason why apple refuses?
One possible reason: less choice. Less compromises. Not having to make a difficult decision between better colors/sharpness/etc. but glossy vs. anti-glare coating limitations and matte.

This is also a good thing for people who don't care. Given that choice, they'd have to scratch their head, and there is no clear "best" option - each choice has its advantages and disadvantages. So they might not make a choice at all.

Basically, see this and this.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.