Yeaaaaaaaah except what they did 1) caused poor reviews, which will cause lower revenues, and 2) this update will be free.
So your conspiracy theory doesn't quite work out.
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Apple Says Improvements to Studio Display's Webcam Coming in Software Update After Several Poor Reviews
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Yeaaaaaaaah except what they did 1) caused poor reviews, which will cause lower revenues, and 2) this update will be free.
So your conspiracy theory doesn't quite work out.
Joanna Stern is awesome.
But yikes, Apple should be cursing themselves for this. Even if the issue can be resolved in software, units should never have been seeded to reviewers when so obviously faulty.
But yikes, Apple should be cursing themselves for this. Even if the issue can be resolved in software, units should never have been seeded to reviewers when so obviously faulty.
(or maybe they didn't spend much time at all) - given what should have been a super obvious issue and that they actually responded to inquiries without some pithy "your using the monitor wrong" and acknowledged it's an issue, they clearly rushed it. the webcam literally has 1 job and it's failing. this is inexcusable on apple's part.
I think it has been like that forever at Apple, I remember very clearly the "never buy 1st revision" (Rev A products) mantra since when I started using Macs in 2000.
Nothing new, people just forget fast how it was.
Surely you didn't expect to get a $1600 monitor with $400 worth of components without Apple cutting a few corners on the webcam and power cable to meet their internal gross margin targets?
Or Metagate!
Edit: Wait, that ought to be reserved for future Facebook scandals! Curses, foiled by the metaverse! I knew we shouldn’t let that be the name of it!
Except this is mostly old tech and isn't re-inventing anything. Should have been top notch right from the start.
Sorry if you were taken in by the content of our incredibly slick video last week. We'll try to make this product more like what we said it was.
It is good that the reviewers got to experience the issues firsthand. Past articles described how reviewers for prominent publications are often given white glove, Super VIP treatment and put in contact with engineers and product managers, unlike ordinary customers.
While I agree that a cam should work at the first attempt, they weren't reinventing computers each A rev...
They did that with keyboards, with mice... all "basic" stuff, why not cameras
I think people mostly acknowledge the challenge of so little depth on the laptop. The issue here I think is that the desktops and display setups don't have this depth issue. Yet we're still stuck with the same, "just barely good enough" quality as the laptops. And this is of course assuming this is in-fact just a software bug in this display. I am admittedly not a computer hardware engineer, but I can't imagine there is a technical reason why an even better camera module couldn't be put in this display, or the M1 iMac for that matter. I think the iMac and this display in particular were an opportunity to finally have a webcam that gets close to on par with a separate dedicated one. Maybe the higher end model with mini-LED and ProMotion that we're assuming is on the horizon will finally do this, I don't know. I hope so. I just think even ignoring the software issue, this is a missed opportunity and disappointing for the price.
My other gripe with this display is that if you have multiple connected, the speakers do not work together to make fuller, spatial sound. If you have multiple Studio Displays connected you can only choose which single monitor will output sound. To me, that seems like a pretty obvious miss. Even if you're someone who is a real professional and would likely have a separate dedicated set of speakers, the reviewers seem to indicate these are the real deal for built in speakers. So perhaps for many people, the sound from two or three of these monitors sort of paired together would be pretty exceptional. I think that would be another great way to utilize the built-in A13. In my mind, if I had two of these monitors and I'm sitting in the middle of them, having audio only come out from either my left or right monitor only would be annoying. Plus, a not insignificant amount of the cost of the displays are going toward hardware that then aren't being used. Maybe that's something that could come in an update down the road, I don't know.
How could this go pass testing?
You could be right. But no matter how you look it, I think the final conclusion is the same: the buggy webcam and lackluster product for its price is inexcusable… especially when you consider they already had all the tech, and just needed to repackage it.
Embarrassing.
Couldn’t they have waited until WWDC in order to get it perfect?
Was anyone testing this properly?
Or was the message that this absolutely had to launch in March else heads will roll?
Or simply the tactic beloved of Silicon Valley and triple A games studios:
Yeah we know it doesn’t work properly, that’s ok, we’ll drop a software update in a few weeks time.
EDIT: Or did they just calibrate it for the strong California sun? I often feel that Apple doesn’t realise that other people live elsewhere ie where the sun quality is a little iffy.
Couldn’t they have waited until WWDC in order to get it perfect?
Was anyone testing this properly?
Or was the message that this absolutely had to launch in March else heads will roll?
Or simply the tactic beloved of Silicon Valley and triple A games studios:
Yeah we know it doesn’t work properly, that’s ok, we’ll drop a software update in a few weeks time.
EDIT: Or did they just calibrate it for the strong California sun? I often feel that Apple doesn’t realise that other people live elsewhere ie where the sun quality is a little iffy.