Apple Says It's Out of the Standalone Display Business

[Tom-Helge]

And there you go. It's the right move. It makes perfect sense as I outlined here:

It really doesn't make any sense for them to have their own. Apple uses 3rd party displays internally, like LGs, in their own monitors anyway so why go through the hassle of incorporating one into your own logistics operation when you can just collaborate with the 3rd you're sourcing the actual display from. Plus the 3rd party has their own massive manufacturing line for it so it's a no-brainer. On top of that it's not a big money maker so it's just leeching valuable resources like support, storage, etc. Better to offset all that onto the 3rd party and just endorse it.

I have to agree on that. Instead of going full r***rd over a brand name, everyone should rather concentrate on getting good products that is actually good independent of the brand name before buying something.

Like me, i was a huge Sony Ericsson fan back in 2009-2011. I was a fan of them UNTIL i did see the Samsung Galaxy S2. I bought that phone because most reviews was praising the phone and it indeed was. I had no plans on going away from Sony Ericsson, but because the Galaxy S2 phone was so good back in 2011, i had to try that out. After that, i haven't had a single Sony Ericsson / Sony phone after that.

 

[smacrumon]

I've been a supporter of Tim Cook for some time. But something is awry at Apple and in a big way. I have no confidence in anything the company might produce in the future. I have no confidence in the leadership team.

Everything is so tacky at Apple in 2016.

Will Jony Ive be working on an all new look emoji set for ios11 instead of harmonizing experiences across devices???

 

[NY Guitarist]

Apple forgot how to make a monitor ages ago. My ACD30 is still alive and kicking.

I still have a number of them. When I sold a few from our older workstations I discovered the resale is strong because they are still desirable due to the image quality and design esthetic.

 

[citysnaps]

Yeah, and why paint walls or clean carpets when they're dirty, and may as well as get the crappiest ugly furniture, or not even bother with decent clothing. As a media professional I deeply understand that esthetics are an integral part of my environment.

Design esthetics is an integral part of the Apple experience, but it may not matter if you never interact face to face with clients. I know it matters to me even when no one else is around.

Oh, I don't know. To answer your question, like many people, I would not enjoy living in a dirty place with unclean carpets and unpainted walls. Nice straw man, though, mate.

However, the customers I interact with will not think less of me if they see I don't have a brushed aluminum work-of-art display (even though I'm a fine art photographer). I'm judged by my work.

If your clients will for some reason judge you by the pedigree of your display, rather than the quality and aesthetics of the work you produce, then for sure you need that pedigree brushed aluminum display.

Maybe Bang and Olufsen can help you out with your dilemma?

 

[smacrumon]

I have to agree on that. Instead of going full r***rd over a brand name, everyone should rather concentrate on getting good products that is actually good independent of the brand name before buying something.

Like me, i was a huge Sony Ericsson fan back in 2009-2011. I was a fan of them UNTIL i did see the Samsung Galaxy S2. I bought that phone because most reviews was praising the phone and it indeed was. I had no plans on going away from Sony Ericsson, but because the Galaxy S2 phone was so good back in 2011, i had to try that out. After that, i haven't had a single Sony Ericsson / Sony phone after that.

It's not about the brand it's about how ugly all the competitors are. I don't want to be looking at ugly every day of the week. Work can be tough enough but to work in front of something so beautiful just makes the week blissful. And when I say beautiful I mean beautiful to look at and beautiful to work with.

 

[Tom-Helge]

It's not about the brand it's about how ugly all the competitors are. I don't want to be looking at ugly every day of the week. Work can be tough enough but to work in front of something so beautiful just makes the week blissful. And when I say beautiful I mean beautiful to look at and beautiful to work with.

So you care more about "looks" over actually getting the job done?

Secondly, you can buy other screens than the LG screens that looks freaking fantastic. So i don't see you point.

 

[69650]

They will axe the Mac mini next then the Mac Pro in a couple of years.

 

[Marx55]

Apple should bring back a brand new Apple Tunderbolt display with hubs for Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps), USB 3.1 Type-C (reversible) Generation 2 (10 Gbps) and SDXC with extra pins supporting maximum read/write speed (300 MB/s).

 

[NY Guitarist]

Oh, I don't know. To answer your question, like many people, I would not enjoy living in a dirty place with unclean carpets and unpainted walls. Nice straw man, though, mate.

However, the customers I interact with will not think less of me if they see I don't have a brushed aluminum work-of-art display (even though I'm a fine art photographer). I'm judged by my work.

If your clients will for some reason judge you by the pedigree of your display, rather than the quality and aesthetics of the work you produce, then for sure you need that pedigree brushed aluminum display.

Maybe Bang and Olufsen can help you out with your dilemma?

Just because you don't care what your environment looks like doesn't make my point a straw man, but nice attempt at moving the goalposts.

I gather you've never been in a high end media suite. I guess Apple shouldn't care about what their product looks like, only how it works. Or Mercedes, or any other car manufacturer. Or any clothes designer. Or any restaurant, or hotel. Gimme a break.

 

[Tech198]

Perhaps its with integrated GPU. Apple would have problems or technical issues regarding heat or something?

 

[dannys1]

I think that could be a bit of an overstatement.

I'm an Electrical Engineer and although I use Mac personally, the field is pretty devoid of Apple. Much of the software is for Windows exclusively, like it or not, and that seems to apply to much of the engineering/science disciplines.

I don't do audio production professionally (hobbyist), but I don't think there is a dominance of one over there other until perhaps at the highest levels (ie. professional).

At the end of the day, what matters more than OS preference is software availability/quality and hardware drivers. Using Photoshop on Mac isn't all too different than using it on Windows.

I meant recording engineers, not electrical engineers - I was talking about music production. Basically 100% in every studio i've ever been in (but sure there are EDM producers using PC's cos its cheaper)

 

[ghost187]

Is it me or did Apple have a much larger portfolio of hardware and software 10 years ago?

Remember Xserve or iWeb just to jog your memory.

 

[fokmik]

i dont think this is true since mink cho had 100% accurate information 3-4 days ago, he said no imac or 5k thunderbolt display with gpu inside ready

 

[32828870]

Makes sense. Let display makers do what they do best... Make displays. And at a better price.

The 5K LG display (with collaboration from Apple) sounds pretty nice.

Gather round for a Grimm tale...

"Applestiltskin"​

Once upon a time, not long ago, Apple produced some of the best displays on the market. No matter your needs, there was one perfect for you in 20", 23", and a dazzling 30" size. Professionals and consumers alike rejoiced, in awe of the magical objects that brought their Mac's to life. So impressive, even evil Windows users couldn't escape them, drawn in as moths to a flame. Yet the peoples' good fortune met an untimely fate as the evil Tim Cook destroyed every last one. In their place appeared a less wondrous magical device with spare parts and numerous troubles. "Let them view bad panels!", he shouted. On that day a part of humanity died inside, never to recover. To this day, if you listen carefully enough, another professional dies as they are forced to replace their once glorious devices with LG or... Dell...

The evil Tim Cook is laughing from the balcony of his new, round castle shouting "Let them use mediocrity!" The world was never the same again...

 

[Since1987]

I don't want to be looking at ugly every day of the week.

Something Apple and Steve Jobs used to care about and even champion. But as with all things Apple, WE the customer are the problem because we expect it to be as good as it used to be. How dare we have such lofty expectations? It's unreasonable for us to expect Apple to do as good a job as they used to.

 

[smacrumon]

So you care more about "looks" over actually getting the job done?

Secondly, you can buy other screens than the LG screens that looks freaking fantastic. So i don't see you point.

I care about both. Function and form. No they really don't look freaking fantastic. They look like freaking something else.

 

[NY Guitarist]

Is it me or did Apple have a much larger portfolio of hardware and software 10 years ago?

Remember Xserve or iWeb just to jog your memory.

Shake, Aperture and OSX Server

 

[smacrumon]

Once upon a time, not long ago, Apple produced some of the best displays on the market. No matter your needs, there was one perfect for you in 20", 23", and a dazzling 30" size. Professionals and consumers alike rejoiced, in awe of the magical objects that brought their Mac's to life. So impressive, even evil Windows users couldn't escape them, drawn in as moths to a flame. Yet the peoples' good fortune met an untimely fate as the evil Tim Cook destroyed every last one. In their place appeared a less wondrous magical device with spare parts and numerous troubles. "Let them view bad panels!", he shouted. On that day a part of humanity died inside, never to recover. To this day, if you listen carefully enough, another professional dies as they are forced to replace their once glorious devices from LG or... Dell...

The evil Tim Cook is laughing from the balcony of his new, round castle shouting "Let them use mediocrity!" The world was never the same again...

These are really old products. But they still just so wonderful.

 

[citysnaps]

Just because you don't care what your environment looks like doesn't make my point a straw man, but nice attempt at moving the goalposts.

I gather you've never been in a high end media suite. I guess Apple shouldn't care about what their product looks like, only how it works. Or Mercedes, or any other car manufacturer. Or any clothes designer. Or any restaurant, or hotel. Gimme a break.

What?

In your previous post you stated the criteria for what a nice environment looks like with your rhetorical straw man: "yeah, and why paint walls or clean carpets when they're dirty, and may as well as get the crappiest ugly furniture, or not even bother with decent clothing."

(Which is indeed a straw man as it has NOTHING to do with the subject at hand.)

To which I replied: "To answer your question, like many people, I would not enjoy living in a dirty place with unclean carpets and unpainted walls."

And from that you conclude I don't care what my environment looks like?

WTF?

Astonishing...

 

[Since1987]

I gather you've never been in a high end media suite. I guess Apple shouldn't care about what their product looks like, only how it works. Or Mercedes, or any other car manufacturer. Or any clothes designer. Or any restaurant, or hotel. Gimme a break.

Yeah, because yesterday Apple didn't spend any time talking about how beautiful the new MacBookPro was. It's us, WE are the problem for caring about aesthetics ( likes Jobs used to ) and expecting Apple to be as great as they used to be. Many apologies.

 

[RevToTheRedline]

So LG has a $1200 display and all it has is USB-C/TB3? no HDMI, no DVI, no Display Port?

the Mid 2015 MBP with AMD graphics is capable of powering all the other 5K displays on the market, but they sans any ports to make that happen? A display made for 2 Apple products? nice.. Can a MacBook 12" even drive 5K? Cant it out of the box only do 4K/30 and be tweaked in software to do 4K/60

 

[Tom-Helge]

I'm still using my 2003 23" Apple Cinema Display as a 2nd monitor on my iMac (via 3 display port converters) but keep it around because it's quite gorgeous imho. I'm sad they're leaving this sector.

I had the 17 inch version of that screen back in the days. Was a nice screen at that time. Then later i upgraded to the 24 inch Cinema Display like this one.....

And that was a much better screen. I did love the design on it, but i sold it in the end.

 

[david.olstein]

The cynic in me says that the reason Apple isn't offering a stand-alone display is because it would kill off sales of the iMac. The obvious thing to do would have been to focus only on a truly high-end monitor that would be outside the price range of most potential iMac buyers. Something like a 40+ inch ultra widescreen display.

What's so frustrating is that LG is capable of building some cool looking displays, like this:

http://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-34UM95C-P-ultrawide-led-monitor

 

[tech4all]

They stopped making monitors YEARS ago.... but didn't announce it until today.

If they announce the MacPro is dead... they won't be able to sell their existing stock.
If they remain silent on the MacPro.... nobody will buy one because they believe it's EOL.
If they had just slapped a new CPU and GPU into the existing trash can... everyone would know it has a future and buy in.

Seems pretty clear that Apple is slowly backing out of the computer marketplace.... BEEP BEEP BEEP

Apple had been making monitors years ago, but they officially discontinued the Thunderbolt display this past June and announced today that they are out of the monitor-making business.

But yes, I'd say that this is a sign that headless desktop Macs are being phased out. Although I'm not sure why they didn't update the iMac yesterday.

 

[ABCDEF-Hex]

I just recently purchased a LG 16:9 display (3440 x 1440 NON-curved 10 bit IPS) with thunderbolt 2 connectivity for my 2015 maxed out MacBook Pro 15".

It's probably the best display I have ever hooked up to a computer of any kind (pc or mac) and the thunderbolt connectivity (which acts as a hub for other devices) works flawless of course.

Do you mind sharing the model # ?