Yeah I don't know that it's the menu bar as much as when you're using an app that has a lot of UI (think Adobe apps or whatever) it really adds up and doesn't give me the real estate to work to make it worth the physical display size.
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'Apple Studio Display' With 7K Resolution Reportedly in Development
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Ah, I see. Yeah, Adobe Acrobat Pro's UI (that's the only Adobe product I currently have installed) has pretty large fonts and icons, so it could certainly benefit from some shrinking. But I mostly work with apps whose UI's use much smaller fonts and icons (Office, Mathematica, etc.).
Yes, that is the tradeoff of a 4K display.
The default scaling is "looks like 1920x1080" 2x
I prefer "looks like 2560x1440" 1.5x for that reason, but there is a slight sharpness tradeoff.
OSX finder UI seems a little smaller on mu 27" 5K iMac than on my 16" MBP - laptops are used closer to the person than monitors - so that makes sense.
I think Apple would keep the scale of UI elements similar on larger monitor sizes - and give extra screen real-estate - pretty sure that's what they do with smaller iMacs versus larger iMacs.
I think Apple would keep the scale of UI elements similar on larger monitor sizes - and give extra screen real-estate - pretty sure that's what they do with smaller iMacs versus larger iMacs.
Assuming you use consistent scaling (e.g., if you stick with MacOS's default setting, which is 2X scaling), the UI size is directly proportional to the pixel size. And the linear pixel size is inversely proportional to the linear pixel density (ppi)—i.e., it's ~1/(#ppi). So, at default scaling, the UI size on an iMac is (226 ppi)/(218 ppi)–1 = 3.7% larger than that on an Intel MBP, and (254 ppi)/(218 ppi)–1 = 16.5% larger than that on a 16" AS MBP.
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Interesting, I’ve looked a little closer… it must be that I’m running Catalina on 27” iMac and Monterey on MBP that makes the MBP UI icons look larger but text a little smaller - I guess I wasn’t comparing Apples to Apples.
Will be interesting to see what I think when I get around to upgrading the iMac (Big Sur is as far as it can officially go).
Apologies if this has been addressed in this thread (been a while since I read through it): Do any M-series Macs have the ability to drive more than 6k? It looks like on Apple’s own specifications that the Mac Studio / MacBook Pro 14/16 can handle 6k.
I currently don’t have a Mac that can drive even 6k (though it sounds like, with iPad OS 16, I would be able to drive one using my M1 iPad Pro). I have a 2018 Mac Mini that could use an eGPU to do it, but I’m not terribly interested in going down that route.
If Apple announces a 7k display, it’ll be interesting to see what can drive it (Certainly the Apple Silicon Mac Pro whenever it comes out… that would be a logical time to introduce this kind of display as well.)
I currently don’t have a Mac that can drive even 6k (though it sounds like, with iPad OS 16, I would be able to drive one using my M1 iPad Pro). I have a 2018 Mac Mini that could use an eGPU to do it, but I’m not terribly interested in going down that route.
If Apple announces a 7k display, it’ll be interesting to see what can drive it (Certainly the Apple Silicon Mac Pro whenever it comes out… that would be a logical time to introduce this kind of display as well.)
Any of the M1 Pro (and up) chips can drive more than 6K. The 2019 16 inch can as well. Ditto the Mac Pro, but not the iMac Pro.
I know this because I hook my M1 Pro to a 6K Pro Display XDR and a 5K Ultrafine. That's more than 6K's!
Well sure, the Mac Studio can support 4 Pro Display XDR (6k x 4). But I take your point-- in terms of driving the individual pixels, the horsepower should be there, and maybe it's a question of TB4 bandwidth and/or software support? Sounds like there aren't any Thunderbolt 8k displays out there to even try, and HDMI (2.0 if I remember correctly) on them only supports 4k, right?
Many Macs currently have the GPU processing power to drive more than a single 6k, but it appears more than 6k isn't supported by MacOS. For instance, the 2019 Mac Pro's GPU's certainly have the horsepower to drive an 8k display, yet extensive workarounds are needed to get the Dell 8k working on a Mac Pro, and even then it seems they are not fully successful (https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dell-up3218k-8k-monitor-on-mac-pro-2019.2216610/page-2).
There's also the issue of whether the Mac TB4 ports can carry a 7k signal, even with DSC (Display Stream Compression). It seems what's needed would be Display Port Alt Mode 2.0, which just had its first controllers certified, and thus has not yet been generally implemented (on either Macs or PC's). That's why the Dell 8k requires two cables.
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Apple uses a Thunderbolt 4 controller in the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra and TB4 supports DisplayPort 2.0 which allows up to three 10K monitors at the same time or one 16K monitor (all at 60Hz). That being said, it doesn't seem macOS natively supports higher than 6K so one needs workarounds as theorist9 noted.
You and @theorist9 are correct, I think. No software support.....YET. Plenty of hardware support. Doesn't Apple use custom T-Con's?
I am imagine we will have 8K support this time next year, as I expect the next iteration of iPhone to record 8K.
AFAIK, the fact that Apple (or anyone else) has TB4 doesn't mean they can actually do DP Alt Mode 2.0. Indeed, I don't know of anyone that currently has DP Alt Mode 2.0-equipped devices for sale, since it requires a DP Alt Mode 2.0 source (for the computer) and sink (for the display), and the first of those weren't certified by VESA until last month (https://vesa.org/featured-articles/...yport-uhbr-ultra-high-bit-rate-certification/).
So it seems the current limitations are both hardware (at least if you want to carry the signal over a single cable) and software.
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