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Here's a Sneak Peek Inside Apple's New Studio Display
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They could have, but their new design philosophy appears to be to overcompensate for thermals in their “Pro” products. Plus, by selling it as a separate display, they appeal to MacBook Pro and Mac Mini owners, and even some MacBook Air owners.
Yes but they could've sold a version as an iMac and an identical looking display. The enclosed for even the 24" iMac is bigger than the enclosure for a 16" MacBook Pro so I don't see how thermals would be a problem.
Or the comparatively little tiny fan like the MacBook Pro copes well with when specced with the M1 Max... The Studio doesn't need that big fan for the Max chip, but it's cheaper to give it the same fan as the Ultra. As a bonus, it's easier to upsell the product too- it might have been harder to sell the desktop Max chip for $2,000 if it had been in a big standard Mac Mini shell. There's more breathing space to cool a chip in the Mini than in a laptop.
People have said this facetiously, but someone showed this to me in 2019 and said this was Jony Ive’s design for the 27”Apple Silicon iMac I’d have believed it, except that the 3 USB-C ports would all be Thunderbolt.
Well yeah, of course. It's a screen, with a black bezel, an aluminum frame, and nice aluminum stand.
True, but Apple has long had a fairly limited product line, and so leaves out a lot of products that are technologically feasible. I’d like to see the 12” MacBook return and find it crazy that they tried to sell it with an underpowered Intel Core chip but didn’t use it to introduce Apple Silicon. Others would prefer the ASD to be a 27” iMac.
The MacBook Pro doesn't contain a power supply, the display isn't sharing air with the processor & makes a considerable amount of noise when the fans ramp up. Noise was also one of the complaints of the 5k iMacs.
All the reviews of the Studio suggest that it's near silent in normal use. An over-specified cooling system is a quiet cooling system.
Again - check the specs - the Ultra version has a different, all-copper cooling system that weighs 2lb more than the Max version.
They've built the 27" iMac... this is it! They just gave it an A13 chip instead of an M1, and didn't install MacOS.
This, of course. And a point seemingly missed by some commenters: the display, A13, and iOS are all Apple products. With control over all the moving parts, Apple can provide software support and updates indefinitely. (That's not to say they will but -- in my experience -- I've found ongoing support to be exceptional.)
I just bought a 55" LG OLED TV for $1,300. Other than a camera and USB-C ports, what does the Studio Display have that justifies paying $300 more than a 55" TV.
Your first point about it not being able to cool the M1 when it also houses a power supply: No. Just no.
The second point about the MacBook Pro being noisy? Really? You must be in a hot room pushing it to 100% for long periods of time to make that thing noisy!!
The third point: is it a different fan? Am I wrong? Or did they just use a different metal for the heat sink? We better check the designs... ??
I've done it for us:
Skip to 3:53.
The fans are the same, but the heatsink/heatpipe configuration below it are different.
So yes, looks like what I said initially ("The Studio doesn't need that big fan for the Max chip, but it's cheaper to give it the same fan as the Ultra".) wasn't wrong, as you implied, @theluggage
At this rate it might as well be a standalone computer
While we wait for repair website iFixit to finish its teardown of Apple's new Studio Display, MacRumors is able to provide a first look at the display's internal design with an image sourced from Apple's documentation for technicians.
Three large boards are visible inside the Studio Display. The left and top-right boards are for power supply and the bottom-right one is the logic board housing components like the A13 Bionic chip and 64GB of flash storage. Last week, it was discovered that the Studio Display runs the same build of iOS 15.4 as an iPhone.
The image reveals that the Studio Display is also equipped with two internal fans on the left and right sides for cooling the display.
Apple says the Studio Display features a high-fidelity six-speaker sound system, and at least four of those speakers are visible in the bottom corners of the display. The speakers appear to have a similar design as those in the 24-inch iMac.
There are also flex cables visible for connecting the display panel and the 12-megapixel Ultra Wide camera system to the logic board.
iFixit said its Studio Display teardown is in progress, so we should have a more comprehensive look inside the display soon.
Article Link: Here's a Sneak Peek Inside Apple's New Studio Display
No reason why the display should need further updates once any teething troubles are fixed. It's not connected to the Internet, you're not running web browser or other Apps on it that might need newer versions, and if there's any need for security updates then Apple have got something very, very wrong.
People are getting carried away with this "its running iOS" thing. Just because it's showing the same version number as iOS doesn't mean it is running full-blown iOS, just that it shares a lot of code with iOS - probably including the kernel. The same article showed that iOS and iPadOS were also on the same "build number". tvOS is on version 15.4 as well - but they all support different combinations of apps and features.
A lot of modern electronics devices, in including monitors and TVs have fairly powerful embedded processors/microcontrollers/DSPs in them rather than purpose-built electronics. The A13 makes a good embedded processor and Apple know the guys who make it. I don't know, but I wouldn't bet against the XDR display having an A-series processor in it any more than would I bet against your synth keyboard, set-top-box, internet router and smart washing machine all having ARM processors running the same version of the Linux kernel (or some other generic real-time OS).
The slightly odd thing with the Studio Display is that Apple have chosen to make a song and dance of the display having an A13 processor - they were probably groping for something interesting to say about a 5k iMac without the Mac part.
Two fans means you can spin each one half as fast to get the same airflow.
I could see the potential for a type of iOS and/or Apple TV functionality in a monitor.
Also I'm not an electronics engineer so can someone explain why Apple made the power cord non-removable? Cost cutting?
Also I'm not an electronics engineer so can someone explain why Apple made the power cord non-removable? Cost cutting?
And you can easily make a Pro-XDR-version of the same display later without changing the cooling...
It honestly is not.
The Apple Studio Display was built for one market - the people who have been haranguing Apple for years to release an iMac 5K display without the computer.
Something that looked more premium than the LG UltraFine 5K that was their only other option for a 5K display and knew it would cost more than the $1300 the UltraFine 5K did.
People who were willing to buy a base $1800 iMac 5K if it had Target Display Mode so they could use it as a monitor.
And those folks are the ones snapping these up at $1600-2000 because they don't give a damn that it costs that much.
They're just happy Apple finally gave them the damn thing.