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Here's What the Studio Display's Webcam Looks Like After 15.5 Beta Firmware Update
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That's the Pro XDR display.
The Studio can't rotate to portrait with either stand. Not even the obscenely overpriced optional stand.
I always did question their claim that it would be 'fixed' by a firmware update, but was prepared to be surprised.
Result: I am not surprised.
It's a hardware issue. It wasn't broken to start with, they were just taken by surprise by the sheer volume of reviews and buyers calling it out as crap in a display that costs as much as the base Mac Studio itself if you add a h/a stand.
And Centre Stage will always make it worse, it being the equivalent of a digital zoom.
(I see they've tried to circumvent that unavoidable issue by not having the camera zoom-in on you as far, so the interpolation has more pixels to use.)
In short, this 'fix' is something worthy of Del Boy himself.
Result: I am not surprised.
It's a hardware issue. It wasn't broken to start with, they were just taken by surprise by the sheer volume of reviews and buyers calling it out as crap in a display that costs as much as the base Mac Studio itself if you add a h/a stand.
And Centre Stage will always make it worse, it being the equivalent of a digital zoom.
(I see they've tried to circumvent that unavoidable issue by not having the camera zoom-in on you as far, so the interpolation has more pixels to use.)
In short, this 'fix' is something worthy of Del Boy himself.
Does anyone know when Apple will release the firmware update to patch the holes in your wall?
Actually it does automatically switch.
Set up and use Apple Studio Display - Apple Support
Learn how to set up and use your Studio Display with your Mac or iPad.
"If your Studio Display comes with a VESA mount adapter, you can mount it in landscape or portrait and macOS automatically adjusts window and display orientation."
It does automatically rotates to set the display in portrait mode. All ASDs, regardless the mount option, have an internal gyroscope. I run dual ASDs and one is set in portrait mode.
They adjusted the shadow curve, so the image has a little more contrast - amazing.
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Fair play I wasn't thinking about the vesa option.Actually it does automatically switch.
Set up and use Apple Studio Display - Apple Support
Learn how to set up and use your Studio Display with your Mac or iPad.support.apple.com
"If your Studio Display comes with a VESA mount adapter, you can mount it in landscape or portrait and macOS automatically adjusts window and display orientation."
With either of *Apple's* stands. It can rotate to portrait on a VESA mount and the display and camera will automatically adjust.
Better but still unacceptably bad for a $1600 display. Almost any halfway decent clip-on webcam is going to blow this thing away (I have an Anker C300 that is much, much sharper). We know the sensor is a good one capable of much better from its time inside iOS devices, so the only things left are the lens and the software and something has gone horribly wrong there. For one thing, Apple continues to be far too heavy-handed with the noise reduction.
Unfortunately it is deliberate and poor choice on Apple's part. The Ultra Wide camera on the front of this thing has a pretty poor sensor as it is, its not the kind of image you would want to zoom in on. But zooming in on this noisy 12 MP image is the exact behavior they use by default. That's how center stage works, by using a source image that is larger than what you display, and cropping/zooming it so you can pan around it as needed.
It's a worse camera than most front cameras before they even crop and zoom it. The cropped/zoomed image is then doubly worse. There is no fixing it. It is just a terrible choice for a desktop monitor.
Worth reading on this topic
9to5mac.com
Studio Display's poor webcam quality is not a software bug - 9to5Mac
Apple wants to improve the Studio Display webcam with a software update, but what causes the poor image quality goes beyond that.
9to5mac.com
this is right up there with 'you're holding it wrong'. Software can't fix hardware, and I'm still stunned that eve the fixed version made it through qa.
Given how poor the cameras have historically been on most Apple desktops and laptops in the past, I'm not overly surprised. However, I am nonetheless disappointed.
It’s quite amusing reading the comments. “Apple dropped the ball” etc etc. Apple knows that no one buys this monitor because it has a camera in it. It is for a targeted audience who will never use the camera for anything but maybe a quick video call. Your not buying a 1700 dollar monitor because you are working from home and have to be on video conferences all day. This monitor was built for video editing. They could have left the camera out and the people who bought it still would have bought it. They put a mediocre camera in it because that is really all it needed. If you really care how your zoom meetings look you buy an external camera. Apple knows exactly what they are doing. Put a inexpensive camera in a monitor and you can ad a feature (center stage) that a few will uses because it’s there. If it wasn’t there it’s not missed. Bottom line is no one returned this because the camera is mediocre the same way they didn’t buy it because it had a camera. If you want good web cam buy one.
Looks perfectly fine to me. Not sure what all the hubbub and pixel peeping is about. It's a web cam. You're not going to be recording professional videos or motion pictures with it, lol!
Well, then, it's final. No sale for me. Looking at a Dell monitor now.
That's interesting.
I could not disagree more.
For me, it's just the opposite for every single sentence of this posting.
Think as always, it depends - on the use cases, priorities etc.
Same as with Android vs. iOS, macOS vs. Linux vs. Windows - there is no universal "truth" to be found here.
Some care quite a lot about the quality of the internal webcam, for them this webcam is a huge disappointment, especially after how it was advertised / introduced.
Some don't care at all - for them it's nothing.
What it means - or doesn't mean - to Apple in the end will be decided by sales figures, not by opinions.
Is anyone surprised the webcam is not good? You are buying a low end budget Apple device, you get what you pay for!
I swear, sometimes I can't tell... obviously.
I guess I was biased by the posts in the Mac Studio thread before saying (in all seriousness) that a $1999 Mac Studio wasn't that much more than the $1299 for the high end Mac mini.