iFixit Teardown: Studio Display Features iMac-Like Internal Setup

[Cashmonee]

I do find it humorous that “too much performance” is seen as a negative, though. With few other things to complain about, though, I guess that’s where we are!

You are taking what I am saying and twisting it. More performance is great! My issue is that the iMac was intended to be a computer for normal people who are not churning through terabytes of video files. The 27" was for those who mostly had some money to burn and wanted a larger screen with the potential of something with a little more power. Currently, they are telling those people they either downsize to the 24" or pay for something they do not need or even want. They have created a hole in the lineup and are forcing people to downsize, upsize, or leave macOS. That sucks and I don't think highlighting it is complaining. I see it as far more reasonable than defending a company who is gouging you, but different strokes!

Also, I disagree with your statement on power. It has been within the last 10 years that we have started to see machines that are far more powerful than people need. This really mostly coincided with the adoption of SSDs, but also with power consumption-conscious chips. 2015 or so seems the cutoff in my mind, though you could argue as far back as maybe 2012/13. If you have a computer from that era, it probably feels relatively snappy for most tasks.

 

[turbineseaplane]

There’s no good reason not to have a 27 or 30 inch M1 based iMac

We have the same problem with the MacBook Air.

Larger screen sizes are desired by people that don’t necessarily need lots of computing power

One would think we would know this already just based on iPhones and everybody being obsessed with huge ones, regardless of what they do with the phones

 

[Unregistered 4U]

You are taking what I am saying and twisting it.

No, I had responded to someone that said the performance is wasted. And, performance being wasted has been true for many users for awhile. There are folks on this forum now that state they’re doing just fine holding on to their 2012 and earlier systems as they wait for something new… and this board is mostly enthusiasts. If the enthusiasts are good with 10 year old systems, then those that have far less extensive experience and performance requirements are certainly happy using even older systems. Enthusiasts were likely excited about the speed of SSD for all the many ways they used their computers… but, for your average person, a file that copied in 2 seconds opposed to 4 seconds doesn’t even register as a concern (if they even had files large enough to take that much time to copy in the first place!

My issue is that the iMac was intended to be a computer for normal people who are not churning through terabytes of video files.

The computer for normal people not churning through terabytes of data is a laptop of some kind. And, the numbers bear that out, the vast majority of normal people value being able to compute wherever they may happen to be, whether it’s in the home office, on the couch or on vacation. Folks that want anything not mobile are already outside of the group that would be considered “normal people” in today’s market.

 

[FrozenDarkness]

i don't understand why customers paying $1600 for a monitor needs to settle for a front selfie camera from the iphone 11.

seems a bit ridiculous. There's no spacing concerns. how much more could a better webcam cost?

 

[MpPierce]

Any chance of getting a 5K "X-Ray" wallpaper out of this?

 

[CWallace]

i don't understand why customers paying $1600 for a monitor needs to settle for a front selfie camera from the iphone 11.

seems a bit ridiculous. There's no spacing concerns. how much more could a better webcam cost?

Compared to the webcams Apple puts in their other Macs (iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro), the front camera from the iPhone 11 is a marked step up so the ASD actually has the best camera ever put in a Mac from a raw specification standpoint.

The issue appears to be the Center Stage functionality, since that has to crop the image and the distance from the camera when seated before the ASD is likely a fair bit farther than holding up an iPhone or iPad to one's face and that appears to be a factor in how poor many people perceive the image quality - even when compared to Center Stage on an iPad Pro or iPad Air.

If Apple had omitted Center Stage and just let it be a webcam, people would almost certainly have been raving how awesome it was and complaining why it was not in the rest of the Mac lineup.

 

[ric22]

Compared to the webcams Apple puts in their other Macs (iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro), the front camera from the iPhone 11 is a marked step up so the ASD actually has the best camera ever put in a Mac from a raw specification standpoint.

The issue appears to be the Center Stage functionality, since that has to crop the image and the distance from the camera when seated before the ASD is likely a fair bit farther than holding up an iPhone or iPad to one's face and that appears to be a factor in how poor many people perceive the image quality - even when compared to Center Stage on an iPad Pro or iPad Air.

If Apple had omitted Center Stage and just let it be a webcam, people would almost certainly have been raving how awesome it was and complaining why it was not in the rest of the Mac lineup.

Didn't the reviews say the webcam was equally as poor with centre stage disabled?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Perhaps they should have put two webcams in?

One just for center stage (and optimized for that usage with a particular lens) and a more normal one dialed in for highest quality in the sweet spot where a seated user would tend to be.

If only there were space to do that in a first party clean sheet design, premium priced, standalone monitor

If only...

 

[SlaveToSwift]

Except you are paying for performance you do not need. Most users, especially those that bought iMacs, are running single thread processes. They do not need the multi-core capabilities of an M1 Pro, Max, or Ultra. For the vast majority of users, there will be little performance increase but there is now a giant price increase. Even an M1 mini + Studio Display is pretty pricey compared to the old base model iMac. And while the performance if the two in synthetic benchmarks may look drastically different, that is not necessarily playing out in real-world use. This is especially true for the person who is interested in a base model or slightly above 27" iMac.

So yeah, you are getting a more powerful machine. The issue is that the vast majority have no use for that power but are now stuck paying for it.

Everyone needs multicore performance. Most apps take advantage of multiple cores and the OS takes advantage of multiple cores all the time. If your needs are really that simple, guess what, now you can get a 24 inch iMac for only $1300 that will fit your needs just as well as the old $1800 27 inch!

And if anything, real world performance has been shown to be even greater than the benchmarks predicted if you are doing any kind of graphics work.

 

[SlaveToSwift]

Why not just make it an iMac.

Why would Apple sell a 24 inch iMac and a 27 inch iMac? Previously there was a huge difference in size (and cost) between 21.5 and 27 inches that made it easy to differentiate with customers.

If Apple wants to bring back a larger iMac they should bump it to 30 inches with a 5.5K display. That would be a huge improvement (along with being lighter, cooler and thinner than the old 27 inch Intel) that would justify a separate SKU.

 

[Cashmonee]

Everyone needs multicore performance. Most apps take advantage of multiple cores and the OS takes advantage of multiple cores all the time. If your needs are really that simple, guess what, now you can get a 24 inch iMac for only $1300 that will fit your needs just as well as the old $1800 27 inch!

And if anything, real world performance has been shown to be even greater than the benchmarks predicted if you are doing any kind of graphics work.

The vast majority of users would not be able to tell the difference between an M1 and an M1 Ultra. Each of the cores in all of the chips run about the same. The difference is in the number of them. For most people, they simply do not use the extra cores present (whether they are performance, efficiency, GPU, etc.). By not offering a 27" iMac in the under $2k range for those, Apple has created a hole in their lineup that didn't exist before. Having a 24" iMac does not fill that. Not really sure why you would think it did...

 

[FrozenDarkness]

The vast majority of users would not be able to tell the difference between an M1 and an M1 Ultra. Each of the cores in all of the chips run about the same. The difference is in the number of them. For most people, they simply do not use the extra cores present (whether they are performance, efficiency, GPU, etc.). By not offering a 27" iMac in the under $2k range for those, Apple has created a hole in their lineup that didn't exist before. Having a 24" iMac does not fill that. Not really sure why you would think it did...

I think this teardown answered this question pretty well. While this computer looks like an iMac, it can't function as one because the fans are all used to cool down the internal power supply. Apple might not have been able to easily put in a M1 chip and have it run within thermal constraints.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

By not offering a 27" iMac in the under $2k range for those, Apple has created a hole in their lineup that didn't exist before.

It’s a fairly small hole, considering how many desktops they sell at all. If it was a hole in their MOBILE line up, that’d be a big deal. For desktop, not so much.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I think this teardown answered this question pretty well. While this computer looks like an iMac, it can't function as one because the fans are all used to cool down the internal power supply. Apple might not have been able to easily put in a M1 chip and have it run within thermal constraints.

?

We've had internal power supply iMacs forever -- with far less efficient and hotter running Intel chips inside.

The M1 was not going to be a problem. Those are running inside fanless MacBook Airs!

 

[FrozenDarkness]

?

We've had internal power supply iMacs forever -- with far less efficient and hotter running Intel chips inside.

The M1 was not going to be a problem. Those are running inside fanless MacBook Airs!

I'm not an engineer i'm just going off of what the ifixit team discovered.

You can explain away those or they can also be technical limitations. iMacs are much thicker to account for the components. yea you can cool macbook airs, but then it also doesn't have a power supply inside of it. power supplies are much hotter than a chip. and you need to fit in components

can apple have done this, of course they could have. they clearly didn't prioritize it though

so i'm just saying, it's not like apple can just flip the switch put an m1 in and call it a day. they clearly didn't prioritize building a imac from the start.

 

[turbineseaplane]

can apple have done this, of course they could have.

Correct

 

[not_anton]

Can Apple use A13 in the display to offload rendering from the computer, and have a wireless 5K display?
I tried AirPlay display over WiFi at 5K, and get about 5 fps. API draw calls from laptop to A13 inside the display should take way less bandwidth, and make it viable.

 

[ric22]

Correct

Yep. In the future this could become an iMac, should they wish, incredibly easily. The power supply will likely run nice and cool with those fans- it would hurt the life expectancy of the display if it ran hot.

Edit: No, I'm not suggesting an Ultra could fit in there, not without a remarkable bit of engineering, but all the other, cooler, M1 chips should be fine, with the proper heat sink and vents.

 

[MauiPa]

All of that power for… what exactly?

All snark aside, it is significantly brighter than competition (oh that takes power) it has audio amplifiers (oh that takes power). Just guessing but that seems more informative

 

[MauiPa]

lmao

Would we ever expect Apple to say: "it's the same panel we used in our iMacs and very similar to the one in the LG Ultrafine 5k"

Of course not, especially if it wasn’t. It is way brighter for one thing

 

[MauiPa]

And I just don't understand why they didn't..

And we could absolutely bring back TD mode now also, as technology caught up and we have the ports, cables, standards, DSC, etc, to do that again.

It'd be really really refreshing for Apple to make some design and implementation choices that benefit consumers a bit more. Big expensive monitors should have more flexibility than this.

I know right, they should make it way brighter than competition add great speakers for spatial audio and stuff and fancy camera stuff (even if there is a current camera glitch). I do wonder why no internal wifi so it could do airplay2 and all that processing power and storage that is not fully explained. Maybe they could make a mediocre display that is only 4k and not very bright like Samsungs

And maybe buyers could make their decisions on what they want to buy

 

[MauiPa]

They could have easily shoved in the insides of a mac mini in there and charged $2,000 for it. And make it like you said where you can 'switch inputs' that would have been a GREAT purchase for $2k.....as I can't say the same about the current display

Kinda like a 27 inch version of the 24 inch iMac, but mor money? brilliant!

 

[theluggage]

The M1 was not going to be a problem. Those are running inside fanless MacBook Airs!

But would an M1 be enough power for a 27" iMac replacement? It would be no more powerful than the 24" - so the question would be whether enough customers just wanted a bigger version of the 24" iMac.

The M1 Max (definitely) and M1 Pro (probably) would need active cooling - and probably with a cooler or heat-pipe mounted on the SoC (the ASD fans are nowhere near the A13 SoC).

The "missing iMacs" are really the $2300 and below i5/i7 models for which the obvious upgrade would be an M1 Pro, and it always felt like a bargain to get a 5k display thrown in at that price. If you have a high-end i9/5700/XT iMac with 32GB+ RAM (or it's historical equivalent) you paid a similar price for that as you would for a Mac Studio Max/Apple Display combo today.

Also - we have the (regular) M2 possibly coming real soon now, rumoured to have significantly better single core performance, an extra GPU core (and maybe a 32GB RAM option). While the M1 Max & Ultra should still have a comfortable lead over the (regular) M2 and not be threatened until the M2 equivalent of pro/max/ultra come out... even the regular M2 is likely to give the M1 Pro - especially the cheaper 'binned' versions - a run for its money.

So, while I don't think a new 27" iMac is very likely at all it really wouldn't make sense to release either a M1 Pro iMac or M1 Pro Mini this late in the M1 Pro's lifecycle. It's not brilliant that the M1 Max Studio was so late (c.f. the M1 Max MBP) - but I guess it was being held back so it could launch alongside the Ultra version.

 

[UK-MacAddict]

Lol as predicted it uses the exact same
display as the iMac 5K which is now at least 5-6 years old.

The £1499 price tag is looking even more ridiculous now.

 

[UK-MacAddict]

lmao

Would we ever expect Apple to say: "it's the same panel we used in our iMacs and very similar to the one in the LG Ultrafine 5k"

Had people condemning me for slating this monitor in a previous thread.

I’ve been proven right, they are rehashing the same display that has been in iMacs for the last 6 years and probably have huge economies of scale savings on.

They took away the iMac computer part and forgot to lower the price to go with that removal.

This is at best a £550-£700 monitor tops. No way near able to justify a £1499 pricing. To justify £1499 it needed to add HDR, 120Hz Pro Motion, the A15 bionic and the same front camera on the iPhone 13 Pro.