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Not true, fortunately! The LG 34UC98 has a thunderbolt 2 connectivity, works as a dock, has speakers, etc. However, thunderbolt monitors are hard to find outside of LG and Apple. As in, impossible! As an owner of both, I love the convenience.
Still no built in iSight camera, ethernet port, or Magsafe charging cable like the TBD. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, the TBD is getting long in the tooth to be sure, but there still is no comparable replacement.
 
I think it is kind of cool that people are hoping for what is essential the return of the DuoDock. Easy docking of your portable to a monitor and with added horsepower when working stationary.

Apple killed it off in 1995, the "discrete" floating point unit and nubus ports apparently weren't good enough selling points. OTOH, the Powerbook duos were possibly one of the worst machines ever, so no easy docking solution could save them.
 
Apple, maybe we judged too quickly, because this sounds kind of cool. Just release it already and stop leaving us hanging! And the Mac Pro too! (And preferably a larger, user-upgradeable Mac Pro!)

Apple's MO has been "thinner and thinner". It will not turn things around. Enough years have gone by, though that doesn't mean I won't be pleasantly surprised if positive change happens.

I find it more interesting how many review sites don't bother publishing temperatures taken during Mac benchmark tests anymore. Thinner means less space for heatpipes and heatsinks, the chassis is not being used AS a huge and glorified heatsink and few customers would want it that way, newer models radiate so much heat they're uncomfortable to sit around, and even the shiny black Pro model released 3 years ago also got into the mid-90s under load (which is not good, just because a CPU is designed to withstand a temperature does not mean it is made to run under it for constant use. Otherwise all the people Intel CPU-based forums with people clearly less educated on the subject and the laws of physics and fabrication processes in general would not be whining over 75C being too hot for sustained use). There's your environmental landfill waste right there. Planned obsolescence, for those who need a computer for anything more than webpage surfing. Heck, the number of issues I've seen since 2009, they should fire an engineer and hire me in his or her place. The number of gaffes are incredible for being "superior engineering". Right down to the most hilarious of them all, a 2011 MBP where - despite having identical chips and configuration* the 17" model outperformed the 15" model in virtually all cases (higher screen rez in the 17 being the only reason for additional drag). But how, you ask? Since the power supply brick was incapable of handling the power requirement (85W being insufficient, the laptop needed closer to 97W, which also renders the power brick getting extremely hot to the touch), the 17" model had a larger battery. Where the 15" model throttled, the 17" didn't as badly. And somehow the people who did this testing were surprised?!
 
I think it is kind of cool that people are hoping for what is essential the return of the DuoDock. Easy docking of your portable to a monitor and with added horsepower when working stationary.

Apple killed it off in 1995, the "discrete" floating point unit and nubus ports apparently weren't good enough selling points. OTOH, the Powerbook duos were possibly one of the worst machines ever, so no easy docking solution could save them.

The Duos were quite popular when they were released, and pretty capable Macs. Not sure where you're getting that they were the worst machines ever.

Apple didn't discontinue the 2300c until 1997, by which time the G3 was making MacBooks more powerful than they had been when the Duo was introduced, and in a comperbale size. The 2300 was definitely the worst of the Duo line relative to the benefits, it was a crippled G3 device, primarily due to Apple most likely having hit a crossroads between investing in redesigning the Duo line from scratch, and moving ahead in the most practical and economic way during a period when it was struggling to sell its dizzying array of products. Steve Jobs came in and cancelled the Duo, along with much of the rest of the product line, and was shown the road map which led to the iMac a year later. USB was clearly going to make the typical MacBook's expansion capabilities far better than even the DuoDock had in its prime. But Apple also exited the sub-notebook market for many years after simplifying its product line to cater to the mainstream laptop market.

Now the drive is again toward sub notebooks as our society becomes increasingly mobile, without sacrificing the powerful features customers have become accustomed to with the Intel MacBooks. I would suggest that Apple would be better off if they eliminated desktops entirely from their lineup, one only sold MacBooks, with the ability to expand to full desktop capabilities. At some point, the ultimate device would be to carry around an iPhone which is everyone's main computer, backed up to the cloud, and expandable to tablet, laptop or desktop use by merely adding the appropriate display hub.
 
If I remember the history on this, the idea of putting a GPU in the display came from some guy on Twitter just brainstorming.

he's not the first person to come up with the idea.

external GPUs or other processors have been talked about since before thunderbolt arrived on the mac.

putting it in the monitor as an all in one dock is a no brainer (from the perspective of a company/end user who writes off hardware after 3-5 years).
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At some point, the ultimate device would be to carry around an iPhone which is everyone's main computer, backed up to the cloud, and expandable to tablet, laptop or desktop use by merely adding the appropriate display hub.

Seriously, with a few changes to iOS i could do most of my day job on an iPhone hooked up to a display via an AppleTV with wireless keyboard and MOUSE or TRACKPAD (neither of which currently work in iOS, and keyboard support is a bit incomplete last i checked - i did try doing VGA adapter out of an iPad into a monitor with a keyboard for a week and it was just a bit clumsy. that was 3 years ago though, probably better now).

Give me an iPhone with trackpad support, inductive charging and wireless display/peripherals.

I can get to work, plop it on the desk, and start working (VDI desktop running off our cluster or Amazon or whatever would work today. An iPad pro would be powerful enough to run standalone today. Next year's or year after's iPhone will probably have similar power). I pick it up and go home. All my work is stored on iCloud or in a private cloud server.

The technology is all there already, someone just needs to join the dots.

That Microsoft or Apple haven't done this already is a bit of a joke really.

Maybe apple need to offer a Mac in the iCloud for iOS users to establish remote sessions to....
 
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I don't know whether it is true or not. But Apple could have a 5K (or better) monitor in the works that will only be compatible with upcoming MBPs. The message to current owners is the same: Go third party. The market for the new monitors won't exist until Apple begins selling the new MBP.

Also, the new monitor might include in its hub a lightning port (for plugging in headphones).
Still, not a fortunate phrasing. If they have a TBD in the works that will only work with new Macs, then telling current users to go 3rd party will make them less likely to buy the new Macs (and new TBD display) when they launch. If I was to invest $500 or more on a new display I won't be buying anything a new set-up for the next couple of years :)
 
The technology is all there already, someone just needs to join the dots.

That Microsoft or Apple haven't done this already is a bit of a joke really.

Maybe apple need to offer a Mac in the iCloud for iOS users to establish remote sessions to....

I think the sad reality is, that Apple needs to sell as many products as possible, and a main reason why they stopped selling the Duo. Why should Apple only sell me an iPhone and a monitor if they can sell me a watch, iphone, ipad, macbook, iMac, pro, display and TV?

There are already VPN apps that allow running Windows over iOS, so Apple could absolutely offer a similar solution. But it seems very un-Apple like, and again, cuts into their MacBook business. Until the macOS is more optimized for touch, then we probably won't see it from Apple.
 
There are already VPN apps that allow running Windows over iOS, so Apple could absolutely offer a similar solution. But it seems very un-Apple like, and again, cuts into their MacBook business. Until the macOS is more optimized for touch, then we probably won't see it from Apple.

Have done it before (VMware View VDI desktop), and no, i do not want macOS optimised for touch.

I want trackpad support in iOS :D
 
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This, IMO, isn't really quite true.

For one thing, the dual graphics cards in the nMP are usable in Crossfire mode in Windows, meaning perfectly useful for all of the Windows gaming people might want to do on it.

As for being "out of date at launch time" -- when hasn't that been the case with ANYTHING from Apple? Every single Mac Pro they sold came with graphics cards that weren't the latest models from their respective manufacturers.
I think you can chalk some of that up to Apple being more concerned with easy availability of the components in sufficient quantities at launch date, plus a desire to cut costs a little bit. (The latest and greatest GPU always commands a big price premium that disappears in 6 months to a year after it's released.)

While you can crossfire the cards in the Mac Pro only in Windows, the cards themselves are still fairly old by today's standards. The D300 which is default in the lowest Mac Pro was the equivalent of a Radeon 7870. Even in crossfire are behind most current single GPU setups and considered very slow by today's standards.

Which is all good and well, except that they'll still have to provide enough GPU for all the users that don't use the Thunderbolt Display.

Most IGPUs have enough power to render your desktop and its apps in 5k. It's once you start doing gaming and rendering that you want the added power.
 
You can count on the Upcoming Mac to have at least 2 USB-C only ports, that's due a simple technical convenience, you cant reliable boot an USB Recovery from Thunderbolt, you need and actual USB compliant port

A Thunderbolt 3 port is an actual USB compliant port. The Intel TB3 controller includes a USB 3.1 controller. If you plug a USB device into the port, Thunderbolt isn't used.

tb3-02.png

(Image from http://www.anandtech.com/show/10248/thunderbolt-3-in-action-akitio-thunder3-duo-pro-das-review/2)
 
A Thunderbolt 3 port is an actual USB compliant port. The Intel TB3 controller includes a USB 3.1 controller. If you plug a USB device into the port, Thunderbolt isn't used.
In theory, but if you define a system you have to safeguard on "theory" a double down is to keep things as simple as possible as less troubles you'll have, it's safe to assume next gen Mac with TB3 will include a mix of TB3 and USB-C only ports, as much as 2 TB3 on notebooks/non HEDT desktops, and upto 6 TB3 on HEDT/Xeon Desktops, also is safe to assume USB-C non-TB3 ports on upcoming Macs with dGPU on board (AMD Polaris) will be at least DP1.3 enabled with DP1.4 as technical possibility.
 
The Duos were quite popular when they were released, and pretty capable Macs. Not sure where you're getting that they were the worst machines ever.

Semi-personal experience. 2 colleagues manage to persuade management to get duos with duo dock station. The machines did nothing but crash. If I recall correctly a lot of crashes upon sliding the duo into the dock and/or upon ejecting them. But I didn't have one on my own so they might have been very nice machines in between though.
And you are right, it was in jan. 1997 it was finally cancelled. I missed they replaced the Duo Dock with a Duo Dock plus (without the FPU!) in 1995. By then we had moved on to clones.


I agree the idea is excellent and the time definitely has come for the rebirth. I just wonder if this is in the cards. Apple seems focused on the sync concept - they are building an environment where you are supposed to own one device of every sort and then sync them. To me this makes it unlikely thay will do a 180 and suddenly support the idea of having one extremely portable computer with a very competent docking station.
 
The only reason I have not purchased a thunderbolt display in the past is its differing look to my iMac, I would love to have a second screen, but only if it too had the same design.
 
I think most of you guys are looking at it the wrong way. The GPU assist in the display will not be obsolete as it won't act as GPU. The calculation for any scene will still be calculated on the GPU on your computer and the GPU in the display will only be used to DISPLAY those pixels. So I assume that the GPU on the computer will calculate the scene and sends the data to the display which will just use the power in the GPU to display those pixels. There might be some crunching and "packaging" but the display won't be like a real GPU. So those of you asking for NVIDIA 1080 and all other crap please realise that this will not work like that. Think of it as display with a chip that helps showing the pixels and forget the GPU label. That way its easier to not get confused. :D
 
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If this is true, Apple really fumbled here. Why say there are many good options on the market? How about be patient until fall and a new display may be available???

Spot on and further evidence that the Apple is riddled with non-computer men who can only trade in spin and image. The world of computers travels fast and Apple is now fumbling in the wake of Windows machines causing not a few to swap platforms. I am looking at my iMac sitting dead as a doornail eaten up from inside by its own failure to keep cool and remembering taking a vacuum to my 10 year old PC and giving it a good old clear out whenever the dust built up.

Plus this will take our attention from the fact that the Apple car project has gone down the pooper.
 
All this rumored Apple display talk is interesting and gets everyone's hope up, but hasn't anyone thought that this post from Macrumors is to simply create forum activity and nothing more? Afterall, higher forum activity means higher advertising rate, means more money.

After Apple's announcement of discontinuing thunderbolt display, I imagine a lot of Apple fans waiting for it said F Apple and moved on.

Logically, if Apple is releasing another display, it makes no sense for them to recommend their customers to "buy something else" from another company. At the very least, Apple would say nothing, then release a next-gen display.

Apple has in the past recommended Dell display and never released a new display. It has been at least 2 years since, and now they are recommending other displays but their own. If their past and present is an indication of the future, Apple is more intersted in catering to 13-year-olds with emoji and pink colors than they are in professional computing.

This is what happens when you let a guy specialized in economics be in charged of a company originally known for their products.
 
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If they put in a doublewide slot for off-the-shelf GPUs, that would be ideal. However, that is very unlikely for Apple, as it would require a lot of internal space.
 
he's not the first person to come up with the idea.

external GPUs or other processors have been talked about since before thunderbolt arrived on the mac.

putting it in the monitor as an all in one dock is a no brainer (from the perspective of a company/end user who writes off hardware after 3-5 years).
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Seriously, with a few changes to iOS i could do most of my day job on an iPhone hooked up to a display via an AppleTV with wireless keyboard and MOUSE or TRACKPAD (neither of which currently work in iOS, and keyboard support is a bit incomplete last i checked - i did try doing VGA adapter out of an iPad into a monitor with a keyboard for a week and it was just a bit clumsy. that was 3 years ago though, probably better now).

Give me an iPhone with trackpad support, inductive charging and wireless display/peripherals.

I can get to work, plop it on the desk, and start working (VDI desktop running off our cluster or Amazon or whatever would work today. An iPad pro would be powerful enough to run standalone today. Next year's or year after's iPhone will probably have similar power). I pick it up and go home. All my work is stored on iCloud or in a private cloud server.

The technology is all there already, someone just needs to join the dots.

That Microsoft or Apple haven't done this already is a bit of a joke really.

Maybe apple need to offer a Mac in the iCloud for iOS users to establish remote sessions to....
Just a note. Ms has done that with Continuum in Win Mobile 10. It just wasn't enough to save that OS.


Unless the GPU is in MXM format, I think embedding one is a poor idea.
 
Unless the GPU is in MXM format, I think embedding one is a poor idea.
Not just the Update issue, the biggest drawback is that when on external GPU you cant use the internal GPU, so an iMac 5K or an Macbook Pro 16 with onboard dGPU should shut off this to work on the external one at PCIe 4x speed instead 8-16X Speed on the internal dGPU, it makes sense only for dGPU-less Macs as the Mini and Base Macbook Pros, but no other mac can benefit from an external GPU.

Further this is not just an Thunderbolt issue, is an PC Platform issue, the same problem why you can combine IrisPro GPU at the same Time as AMD Radeon on an iMac, you have to use one of those but not both.

Personally I Think Packowsky sources are totally wrong, what Apple should be reading its just a Simple Thunderbolt3 Display w/o eGPU (one leak also suggest it to be 4K/21") or a 5K USB-C display on DisplayPort 1.3 thru USB-C only ports ( USB-C still support DP 1.3 and 1.4 and muxers chipset are available since feb for DP 1.4 for DP 1.3 since september, so is safe to assume next Mac will support DP1.3 on Non Thunderbolt3 mode -which is restricted to DP 1.2).

A 5K USB-C/DP1.3 display dont need MST and still can be loaded with Webcam, USB and speakers (no lan neither TB ports)
 
If it were as easy as this sounds, and the instructions to render the data is small relative to rendering the data itself on the MacBook, than why wouldn't a display like this already exist? Seems like a no brainer, and in theory you wouldn't even need Thunderbolt 3 on the MacBook if it's just transferring instructions.:confused:
It seems like Apple has been caught waiting for all the bits of technology to sync up without having to resort to displays that require two video cables. Has this scenario existed before where the display tech is beyond some of the other components?
 
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