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Newer Macs Can Use Another Mac as an External Display on macOS Monterey
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So basically only two iMac ranges can use it... what an absolute joke.
Any 5k iMac from 2014 can't be used so are essentially trash going forward.
How many people bought the 2019/20 iMac? Probably not a huge amount vs the 14-17.
If I can use a 2nd gen Apple TV from 2010 to airplay my m1 to why could you use a 2014-19 iMac. Just makes the screens in those devices useless. Especially if you could use a cable.
Any 5k iMac from 2014 can't be used so are essentially trash going forward.
How many people bought the 2019/20 iMac? Probably not a huge amount vs the 14-17.
If I can use a 2nd gen Apple TV from 2010 to airplay my m1 to why could you use a 2014-19 iMac. Just makes the screens in those devices useless. Especially if you could use a cable.
If this feature works fine, I’d keep my 2020 iMac as a display when upgrading to an M2/M3 iMac.
Have you already tried it?
I hope the latency is negligible when connected with a cable.
Even with Target Display Mode you couldn’t switch of the iMac (104W cpu idle) and only use it as a display. Now at least the M1 runs super cool (10W) and is as thin as a real display.
When my office went remote, we were all buying external monitors to complement our work-issued laptops.
Then, when the new iMacs came out, my first thought was: I wonder if I can use this as an external monitor for my work laptop by day and as a stand-alone personal computer by night?
Is this a step in that direction? Sounds like it. But will it be good enough? Sounds like maybe not. We’ll have to see.
Then, when the new iMacs came out, my first thought was: I wonder if I can use this as an external monitor for my work laptop by day and as a stand-alone personal computer by night?
Is this a step in that direction? Sounds like it. But will it be good enough? Sounds like maybe not. We’ll have to see.
So a possible scenario that surely someone will do is to buy two iMacs to use the second one as a display (because apple doesn't make one).
Surely the next step would be to allow the primary Mac to make use of the compute resources available in the secondary Mac? In the hypothetical scenario described above, the secondary iMac would have a whole M1 sitting there not really doing anything. Come on Apple, why not make use of it?
Surely the next step would be to allow the primary Mac to make use of the compute resources available in the secondary Mac? In the hypothetical scenario described above, the secondary iMac would have a whole M1 sitting there not really doing anything. Come on Apple, why not make use of it?
This looks very cool and potentially super useful. I am interested too to see the latency over WiFi and if it’s truly without latency wired. It would be great if this worked like target display mode to the point of using a MacBook Pro closed lid with an iMac.
We'll have to wait and see how good it is - generally, though, these sorts of USB/network-based display sharing systems introduce lag and compression artefacts, which you might not notice when watching a movie, but would if you're working with screens of text and vector graphics, dragging windows, moving mouse cursors etc. That's not to say that they can't be incredibly useful if you've got a spare Mac knocking around - but there's a way to go between that and becoming the major justification for buying a new $1300 iMac, when you can get a half-decent 4k display for a fraction of that price. My gut feeling is that the quality drop due to Airplay would negate any quality differences between the iMac 4.5k monitor and a $500 4k one. Still - if Airplay can take full advantage of a TB3 link maybe it will be surprisingly good...
What it may be a better argument for is keeping an old Intel Mac around, doubling as a second display and a way of running any Intel software you need, such as Windows/x86 Linux virtual machines. That assumes that the compatibility problem really is caused by Apple Silicon and not just Big Sur/Monterey...
Apple used to have just the thing - Xgrid - but they dropped it years ago. However, there are third-party ways of doing similar things, sometimes application-specific, and even without fancy distributed computing apps there are plenty of cases where you could just kick off something like a video transcode on one machine while you got on with work on the other.
Would rather a standalone monitor. The 32" 4K/5K segment is disappointing.
Seems like a great solution for people who have multiple computers hanging around but I think having several good external monitors is probably a better and more cost effective solution. I might find it useful while traveling though -- as I have never traveled with a portable external monitor before.
I agree.
I've got a 2015 iMac with a great display. I would buy a Mac Mini tomorrow if I could use the iMac display. Maybe I'd be n the market for a hi-spec iPad too. There are various minor issues with the iMac, and I'd like to upgrade, but I'm not going to be rushed.
Is there a specific 'hardware' reason why this ability to use the screens is limited to stuff from the last 3 years?
That would be a severe waste of your Playstation capabilities & Playstation doesn't do well with unorthdox screen resolutions having both a PS5 & Series X.
With the money an iMac costs, you're better served getting a HDMI 2.1 Dolby Vision HDR LG 4K OLED.
The bigger issue is that monitor manufacturers are so behind Apple in high-DPI panels that anyone would consider target display for an iMac vs. getting a monitor.
While having a Pro Display XDR, I'm well aware it's certainly not an option for everyday people. Asus's HDR16000 4K PA32UCG monitor is nowhere to be found; no one seems to be shipping 32" 6K+ monitors at scale with modern I/O to compete with the Pro Display XDR or iMac panels in PPI.
Really sad state of affairs.
Apple deliberately has a 6K 32" Pro Display XDR for optimal PPI aligning with their standard on retina displays on all their other panels; they would maybe consider a 27" equivalent–or just wait for economies of scale to lower the price of the Pro Display XDR (maybe update it to have more zones & add better I/O like USB4, Displayport 2.0, &/or HDMI 2.1).
It's a far-fetched dream of mine, but maybe they or someone else creates a 6K ultra-wide equivalent to upgrade my Pro Display XDR / LG True 4K UHD Ultrawide combo. Probably unfeasible until USB4 / Displayport 1.4 / HDMI 2.1 to have all the mainstream options available for such a panel.
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I think you've missed the situation. - I already have an iMac. I want to have this iMac. I do not have a TV or any other display. I do not really have space or want to acquire other monitors. I like my iMac's display. I also currently don't have a PlayStation but if I could connect it to my iMac's display and have that work well I might get one. Or an Xbox or whatever. But I have no desire for more displays
Ah, I see. Yeah, that's a tough situation. Why I"m not a fan of all-in ones honestly; if I have any desire of connecting anything to a panel, all-in-ones are immediately off the table vs panel + mini/mac pro/PC/etc.
That’s what I think, yes. Because of that…
I believe it’s done via real-time HEVC encoding. This would be a problem on an older machine for real-time 5K.
Well there's not much to imagine really.
I use a work windows laptop to broadcast via Adobe Connect, and when I share my screen, I share from my iPad via Airserver as opposed to a window on the laptop that would otherwise be running PDF Annotator. I far prefer using PDF Editor and the Apple Pencil.
I'm typically highlighting text from a manual, and drawing company structures etc. The connection between the iPad and the work laptop is wifi and its pretty robust with minimal, if any, lag. Perfect for what I use it for.
I have on occasion due to windows issues had to switch to using my late 2013 13 inch MBP and I have air server on there as well, and so my work process is exactly the same.
I have tried using sidecar, so that I could use the Mac version of PDF Editor and have that on the iPad screen but it just doesn't work as well as using the native iOS App.