Retina 5K iMac Will Not Act as External Display, Standalone Apple 5K Display Unlikely Soon

[calaverasgrande]

Because Apple doesn't want to sell 10,000 monitors, they want to sell a million iMacs.

I'm pretty sure they have sold more than 10,000 new Mac Pros.
Demand was such when the NMP was released that people, like myself, who ordered on the 2nd day they were available, did not see product for 3 months or more.
There are doubtless hundreds of thousands if not millions of NMP owners that are shaking wads of cash at Apple.
"Take my money Tim!".
But I suppose they are making larger margins on iDevices these days.
Us mere computer users are an albatross.

 

[sabbyp]

I have a 15" rMBP for personal use and a 13" non-retina MBP for work, and I can't really tell the difference. I don't know if if I have bad eyesight, or just don't care. Meh.

However, the article says Thunderbolt 3 will support DisplayPort 1.3. Will it also support PCIe 3, or better yet, 4? As PCIe 3 supports 128b/130b encoding while PCIe is 8b/10b, we'd get far better throughput due to lower overhead (1.54% versus 20% overhead).

you might want to get your eyes checked, the difference in resolution & clarity between those two screens is huge.

 

[shabbasuraj]

As I have mentioned in many previous threads about the next display.... NO NEW DISPLAYS until mid 2015.

I win the internet.

 

[pocket3d]

As I have mentioned in many previous threads about the next display.... NO NEW DISPLAYS until mid 2015.

I win the internet.

Unless you address the question of IGZO ("oxide") production, you lose. These displays don't grow on trees.

 

[ElectronGuru]

In 3 years 8K will be "The standard"... and you'll see 4K monitors at the local recycling centre. When does all this madness end? Until someone told you all 4K would one day come, everyone was bedazzled and more than happy with 1080p. Unless you're a Pro photographer or movie editor YOU DO NOT need this level of insanity.

My napkin math shows:

4k = 8M pixels
5k = 15M pixels
6k = 24M pixels
7k = 35M pixels
8k = 48M pixels
9k = 63M pixels
10k = 80M pixels

Exponential pixel count growth will make each new 'K' that much harder to implement.

 

[calaverasgrande]

considering that netstreamers like netflix and hulu cant even sling 1080HD reliably. And cable broadcast giants like Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner give us compressed noisy crap that happens to fill a 1920 by 1080 screen and call that "HD".
Consider also that there is no 4k optical delivery media on the horizon.
I really can't see 4k having any use for consumers. It's just pixels for pixels sake. Maybe in a few years when the internet backbones ratchet up in speed. But with all the battles ovr net neutrality we are actually going in the opposite direction on that!

 

[CWallace]

Unfortunately, despite all its cash and resources, Apple cannot be bothered to simply update their 2011 TB display to match last year's 27 iMac display, which is much thinner, has 75% less glare (according to Apple), TB 2 and USB 3. This would be a simple, easy, and cheap update for apple. They have the display, case, and controllers in their warehouses!!

They probably also have current-model Thunderbolt Displays in their warehouses that they would have to liquidate as nobody would buy one if a new model using TB2 and the iMac casing shipped.

Or make a 4k display with the same features for its Mac Pro users that would display less resolution for its MacBook users.

Which would imply that the MacBook users would be at a non-native resolution, which could impact picture quality, making it not-attractive to them.

Or actually make two displays! Remember when Apple use to make multiple standalone displays? They did!

I believe they were often first-to-market (or close to it) in those days. Today, there is significant competition across most sizes and resolutions.

 

[aggri1]

My napkin math shows:
4k = 8M pixels
...
10k = 80M pixels
Exponential pixel count growth will make each new 'K' that much harder to implement.

I think it's quadratic, not exponential.

 

[willcapellaro]

Why not just boot from target disk mode?

They would have no reason to nerf TDM.

Crisis averted, for mortals who never go above quad core.

 

[lbotez]

For my Mac Pro I went with a 24" Dell UP2414Q 4k display. 4k at larger sizes than 24" is just awkward: pixels too big to use at 2x, too small for 1x. But this Dell is just the right size to be a Retina display that works TODAY.

It looks terrific! And it has nice scaling options just like a retina MacBook Pro. No software to install--Apple supports this model specifically with scaling options not found on larger 4k displays.

However... you get what you pay for with Dell. Styling-wise this is not Dell's worst (clearly imitating the 2007 black-and-aluminum iMac design), but it is NOT close to Apple's display standards:

- No camera, no mic, no speakers, no Thunderbolt hub, audio ports, Ethernet, etc.; no powered USB, just an unpowered USB hub that loses power when the display isn't on.

- No option to adjust brightness automatically with an ambient light sensor. (Didn't realize how much I'd miss that.)

- Won't reliably wake from sleep!! And when it does wake, sometimes you get only half the screen. Keep trying.

- A few little bits of hair or dust between the layers. Looks like dead pixels, but it's not.

- Cheap painted silver plastic, combined with a few not-quite-matching thin panels of real aluminum.

- Gaps and cracks and creaks and flexes. Just feels cheap.

- Awkward touch controls that don't always work. Sometimes you have to press hard. Simply adjusting the brightness is a pain.

- Unreliable sensor that makes the controls' lights blink annoyingly.

- No protective glass--and thus risky and difficult to clean, and easy to bash with a box corner.

- Can't respond to the brightness keys on my keyboard.

- Shipped at an awful 30Hz and took research and hoop-jumping to enable 60Hz.

- Good warranty that might help with some of the above... except it's unbearably painful to deal with their support staff. Good luck with that.

- No magsafe to power your Mac laptop. This is not a dock for a MacBook the way Apple displays can function; but that's OK with a Mac Pro.

- Not a great black level, and uneven glowing backlight bleed around the edges when viewing dark images. Viewing angle is OK, not great.

- Generates a TON of heat! Ouch! My electric bill!

- Sits on a permanent, very slight diagonal in landscape (normal) mode: the portrait–landscape pivot won't quite rotate all the way to level.

But yet... when viewed head-on, it has awesome res and color! I'm glad I have it--there is no better option yet. Also, it goes to Portrait... sometimes. And it can go very bright! And if you play endless games looking for deals like I did, you can find a cheap price. (Or you can get sent the wrong thing and waste time and end up not getting such a good price... like I did.)

I use mine at a scaled res equivalent to 2304x1296. But it will go as high as 3008x1692 if you like to squint.

It's $750 at Walmart right now. $610 + $16 shipping at Amazon.

I've paid more for a hard drive.

Though with all those flaws, I'm not sure I want to bother.

 

[Abazigal]

Wiil the radeon graphics card inside hold so long before it gets fried ?

That's what AppleCare is for.

 

[jacobj]

I was thinking about getting one... Until I saw the price! No thanks, Apple. I can buy two 27" iMacs for practically the price of one 5K Retina iMac. 5K isn't really needed at this point in time, since there aren't any devices that can record in 5K. There aren't really many on the market that can even record in true 4K, so I'm going to wait a while

As someone who uses their machine to edit 36MP+ photos, I appreciate as many pixels as possible on screen. I don't need a MacPro as I don't edit video and so it's overkill. This machine is perfect for me.

Actually, to be honest I was on a downer about Apple these past few years as my rMBP was the only Apple product that I felt was really great. I love the new iPhones and this iMac is simply perfect for me. The Apple Watch is not quite what I want, but I'm excited about v2 or 3.

I think it might take a while, but people will look back on 2014 as the year when Tim Cook showed that he had the balls to not rush a non-Steve product to market just to prove to everyone that he was his own man; instead he followed the Apple ethos and made sure that what they delivered was remarkable. Brilliant stuff.

 

[Tesseract42]

Giving in to Thunderbolt display...perhaps...

It's been way too long...to keep waiting.

I'm in agreement with chasemac. And so, I'm considering giving in and buying the Thunderbolt display to use with my MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012). Any reason (other than the huge hole in my wallet) that I should seriously reconsider this idea?

 

[kirkbross]

Bafflement

This baffles me... it would seem Apple could remove the computer components and release the iMac 5K Retina as a stand-alone display... and sell millions and millions of them.

Makes one think they may be easing out of the display market altogether... or better put, "have exited" the display market altogether.

 

[Destroysall]

As someone who uses their machine to edit 36MP+ photos, I appreciate as many pixels as possible on screen. I don't need a MacPro as I don't edit video and so it's overkill. This machine is perfect for me.

I would hope we are given a pure 5k retina retina display sometime in the future, but I read somewhere that Thunderbolt isn't ready for such huge resolutions yet.

 

[oscar5690]

Target Display Mode

"For a number of years, iMacs have supported a feature known as target display mode, which allows them to serve as external displays for other computers, but as pointed out by TechCrunch's Matthew Panzarino yesterday, the new Retina 5K iMac does not support this mode."

Does the 1440 27" iMac support Target Display Mode?

I'm planning on picking one up, this would be a deal breaker..

 

[zedsdead]

This baffles me... it would seem Apple could remove the computer components and release the iMac 5K Retina as a stand-alone display... and sell millions and millions of them.

Makes one think they may be easing out of the display market altogether... or better put, "have exited" the display market altogether.

Display Port in its current form in the iMac does not support 5K over thunderbolt 2. Apple did something outside the spec of the standard to support it, so they can't release it as a standalone display. But since it is within an all in one they can (same reason there is no Target Display Mode).

Someone mentioned this in another thread who knew the matter very well. Makes sense.

 

[ChrizTheWiz]

Workaround

I've got the iMac Retina 5k and can confirm that it doesn't support Target Display Mode. However, there's no problem with using thunderbolt bridge and screen sharing instead, i.e. "same same but different"

 

[xav8tor]

I've got the iMac Retina 5k and can confirm that it doesn't support Target Display Mode. However, there's no problem with using thunderbolt bridge and screen sharing instead, i.e. "same same but different"

So, are you saying that if I set up a TB bridge between my new Mac Pro with D500 GPU's (now connected to an Apple TB display) and a new 5K iMac, and then enable screen sharing, I can output UHD material, whether video or real time app running a simulation, and see it displayed as 3840x2160 upscaled to 5K on the Retina iMac with no choppiness? How will the nMP GPU know to send a 3840x2160 signal via TB to the iMac since it isn't connected as a display, but rather, just screen sharing? I don't get it. And again, just how smooth will the iMac display look if I'm kicking out complex, detailed, fast moving graphics in UHD at 60 FPS?

 

[NICKXXXXXX]

So I won't be able to hook up a ps4? Not even with some kind of adapter?

 

[ChrizTheWiz]

So, are you saying that if I set up a TB bridge between my new Mac Pro with D500 GPU's (now connected to an Apple TB display) and a new 5K iMac, and then enable screen sharing, I can output UHD material, whether video or real time app running a simulation, and see it displayed as 3840x2160 upscaled to 5K on the Retina iMac with no choppiness? How will the nMP GPU know to send a 3840x2160 signal via TB to the iMac since it isn't connected as a display, but rather, just screen sharing? I don't get it. And again, just how smooth will the iMac display look if I'm kicking out complex, detailed, fast moving graphics in UHD at 60 FPS?

No, that's not what I'm saying. You will not be able to make an external 5k screen out of the 5k iMac. I don't think the current thunderbolt standard supports that. What I referred to was the fact that it is indeed possible to connect another computer and utilize the iMac as an external display (some folks don't think it's even possible, which would complicate the work flow when using both a laptop and the iMac). The results I've seen so far with my gear are better than when I'm connected to a thunderbolt display, simply because the new iMac provides such a beautiful screen. By using the thunderbolt bridge setup (with disconnected WiFi on the source computer), you will be able to work with fast response and the native resolution of the source, up to the thunderbolt 2 bandwidth limitation. This means it should at least be possible to use UHD material . Haven't tried it out myself though. In my case (having a MBPr) I can not drive UHD video with more than 30 fps anyway, depending on the limitation of the MBPr. Don't know how far you can go with a Mac Pro connected. Last but not least, you will not fill up the screen unless you compromise on quality, e.g. by reducing the display resolution of the iMac while increasing it on the source. Don't know if this answer helps you. You see, I'm not a technical expert, just a simple user..

 

[xav8tor]

No, that's not what I'm saying. You will not be able to make an external 5k screen out of the 5k iMac. I don't think the current thunderbolt standard supports that. What I referred to was the fact that it is indeed possible to connect another computer and utilize the iMac as an external display (some folks don't think it's even possible, which would complicate the work flow when using both a laptop and the iMac). The results I've seen so far with my gear are better than when I'm connected to a thunderbolt display, simply because the new iMac provides such a beautiful screen. By using the thunderbolt bridge setup (with disconnected WiFi on the source computer), you will be able to work with fast response and the native resolution of the source, up to the thunderbolt 2 bandwidth limitation. This means it should at least be possible to use UHD material . Haven't tried it out myself though. In my case (having a MBPr) I can not drive UHD video with more than 30 fps anyway, depending on the limitation of the MBPr. Don't know how far you can go with a Mac Pro connected. Last but not least, you will not fill up the screen unless you compromise on quality, e.g. by reducing the display resolution of the iMac while increasing it on the source. Don't know if this answer helps you. You see, I'm not a technical expert, just a simple user..

Thanks. Sounds like it might be worth having someone with both test it, or drop by the Apple store.

 

[bwsteg]

No, that's not what I'm saying. You will not be able to make an external 5k screen out of the 5k iMac. I don't think the current thunderbolt standard supports that. What I referred to was the fact that it is indeed possible to connect another computer and utilize the iMac as an external display (some folks don't think it's even possible, which would complicate the work flow when using both a laptop and the iMac). The results I've seen so far with my gear are better than when I'm connected to a thunderbolt display, simply because the new iMac provides such a beautiful screen. By using the thunderbolt bridge setup (with disconnected WiFi on the source computer), you will be able to work with fast response and the native resolution of the source, up to the thunderbolt 2 bandwidth limitation. This means it should at least be possible to use UHD material . Haven't tried it out myself though. In my case (having a MBPr) I can not drive UHD video with more than 30 fps anyway, depending on the limitation of the MBPr. Don't know how far you can go with a Mac Pro connected. Last but not least, you will not fill up the screen unless you compromise on quality, e.g. by reducing the display resolution of the iMac while increasing it on the source. Don't know if this answer helps you. You see, I'm not a technical expert, just a simple user..

Hey is there any way possible that you can think of to connect a Xbox one to the 5k imac? I'm not looking for 5k picture either, just want to use the retina imac as a screen/tv. Thanks

 

[Ploki]

So I won't be able to hook up a ps4? Not even with some kind of adapter?

Why would you? The gfx card inside the ps4 is akin to gtx 660. Good, but not great. Especially for running games in 5k. Way underpowered.

 

[NICKXXXXXX]

Why would you? The gfx card inside the ps4 is akin to gtx 660. Good, but not great. Especially for running games in 5k. Way underpowered.

Lmao! The PS4 won't run the games in 5k haha. It would be in 1080p. Everything would be upscaled