I never thought Apple would introduce this over a standalone. I really thought they would somehow have a standalone 4k monitor for the MacPro. Kinda sucks for the Mac Pro owners but nice to see such value on this.
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Retina 5K iMac Will Not Act as External Display, Standalone Apple 5K Display Unlikely Soon
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Where did you determine that >200 dpi will be beneficial to anyone working with text?
http://isthisretina.com/ indicates that the retina iMac becomes retina at a mere 16 inches. Nobody I know sits 1' 4" from a 27" screen. Not even close.
Typical monitor viewing distances are 20" to 40" ... and you can bet it is further out on average for larger monitors.
The new retina iMac is nice, but the assertion that it is largely overkill is correct. The original Thunderbolt display already hovered near retina PPI, believe it or not. I would rather have had a regular 4K screen that could be released standalone and also gotten the iMac enabled with Target Display Mode for laptops to connect to.
Let me clarify - you want an affordable 4K monitor coming from Apple of all companies in the world? Apple? 4K? Affordable? That Apple that sells overpriced RAM and SSD upgrades? Or are we talking about a different Apple?
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3924?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
"Note that the iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2014) does not support Target Display Mode. "
The Thunderbolt display looks fecal compared to my early 2013 15" Retina MBP. I could not go back to that. If I buy an external display to go with the above, it will be a 4K display. More likely, I'll buy another rMBP with Skylake and get a 5K display.
That's a bit extreme, wouldn't you say? I use two 15" Retina MBP's, one belongs to work, one is personal. The displays are surely nice.
I also own a new Mac Pro as my personal desktop machine, with two Thunderbolt displays hanging off of that (I have had the monitors longer than the Mac Pro). They still look pretty nice to me. I simple don't sit close enough to see individual pixels.
I'm hoping that apple at least comes out with a 4K unit with updated connectivity.
I'm more concerned that if the unit is 4K, with scaling, do we wind up with less screen real estate than a 2550x1440 display?
Let me clarify - you want an affordable 4K monitor coming from Apple of all companies in the world? Apple? 4K? Affordable? That Apple that sells overpriced RAM and SSD upgrades? Or are we talking about a different Apple?
Apple's hardware on their own is actually quite reasonably priced. Consider that their Mac Pro is actually cheaper than an equivalently specced windows workstation.
It's the upgrades that will suck you dry.
Yes, the iMac Retina hits 60 pixels per degree at 15.8" (http://bhtooefr.org/displaycalc.htm is a calculator that I did that gives a lot of the same info, with less rounding), and 60 pixels per degree is the point past which someone with 20/20 vision cannot distinguish individual pixels.
For what it's worth, across all the Retina devices, in increasing size (some figures might not be completely accurate - Apple claims the iPhone 4/4S at 326 ppi, but 960x640 on a 3.5" display is 330):
iPhone 4/4S: 330 ppi, 10.4" retina distance
iPhone 5/5C/5S: 326 ppi, 10.5" retina distance
iPhone 6: 326 ppi, 10.6" retina distance
iPhone 6+: 401 ppi, 8.58" retina distance (here's an outlier that goes further than it has to)
iPad Mini 2/3: 324 ppi, 10.6" retina distance
iPad 3/4/Air/Air 2: 264 ppi, 13.0" retina distance
MacBook Pro 13" Retina: 227 ppi, 15.1" retina distance
MacBook Pro 15" Retina: 221 ppi, 15.6" retina distance
iMac 27" Retina: 218 ppi, 15.8" retina distance
So, the small devices hover around 10.5" or so, the computers hover around 15-16" or so.
And, for completeness, because you referenced it...
iMac 27"/Cinema Display 27"/Thunderbolt Display: 109 ppi, 31.6" retina distance (right in the middle of your claimed range of 20-40", sure, but Apple tends to put Retina distances closer than anyone would actually use the device)
However... is the goal to make pixels indistinguishable for people with 20/20 vision (and remember, some people have better than 20/20 vision - 20/10 vision halves the distances, after all, and with glasses on, my left eye has better than 20/10), or to give the sense that objects on the screen are real? If it's the latter, then some research from NHK STRL needs to be discussed: http://www.nhk.or.jp/strl/results/annual2010/2010_chapter1.pdf
We're going to change terminology here from pixels to degree to cycles per degree. Two pixels make a cycle, so if you want to compare to Apple's figure of 60 ppd, just double all the numbers.
NHK STRL Annual Report 2010 said:
Let's start with 60 cpd, as that's a good target to aim for at first, for the point above which gentle saturation of the effect occurs. To hit 60 cpd on an iMac Retina, you're at 31.6" away, which is quite reasonable for a viewing distance - right in the middle of the viewing distance range you suggest. (All of the distances get doubled, actually.) However, at 20", it's not even at that point, not even close. And, it's 63.2" on the normal 27" panels, well outside of your viewing distance range.
Now, for the future, let's scale things all the way to 155 cpd (and there are benefits there - raster scaling of stuff, without it being noticeable, anyone? And, it's worth noting that printer manufacturers feel the need to go to 4800+ dpi, although part of that is due to how greyscale and shades of color work on printers), while maintaining the screen size and aspect ratio of a 27" iMac. And, let's use 20" viewing distance, because that's the closest in your typical range (and also the closest that OSHA recommends a monitor be placed). Essentially, I'm using 20/3.87 vision in my calculator's resolution setting. (I really should add a cycles per degree field...) The resulting monitor is 20906 x 11759 at 888 ppi. I'd either settle for 20480 x 11520 at 870 ppi (not quite 155 cpd at 20", but it's an @8x scaling factor, which is easy for software to handle), or push all the way a @9x scaling factor and to 23040 x 12960 at 979 ppi (which pushes past 155 cpd, guaranteeing that no matter what raster scaling abuse you do past that - for instance, once you're past 155 cpd, you cannot notice downscaling artifacts (ala the iPhone 6+, or the "More Space" modes on current Retina Macs) unless it causes moire issues - it's going to look just as real at any reasonable viewing distance).
Going past 20906 x 11759 on a iMac Retina, except for byte alignment issues (it's generally best to use displays that align to 8 or (better yet) 16 pixel boundaries, just ask people who have to deal with driver bugs with 1366 x 768 panels) and software considerations (the @9x scaling factor), is overkill. (Of course, even the software considerations aren't all that important, because iPhone 6+-style scaling can be done without noticing it. 20992 x 11808 solves the 16 pixel alignment issue, too...) But, before that point, it's not overkill, not at all.
Of course, at 20992 x 11808, 60 Hz, 24 bpp, CVT-R2 blanking, you need about 369 Gbit/s of video bandwidth. So there is that minor detail. (At 23040 x 12960, it becomes 444 Gbit/s.) Even if you go to a blanking-less protocol, you're looking at 357 Gbit/s for 20992 x 11808, or 430 Gbit/s for 23040 x 12960, assuming no overhead. And, 23040 x 12960 (because, even with the 20992 x 11808 panel, it'd be best to render 23040 x 12960@9x) at 24 bpp needs 855 MiB of VRAM... just for a framebuffer. It'll be many years before hardware can actually support this... (However, I predict that adaptive sync together with eDP 1.4's (which is essentially an internal version of DP 1.2) partial update functionality would be used heavily to reduce those bandwidth requirements. After all, IBM developed DPVL, the predecessor protocol to DisplayPort, so they could do partial updates and reduce bandwidth requirements on the IBM T221. DPVL was ultimately used to reduce power consumption in mobile applications, and DisplayPort never used that functionality until eDP 1.4, but...)
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Whenever I hear the name "Radeon" I think it sounds ridiculous, and I always think of washing powder.
5K is a bit of overkill...
Why doesn't Apple just come out with a good 4K monitor that can easily be used by the new Mac Pro and existing Thunderbolt technology?
Going right to 5K, 'way ahead of the video industry, seems like overkill.
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That's a big 10-4; as they used to say in the 1970s!
Why doesn't Apple just come out with a good 4K monitor that can easily be used by the new Mac Pro and existing Thunderbolt technology?
Going right to 5K, 'way ahead of the video industry, seems like overkill.
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That's a big 10-4; as they used to say in the 1970s!
Because Apple doesn't want to sell 10,000 monitors, they want to sell a million iMacs.
My point was that a display without a computer in it wouldn't cost more than a computer. Talk about low IQ. Hah!
Couldn't agree more. The display's box is useless after taking it out. I was worried how I'd get it all back together if there was something wrong with the display. I was lucky and got a good one with no dead or stuck pixels, no color cast, and pretty much even backlighting except at the very bottom, which is acceptable to me.
Might look at this in November
And wait for TB3:
LG 34UC97 Cineview Curved Ultrawide LED Monitor IPS 2HDMI WQHD 34" 3440x1440 World's First 21:9
And wait for TB3:
LG 34UC97 Cineview Curved Ultrawide LED Monitor IPS 2HDMI WQHD 34" 3440x1440 World's First 21:9
Before Apple hadn't crippled the Mac Mini, I was considering this. But now that they have, I'll order the iMac 5K.
I use an apple laptop with an external display. As I travel through airports all over the world, I see lots of others who use Apple laptops. Most return to an office sometimes. It is very nice to plug into a display at an office. 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!! Or make a 4k display with the same features for its Mac Pro users that would display less resolution for its MacBook users. Or actually make two displays! Remember when Apple use to make multiple standalone displays? They did!
It is terribly frustrating and shows both a disregard for their customers and a misreading of the market.
In less than a year, LG has made multiple new thunderbolt monitors. They just made a new one where they curved the display, added more usb 3 and thunderbolt ports, and did so in less than a year. It is not that hard. All of us want to buy an apple premium display. Just dont make use buy one as out of date as the current one!
Come on Apple. This is ridiculous. As you said yourself, "it's been too long." There is not another monitor manufacturer in the world that has not updated its displays in a year, much less 3 years!
It is terribly frustrating and shows both a disregard for their customers and a misreading of the market.
In less than a year, LG has made multiple new thunderbolt monitors. They just made a new one where they curved the display, added more usb 3 and thunderbolt ports, and did so in less than a year. It is not that hard. All of us want to buy an apple premium display. Just dont make use buy one as out of date as the current one!
Come on Apple. This is ridiculous. As you said yourself, "it's been too long." There is not another monitor manufacturer in the world that has not updated its displays in a year, much less 3 years!
"Retina 10K iMac Will Not Act As External Display, Standalone Apple 10K Display Unlikely Soon"
You will not be able to use it as a display for your Xbox One, unfortunately.
You're still thinking like someone who has never thought about an Apple product vs. the rest of the world (or maybe it is lacking the ability to think?)... I'm certain Apple would charge more for the display alone.
1. Its 5K (i.e. "Special").
2. It would take some kind of fancy adapter to get it to work with the current Mac Pro, Apple loves charging a fortune for adapters and cables to make a bit more profit (the reason, I think, why they are so IO port skimpy with newer models).
3. Why would Apple ~not~ charge more for it? You can't put the new iMac in target display mode. Even if someone did figure out how to get the new iMac in target display mode, they could (and would) release an update to kill that hack pretty darn fast.
They wouldn't have to worry about people just buying the cheaper computer and using it as a monitor. They'll just cook up some anodized aluminum casing for the thing, slap "Retina HD", "Pro", or something like that on the monitor, and shove it out the door for a crazy markup compared to the iMac containing the exact same display (maybe even bump some spec up enough to differentiate, but I doubt it).
I do think that the Dual-port TB 5K option could be made for the Mac Pro. And I think Apple is the ONLY company that could do it.
They control everything from the video card driver, the OS, to the firmware in the monitor. They could make this happen for the Mac Pro. It would be a big "halo" around the machine, the first (and ONLY) 5k Pro machine.
They could even build a special adapter just for the mac pro that plugs into the correct pair of ports on the back. (i.e port 1&2, Port 3&4).
Technically, if they really wanted, they could build a custom "brick" that attached to all 6 display ports on the back to drive 2 5K displays, they do have the bandwidth (2 5K displays would need about 56Gb/s, the Mac Pro has 60Gb/s in bandwidth, this would, of course only leave USB for any peripherals)
Though I'm not sure if the GPU's could drive that many pixels.
-edit-
In further research, this is exactly how they are doing this inside of the RiMac, bonding two DP together. They could replicate this externally for a custom 5k Apple Display.
They control everything from the video card driver, the OS, to the firmware in the monitor. They could make this happen for the Mac Pro. It would be a big "halo" around the machine, the first (and ONLY) 5k Pro machine.
They could even build a special adapter just for the mac pro that plugs into the correct pair of ports on the back. (i.e port 1&2, Port 3&4).
Technically, if they really wanted, they could build a custom "brick" that attached to all 6 display ports on the back to drive 2 5K displays, they do have the bandwidth (2 5K displays would need about 56Gb/s, the Mac Pro has 60Gb/s in bandwidth, this would, of course only leave USB for any peripherals)
Though I'm not sure if the GPU's could drive that many pixels.
-edit-
In further research, this is exactly how they are doing this inside of the RiMac, bonding two DP together. They could replicate this externally for a custom 5k Apple Display.
I didn't read the entire thread, but half of the early comments, and I did not see a single person who acknowledges that IGZO-backed panels are in the first stages of mass-production, if they're even THAT far along, and in short supply as a result.
Let's have some manufacturing realism here, people! And actually, I could recriminate the tech journalists on this point. I haven't seen anyone writing on the breakthrough that the "oxide-backed" display represents. How long and how many hundreds of millions has Apple spent developing this technology with Sharp and who knows who else through licensing, for example LG? It's been three years at least, and probably just on the verge of success for more than a year.
No, Apple is not going to redesign and retool for some interim non-oxide solution, nor should they.