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Fravin

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 8, 2017
803
1,064
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
As we all know, now, Studio Display runs a full version of iOS.

Minding that a Display is something that you stick to, i.e. it will stay with you for long time, can we think that iOS running in A13 will, someday become too heavy to A13?

Will it be possible that Studio Display becomes outdated from iOS? How long do you think it will handle it?
 
That seems incredibly unlikely. It may “run“ iOS, but all that means is that it’s running the same kernel and has access to the same drivers and system frameworks. It’s not running apps, or springboard, or Shortcuts automation daemons or other user-facing services, or processing real-time movement and fitness data, or managing network connectivity or location services, or any of the other thousand things that make up the vast majority of the processing and memory demands of an iPhone or iPad. It’s like the HomePod: no point building a custom software stack from scratch if you’ve already got something that has the bits you need, even if it also has a bunch you don’t.

Of course, Apple being Apple, I’m sure they’ll come out with some new software feature in their next display that won’t be available for this one, because they like to conflate software features with hardware features to encourage folks like us to keep sending them money. But I can’t imagine a scenario in which the current studio display gets bogged down by some future iOS build, because it’s only running a tiny fraction of it.
 
What I am more worried about is Apple making the version of the display iOS only compatible with the latest version of macOS. You can always downgrade software on your Mac to an earlier version if you want. But if the iOS on the Display is no long compatible with that older version of macOS, you are out of luck.
 
I don't think so. It's only there to support the hardware. It's like the HomePod (A8) and The HomePod mini (S5). Since it doesn't have a proper OS, it really shouldn't matter.
 
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I don't think so. It's only there to support the hardware. It's like the HomePod (A8) and The HomePod mini (S5). Since it doesn't have a proper OS, it really shouldn't matter.

But HomePods have a small lifespan, right? I suppose Apple Studio Display should stick to owner for 10 years or so...
 
I don't think so. It's only there to support the hardware. It's like the HomePod (A8) and The HomePod mini (S5). Since it doesn't have a proper OS, it really shouldn't matter.

I guess I was mainly thinking about how you can only connect newer iPhones with more recent versions of macOS. You go out and buy a new iPhone and then find you have to update macOS in order to connect your device to your mac.

I had the weird experience where an iPhone 7 would connect to my Mac running Mavericks and a new iPhone 8 would not, even though both phones were on the same version of iOS.
 
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